Saturday, September 22, 2012

To market, to market

We rented a motorcycle to explore Upolu, an island in (Western) Samoa, after picking up a couple of tourist maps and brochures.

It sure seemed strange to be driving on the left-hand side of the road instead of the right as we are used to. Jordan also had to purchase an additional page for his Driver's License validating it for use in Samoa.

We investigated the Savalalo Flea Market, full of beautiful Samoan handcrafts such as kava bowls, jewellery made from coconut shells, sarongs, etc. and next the Fugalei Market selling more handcrafts but also produce and local food. As we were hungry, we ordered some food and sat at a table. This ended our exploring as a sneaky older woman snatched our camera from behind our helmets on the table while Jordan was fetching a chair for her in the crowded market!

She had disappeared by the time we discovered her foul deed and we spent the rest of the day trying to find another reasonably priced camera (which we did). As the camera she had made off with was getting on in years, it wasn't a real loss and we had previously downloaded all the photos except for a couple from that day. Samoans are very friendly, honest people - this was a 1-time incident and we should have been more attentive.

A different market with produce in hand-woven baskets

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