Kiribati travel guide

Abatao Island lies in North Tarawa archipelago and is only connected to the neighbouring northern island by a walkway. It's a lovely traditional island with a beautiful palm fringed coastline filled with mangrove, where you can actually take a swim (South Tarawa is apparently too polluted). There is a rustic resort (Tabon Te Keekee) at the south tip with simple over-water bungalows (picture). The small village is a cluster of thatched huts which include a school and a church, little else. At low tide you can walk over the channel from Buota Island, else you need to use the canoe service, which is great fun too.

Though it doesn't say very much, Bairiki is Kiribati second biggest settlement after Betio. There are plenty of (Chinese owned) shops and it's a traffic hub for minibuses.

Betio (pronounced "Besio") is the last settlement on South Tarawa. It's a busy (in Pacific terms) port town with a grim history. It was here the US invaded the Japanese occupied atoll with great loses on both sides. There are still some rusting relics from WWII including guns, tanks and bunkers. It's also one of the more polluted places in Kiribati, with every single beach covered in trash and parts from shipwrecks. Until 1985 a ferry was used, but today you can drive to Betio over the causeway.

Buota Island is the most southern island of North Tarawa archipelago. The buses stop on the other side at Bonriki, but a car bridge connects Buota to South Tarawa. It's the first taste of North Tarawa's charm of lush vegetation, immense beaches, and tranquillity (and almost no trash). There are friendly villages with traditional thatch huts and simple churches with no walls. It's the end of the road, so if you want travel further north, you need to island-jump. Abatao will be the next island and is just a short public canoe ride away or walk, if the tide is low.

The Japanese commander of Betio, Rear Admiral Keiji Shibazaki, was killed in this bunker along with his senior officers, when the US bombarded Tarawa the 22 November 1943. The bunker lies next to a church and is fenced off. We didn't venture into the bunker, but judged on the amount of trash elsewhere, we would guess there would be trash too. There should be a tank in the lagoon behind the bunker.

Two giant Japanese guns on the ocean side. They are of the type 8-inch Vickers, which originally were supplied to Japan by Great Britain during the Russo-Japanese war. There is also a bunker, which is half sunken into the lagoon. A similar gun stands in the far southwest corner of Betio.

Two Japanese guns stand right next to Red Beach. Today, there are also a basketball court and a dump site.

Kiribati Parliament is a funky looking building which resembles a bit a traditional maneaba, a buildning used for gatherings in the villages. In front of the complex is a map showing all of Kiribati's island groups Gilbert, Phoenix and Line Islands. You realize that some of the islands have some odd names, like Starbuck, Millennium and Vostok.

What Kiribati lacks in terms of sights, it certainly makes up with it's coulorful people. Compared to some of the other more reserved islanders in the Pacific, Kiribatians are not shy and full of character. They tend to love music, the louder the better, and a laughter is something that can be heard from a distance. Most speak some English, but still you will be greeted with a loud mauri.

The US captured Tarawa Atoll from the Japanese in a battle which took place 20-23 November 1943. The landing sites was the long beach at Betio, which was split into three sections, Red Beach 1, 2 and 3. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fighting. Today, Red Beach 2 is obstructed by a new shipwreck, but at low tide, it's still possible to see a US Sherman tank on the bottom of the lagoon. There are many more shipwrecks further west.