We stayed at the Utirerei Motel, on Tarawa, not too far from the parliament. Now we were told to check our expectations: this was no three-star hotel with a buffet breakfast. It was going to a little on the rough side. But honestly, it was actually quite comfortable. And it had character. I can actually remember quite a bit about that stay.
The rooms were air-conditioned (important giving that the weather was in the low 30’s°C and the humidity was high), had an ensuite with a shower with instance hot water, a nice large bed, and even a kettle. There was also a TV, and I can’t remember if I tried it, but I really wasn’t interested in what was on (plus I suspect it may have been black and white).
The kettle came in handy to prepare drinking water for the day. We were told not to drink the tap water as there was a risk of cholera, so what I did was fill the kettle with tap water in the evening, and turn it on before going to bed. The water boiled, killing off all the bacteria, and by the time I woke up, it was cool enough to use for drinking and brushing my teeth. It worked out very well: I didn’t get sick at all (we were also prescribed an oral cholera vaccine before we left which may have helped). I also got into the habit of boiling water during dinner for teeth brushing that evening.
The room also had instant coffee and tea, but no milk, so I had to drink it black. I wouldn’t say that I like drinking black tea with no milk (way too bitter), but I eventually got use to drinking the coffee black. I actually keep this up, although I still prefer it with milk.
One weird thing that I remember were that the light switches, which are much like the switches we have back at home, were sideways. Instead of pushing the switch down to turn something on, you pushed it to the left (or right, I forget).
If you found yourself travelling to Kiribati, my advice is to stay there if you can. And to be fair, we were in some of the older rooms; the newer rooms were meant to be nicer. We were invited to stay at the national hotel, which was run by the government, but I was told that staying there was not nice at all (no shower head, only water coming from a pipe, for example).
We got there in the afternoon, and after settling in, the first thing I did was nap. The early start took it out of me, I must’ve slept maybe an hour or so. After that, I worked a bit on my Chips Challenge game I was making at the time (now called Mainboard Mayhem).
Meals were outside under a shaded area above an artificial lagoon. I won’t lie to you, the lagoon smelt a little bit. The meals were basic (tuna with rice, for example) but decent. Variety was limited, especially when it came to vegetables (this is probably because they had to be imported). But all in all, the meals were pretty good.
The alfresco dining area had a television and I remember one night some bizarre movie was on. It starred Rowan Atkinson as a Mr. Bean character in what I think was an Italian move (the volume was down so I couldn’t be sure of that). One scene feature a kid in a cinema. He, or someone he knew, replace the actual film that was to be featured with the home movies of this “Mr. Bean” character. He was bouncing around the screen and eating lobster. No idea what the movie was about, or why I remember it (or why I’ve written about it here).