It was difficult to find out beforehand how to get from Gizo to Munda. The shuttle from Agnes Lodge which used to run Mondays, Fridays and some Wednesdays, is currently only running if there are enough people. So I suspect never/once a month maybe? But, there is at least one boat daily which goes to Noro, from where you can take the bus (20-30min) to Munda town. Works for us! We asked around at the smaller boats near the market in the morning and were introduced to a boat driver who would go back to Noro at 1.30pm so we signed up for that. Be on time! They wanted to leave earlier but were nice enough to wait around for us luckily… The boat trip was really good for the most part, the weather had calmed down and there was very little chop. It was like a little sightseeing ride, but I had my camera packed away so unfortunately no pics! You will just have to believe that nature was amazing, all little green untouched islands next to us, with small beaches, the water shining in all kinds of blues.
The bus from Noro to Munda was easy too. It basically waits for the boat to arrive and costs 20 SBD p.p. The boat ride was 150 SBD p.p. by the way, so the total ends up being much cheaper than the 250 SBD shuttle from Agnes Lodge anyways! In Munda, we didn’t have a reservation, because everything we found online was too expensive for us. Luckily it seems that you can bargain very well here, and we got our super nice double room at Munda Guesthouse for 300 SBD instead of 400 SBD or more what we saw online. Best guesthouse so far, with hot water and all!
Friday is market day in Munda and we walked around there a bit, did some shopping for our next meals and took some pictures. Munda is a peaceful village where not much is happening. There are however about 5 or 6 little supermarkets which sell the basic needs, all run by Chinese (they are starting to take over the Solomons it seems…).
There’s also Go West Tours, located at Agnes Lodge, which offer some tours of the area, most of them rather pricey unfortunately (like most things in the Solomon Islands). We opted for a tour to Hopei Island in the afternoon, basically a boat would drop us there and pick us up 4h later. So we ended up with our own private island! Not too bad, huh!?
An afternoon there was enough though – the coral reef was sadly mostly dead, so we didn’t snorkel as much as we thought we would. The most exciting thing we saw under water was when walking around the island – Mathijs almost stepped on a sea snake! Pheww… that could have ended badly. In hindsight, there is probably better islands to go to for an afternoon of snorkelling! Such as… Bikini Island, where we went to next day: We had opted to book yet another tour with Go West Tours (bargain hard – their starting prices are way too high!!), bringing us to Skull Island, Vona Vona Lagoon and Bikini Island for snorkelling. First stop was Skull Island, a tiny islet where skulls of former village chiefs are being kept. We had expected something bigger, but it’s just a pile of rocks on where there are about 4 or 5 piles of about 5-6 skulls each. Also, we didn’t get a whole lot of details from our boat driver/guide as in how, when, when, what, why… So in all it was a bit of a disappointing visit!
In addition, it had started to rain heavily, so the decision was made to stop by Lola Island and take shelter from the rain at their resort for a bit. We spent about an hour or so waiting around there, which was made better by the resident black tip reef sharks who were circling around the pier. We tried to go in and snorkel with them, but they were rather shy and the water was too murky from the rain – so they were actually better visible from the pier than underwater.
When the rain stopped a bit, we went on to Bikini Island – and were wow-ed! It’s a stunning island and what’s more – the island around it and the little lagoon they form (we suspect that was the Vona Vona Lagoon) were just stunning – the water turquoise and the beaches bright white, the palm trees swaying in the wind… The snorkelling was great too! We didn’t see anything big in particular, but the reef is beautiful and healthy, with lots of different reef fish and colourful coral.
When we saw a thunderstorm approaching from afar, we asked our boat driver if it would be good to leave. Due to his politeness or lack of English (not sure), that meant we were headed straight into the storm (we had thought Munda was the other direction, so wanted to avoid the storm of course). At one point this got rather scary when the waves became higher and higher. We were in this little boat out on the ocean and I totally did not trust our boat driver, since he had got the boat stranded on coral reefs 3 times that day already… So in a moment of fear, I shouted at him and basically told him we need to wait in some bay until it calms down, I’m not going any further. We did that for a bit and then found a different way which was less choppy back to Munda. Nevertheless, we were completely soaking wet and frozen stiff by the time we arrived – very much looking forward to the hot shower of Munda Guesthouse…
On our last day in Munda, we went for another stroll around the village. Everyone was in their best Sunday outfits and going to church. Munda and its surroundings are truly beautiful – there is so much green, so many beautiful plants everywhere. It’s too bad there is not much you can do (yet), with almost no tourist infrastructure and expensive tour prices for what there is. Maybe, the region will develop more in terms of tourism, and offer more to the backpacker at one point in the future… Until then, there is lots of chilling time to be had everywhere.
Just Booked A Trip 