Vila Market

Not much to say about the markets in Port Vila, except that they were really cool. So much produce I couldn't identify, but it all looked delicious.

When we first arrived on Saturday, we bought a whole heap of fresh fruit: passion fruit, papaya, a giant grapefruit, mangoes. Below is the jackfruit that was so fresh and ripe it was literally falling apart as we were carrying it home. We also got some sugar cane, and when we asked the woman selling if if she could cut up the big piece, we thought she'd just cut off a few slices. But no, she just cut the metre-high stalk in half. I guess it was easier to carry that way.

We also got a chance to sample laplap, a very common food for the local Ni-Vanuatu. It's a paste that looks like sticky rice paste (like omochi), but is made from a root crop like taro or manioc. They also stick a piece of chicken on top. Honsetly, I didn't have high expectations for it after what I'd read and also based on my experience with Kenyan ugali, which is ground corn meal and has absolutely no taste. But laplap was delicious, a perfect combination of spices and full of flavour. I wish we'd discovered it earlier--in a choice between fruit bat and laplap, laplap wins hands down.

Here's the row of people selling laplap at the market. They are constantly shooing the flies away.

And here I am with my laplap (and bonus banana leaf plate!). Okay, it does't exactly look appetizing, but it's seriously delicious.