#  >  > Non Asia Travel Forums >  >  > Pacific Islands Travel Forum >  >  Kiribati Islands, Central Pacific (10 years ago)

## kingwilly

Been going through some old pics. I visited Kiribati a few years ago, a chain of coral atoll islands (used to be called the Gilbert islands)

Roughly halfway between USA and Australia.

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## kingwilly

makes old swampypoo look a bit run down...

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## kingwilly

They put some dance on for me, after arrival.

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## kingwilly

I stayed in a house with some local friends.

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## kingwilly

some locals

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## kingwilly

Tarawa is the main island, capital of Kiribati, which is about 70 islands, i think.

Tarawa is a horse shoe shape, about 10 kilometres long, but the actual island bit is only about 800 metres wide, as its widest point. 

Therefore is only has on road, there were public mini vans that drove up and down the one road, or some locals could afford a bike.

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## kingwilly

eating some fresh fish at one of the local restaurants, lucky they had decent beer, in fact, I was told that rice was the biggest import, and VB the 2nd!

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## kingwilly

my god, what an awful shirt, I hope whoever wore that feels really really embarrassed now....

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## kingwilly

a kind local took some of us on a fishing trip...









he also stopped to buy a four litre container of 'toddy toddy' which is fermented coconut. 

lethal stuff, we had one cup, and had to keep sharing it around. tasted like warm, thick champagne.

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## kingwilly

we didnt really catch much, but we had fun. we slept in local housing, which is also good for lounging around the day in.,

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## kingwilly

Tarawa is also famous, because of the battle of tarawa between american forces and the japanese during wwii.

As a result, there is still plenty of reminders laying around, dead tanks, guns, skulls etc.

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## Wayne Kerr

> toddy


Good memory man, fermented sap from coconut palms ... puts lao kao to shame ... btw love the shirt

Oh yeah just got sent a gallery of Tarawa today - Pacific Island sinking

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## Scandinavian

Are all the chicks chubby over there?

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## kingwilly

The girls under 20 are very cuter and slim, but overnight on their 25th birthday they age. Also fat is a sign of wealth. Funnily enough they use the australian dollar as their currency

Their was one hotel there, mostly world bank and. UN staff used it, they are trying to develop a fishing tourism indusatry. Other than that not much prospect of economic sufficiency.

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## StrontiumDog

> Originally Posted by kingwilly
> 
> toddy
> 
> 
> Good memory man, fermented sap from coconut palms ... puts lao kao to shame ... btw love the shirt
> 
> Oh yeah just got sent a gallery of Tarawa today - Pacific Island sinking


Nice link, but startling pictures. If ever anyone needed evidence of climate change...this is it. 

I wonder how long it will be before the islands have to abandoned. Not long by the looks of it. 

Lucky KW went when he did.

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## kingwilly

I don't necessarily know about that, but Australia promised to resettle all 77,000 ikiribati if that happens, in fact, highest point on the atolls is about 1 metre. Got some more pics somewhere when I find them

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## Panda

Have heard you can pick up some dirt cheap yachts there. 
Apparently some yachties make it to Kirabilti and either dont have the money or the will to go on. Some yachts end up abandoned in the harbour and run up mooring fees, then become property of the harbour master if the fees are not paid. They then either sell them off rip the motors out and tow the hull out to sea to sink them. This was back in the mid 80s. Dont know what its like now.

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## Maanaam

I'm quite familiar with the Kiribati people. Years ago, when Ocean Island was being mined for phosphate by the British Phosphate Company, BPC bought an entire island in Fiji to re-settle the natives. That island, Rabi, was about 12 nautical miles from my coconut plantation (trivia: I was west of the 180 meridian, Rabi was east of it, so technically, they were in yesterday). Great people when they're happy, extremely knife-violent when drunk.
I used to make the toddy myself.
Funny thing about these Kiribati was they got royalties from BPC. Free money every month, like a pension. So they didn't work, but still lived how they always have, in thatched houses, fished from dugout canoes etc. They hired Fijians to plant their gardens. The Fijians weren't silly, and would ensure the gardens were not fruitful, for example, plant cassava cuttings upside down. The crops would be poor, so the Rabians would hire the Fijians to plant more, or buy veges from them.
On a visit to Rabi, I went to a village shop. Money being no problem, the shopkeeper would price items according to whim, so a pack of chewing gum might be $2 (20 cents elsewhere in Fiji) and a tin of fish 20c ($1 elsewhere). 
Fijians from around nearby islands would go to Rabi to scrounge for engine parts as the Rabians would discard a motorbike and buy a new one rather than go to the bother of replacing a spark plug. My ex FIL got an outboard motor off a scrap heap, cleaned the spark plugs, and had a good motor that lasted years. True story.

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## sabang

U'mmm, not one single picture KW.  :Confused:

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## Wayne Kerr

> Funny thing about these Kiribati was they got royalties from BPC. Free money every month, like a pension. So they didn't work, but still lived how they always have, in thatched houses, fished from dugout canoes etc. They hired Fijians to plant their gardens. The Fijians weren't silly, and would ensure the gardens were not fruitful, for example, plant cassava cuttings upside down. The crops would be poor, so the Rabians would hire the Fijians to plant more, or buy veges from them.


Yep pretty much sums up the Gilbertese ... one or two decent boxers coming out of Rabi these days ... they do have that tendency to 'fire up'  :Smile:  ... where you from in Fiji Maanaam? I'm a Flagstaff boy myself.




> U'mmm, not one single picture KW.


Was there a few weeks back and wasn't that inspired to take a photo of anything ... well they do have a nice new road on Tarawa ... apart from that nothing much else has changed

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## Maanaam

> Originally Posted by kingwilly
> 
> toddy
> 
> 
> Good memory man, fermented sap from coconut palms ... puts lao kao to shame ... btw love the shirt
> 
> Oh yeah just got sent a gallery of Tarawa today - Pacific Island sinking


I used to cut toddy. It's the "sap" or nectar of the coconut flower.
There's quite an art to it and a lot of superstition. I learnt how from the Tuvaluans of Kioa in Fiji.
Get 3 flowers going at once and you'll have 6 litres of sweet, fragrant "beer" every day. This is the ferment-on-tree method where you decant the collected juice off each morning and evening, but put the "dirty" bottle back to collect again. Yeast forms inside the bottle, and so after decanting off the toddy in the morning, by the afternoon the 3 bottles are full of fermented nectar again.
The other method is collect in a clean bottle each time and bring the nectar down to make sugar, syrup, or to ferment in a carboy. Takes longer to ferment, and is sour rather than sweet....but probably stronger.
I preferred the tree method....effectively, you have a beer tree.

Oh...and the nectar's natural forming yeast is used to make bread, or "falawa" (flour) as they call it.
I am fluent in Tuvaluan as I married a Kioa girl.

I've got many fishing stories. The Kioans are legendary fisherman and my FIL built me a canoe and taught me a lot. I have caught marlin on a handline from my canoe, as well as GT and barracuda the size of large sailfish. Walu, wahu, dogtooth tuna....all on handline from my canoe.

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## Wayne Kerr

Damn bro, we gotta open a bar, toddy + grog (kava) ... all the young fellas probably call it Paleo diet friendly!

And tell lots of fishing stories - I made my career in fishing bro




> I am fluent in Tuvaluan as I married a Kioa girl.


I go there from time to time, and Funafuti etc ... nice for a few days. I always ask the local boys how to hook up with one of the girls ... only advice is don't get caught coming out of their house or their brothers will fk'in kill you. They are even more troppo than the Gilbertese!

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## david44

What happened to Willys pix were the snipped?

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## Wayne Kerr

^ I remember them being deleted ... mostly the 18 yr old girls topless ... the missionaries never really had much impact on the Gilbertese

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## Maanaam

Is there a fishing stories sub-forum or thread?
If so, I guess posts should go there. I hesitate to post there, though, because quite frankly it's probably only you that would believe half of them.
Off to look for the sub-forum.....they can call me a liar if they want.

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## thaimeme

> ^ I remember them being deleted ... mostly the 18 yr old girls topless ... the missionaries never really had much impact on the Gilbertese


Actually Wayne, to be pedantic, they don't consider themselves "Gilbertese" [a convoluted European imperial term], but instead, _I-Kiribati_ or associated language Te taetae ni Kiribati.......and goes back for ages.

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## Wayne Kerr

^Yes 'Gilbertese' is a tounge-in-cheek reference used by most Pacific Islander these days ... mainly to piss the i-kiribati off as they are in large part a very difficult people

Kinda like calling the Rotuman's 'biscuits' ... all though that is more in jest but will fire up some of the old coonts

Oh and thank you for the obviously very learned reminder

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## Maanaam

> Originally Posted by Wayne Kerr
> 
> 
> ^ I remember them being deleted ... mostly the 18 yr old girls topless ... the missionaries never really had much impact on the Gilbertese
> 
> 
> Actually Wayne, to be pedantic, they don't consider themselves "Gilbertese" [a convoluted European imperial term], but instead, _I-Kiribati_ or associated language Te taetae ni Kiribati.......and goes back for ages.


Hmmm, depending on how you've transliterated it, "tae" could be "shit", so I translate that as "The shit of Kiribati"

Nokon kan te butae arei takatiti ion te pige. Go eat the shit thats washing up on the beach

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