Moving again

Yesterday we moved out of our flat at the King Solomon Hotel. In an effort to secure more rooms, Aspen Medical gave up the two flats in favour of more hotel rooms. At first we were a bit worried about what this would mean, but once again we appear to have fallen on our feet.

The King Sol is at the back of the nearest Honiara gets to "down town", built up a precipitous slope into the hills. So steep is the hill that a cable car takes you up to the hotel rooms. The flat we were in was at the bottom of the hill. It had the advantage of being near the pool, but was stuck out the back of the hotel complex where there was no view and little in the way of access to the beautiful trade winds that blow at this time of year. Our new (two bedroom!) rooms are right at the top of the hotel complex and so have a fantastic view over Iron Bottom Sound to Savo island and the Ngella (Florida)group of islands. The trade winds up here blow across our balcony regularly. The balcony is Rachael's new favourite place in all of Honiara.

Another advantage of our new rooms is the layout. Without being too graphic, when its this humid you drink A LOT of water and when you drink that much you end up needing to get up in the night, sometimes several times. Our old flat was the downstairs one of two, however in a piece of Solomons architectural genius its actually a two storey flat. Up a long staircase on the first floor of the flat, somehow nestled in amongst the upstairs flat, is the toilet! This means nocturnal visits to the loo involve a long, dark, toe stubbing climb. Now Jenny, my sister in England will be thinking I'm a total sook because she lives in a two storey house, as do about a billion other poms, but I am not accustomed to what amounted to a small mountaneering expedition just to relieve myself. Now we simply walk across a corridor, bliss!

Our old flat is (mostly) the downstairs one pictured.

The interior of our old flat. I swear it wasn't this dark when I took it. The reason the curtains are closed is beacuse, in Solomons fashion, the staff often take their breaks on our verandah, reading our morning paper on our chairs. At first I thought they didn't know there was anyone in the flat so I went out and said hi to jst let them know we were in there. They just said hi back. The other day our front porch was used to strip and repair a washing machine. When it rains the verandah becomes clogged with wet dogs from the vacant lot next door. All in all we keep the curtains closed quite a lot.

Our veiw from the old flat (and even then olny if you go around the side and kick the wet dogs off the verandah) of the back of some shops, looking down Mud alley (I kid you not) towards the main road.

Ok this is getting weird. This photo should illustrate the abundant coconut trees and bright red flowered "christmas trees" but to me it looks all black. You can see iron bottom sound and the Ngella islands. Our balcony is about 15 meters above the ground. Its really really steep.

Again, if the computer had reproduced this photo correctly you would be looking across the hills behind Honiara from our front door to the Parliament house (the odd conical thing through the trees)

The modest kitchen in our new room. We love it. The old flat's kitchen was in a room built under the toilet. The bench was under the stairs which meant if you were concentrating on chopping onions and turned to the left you might accidentally wedge your head against the bench.

The view from our kitchen to the living room bit of the same room. Judging by Rachael's expression she has just come in from the balcony.