Honiara

Honiara faces a stretch of water the sailors renamed honestly: Iron Bottom Sound, where so many ships of 1942's Guadalcanal campaign went down that the seabed is a fleet at anchor forever. The town that grew from the old American base is the Solomons' easy-going capital — betel-nut smiles, a waterfront market of reef fish and shell money, and ridge lines above that carry the war's memorials, American and Japanese both, held in the same green dignity.

The traveller does the Central Market first, where shell-money strings are still measured in fathoms and the tuna comes in glistening; climbs to Bloody Ridge and the memorial gardens, where plaques from both sides face the same quiet valley; dives or snorkels the wrecks — Bonegi's beach entries put a freighter within fin's reach —; swims the Tenaru falls after a jungle walk; and browses Betikama's carvings, where ebony and kerosene wood become crocodiles and spirit sharks.

The Guide's practical counsel, gently: Honiara keeps an island pace with occasional city moods — take local advice on evenings, arrange rides rather than wander, and treat the betel-stained sidewalks as local color —; the diving is world-class and under-crowded, best booked with the established operators; power and plans both flicker sometimes, which is island rhythm, not failure; and the outer provinces — Marovo Lagoon above all — are the Solomons the postcards mean, one small plane away.