It was a simple shack on the side of the Éfaté ring-road, a one room concrete block really with a couple of windows without glass, but what marked it out was the hand-written black sign on a white wall which said 'WWII MUSEUM" and the string of flagpoles out the front that flew the American, British, French, Japanese and Vanuatu flags in various states of disrepair in a steady breeze so they waved and fluttered like the surrounding coconut palm trees.
Out the front was an unusual wizened old man, perhaps in his early 70's, small in stature, startling jet black chiselled features and dressed in an old button-up short-sleeved shirt, three-quarter length trousers and thongs.
We'd been warned that this man was "the fastest English speaker on all of Éfaté ".
And so he was.
They'd also joked that he was known jocularly as the "King of Éfaté".
He was one of the most eccentric men I've ever met; utterly and completely involved in his passions - beach combing, collecting, and yabbering.
We were told that the experience should last for about 15 minutes and no more, as he would, as we learned, eventually, run out of things to say.
After warmly welcoming us to his place, he ushered us inside and told us to sit on a bench.
In front of us were three classic examples of art-deco museum-quality wood and glass display cases full, jammed packed, with old lime green bottles.
On the shelving along the walls were stands of various sized brown bottles and around the room there were mounds and heaps of rusting old junk.
Our host then launched into his obviously long-time rehearsed spiel with thoroughly fascinating, frantic, fantastic hand moments.
He spoke in the Queen's English, but you could see it was hard for him not lapse into Bislama.
We soon learned he spoke at a "mile-a-minute" - which is the nickname for the now pest vines planted during the war to act as camouflage; fast, really fast, so fast you had to be on your feet mentally to get into the rhythm of what he was on about.
For all the world he sounded like he was trying to achieve the speed of a Gatling machine gun spitting out the words.
He took about 30 seconds to say the following introduction, that I later tried to write it down word for word as far as I remembered it.
Try saying this really really fast.
"in 1943, one hundred and forty thousand American soldiers came. Yes. One hundred and forty, thousand, here right here the Americans. Here they had Marines, you know Marines? They built airstrips to fly their aeroplanes to the Solomon Islands [flourishing his arms in the general direction of the north-west]. Yes that is it. You know where to then? That is it. Japan. To bomb Japan. There were many many ships, a hundred warships in the harbour down there, one hundred ship! The American soldiers who came here liked to drink Coke. Drink Coke. Drink a lot of Coke. They drank and they left the bottles behind and for many years now I have been finding these bottles. Yes these bottles that they threw away after drinking the Coke. The bottles they just threw away and they floated in the sea and then came to the beach and I find them. They find me. They are my the American Coke bottles! Yes!".
Phew.
He paused momentarily, and then started to reach into the display cases to get out unmistakably Coke bottles, mostly broken but some fairly complete and some wholly intact bottles and gave them to us, one by one, to inspect.
As we were looking at them approvingly with probably silly grins on our faces, he then launched into his rapid fire spiel again...
"They are the Coke bottle of Coca-Cola that the soldiers drank. Here these bottles they liked a lot of Coke to remind them of their home town where they come from in the America. The generous Coca Cola Company of America started to put the names of the soldiers home town's on the bottom of the bottles so the Americans were at home here in Éfaté. Drinking Coke! To remind them of home look! See! - [he rabbited on endlessly as he showed us the bottom of the bottles] "here! is the names. Look see, it has on it the bottom. This glass you see! [turning the bottle upside down] here this one. It says Los An-gel-es Cal-i-fornia, there! See, here's another one, Be-con-sfield Ul, Ul, Illeye-noise!! Ill-ee-nois!
And that was that in the Coke bottles, or so we thought.
He lent over and leaving the best to last, pulled a drawer out of the Coke bottle display and took another one out "Here! "This one found me about two years ago. Last One. See here, it says Al-ber-qurqe, New Mexico!".
"Any questions!", he barked.
Ah, no...we sat in stunned silence.
Then he went right on over to perhaps the best thing he'd found on the beach - a rusted out of 200lb bomb casing.
He was off again..."Anyone know what this is? A bombing casing. That is right an actual bomb casing that won't explode. Not now! Anyone know the name of bomb?"
Then he stopped abruptly, waiting for an answer.
We looked at each other quite puzzled as to what he meant: what bomb? this particular bomb? which bomb? and then Fran had a flash of brilliance with a brain wave and just blurted out "Enola Gay".
"No, that is the plane!"
Still looking for an answer.
Fran said "Little Boy!"
The King of Éfaté lept about with joy "That is right, Little Boy! Fat Boy! Bomb!. Fat Boy, you are right!".
He then went to shake Fran's hand to congratulate her on the right answer but instead placed her palm on the palm of his hand and then he used his other hand to gently stroke the top of Fran's outstretched hand saying "Yes you are right! That is right, Fat Boy! Big bomb. Japan"
"Now look!" he said with a startle as he motioned to the shelving of brown bottles, pointing out the collection by category, as he whipped through his lines at breakneck speed.
"Here are the Australian bottle, or beer, Australian, yes, you see, beer bottles. Some have dates showing us" [as he gently caressed and fondled ever so gently an old clean skin long neck] "Here! Some have dates! Here dates this one. I like it, it has the oldest day! Nineteen-thirty-seven. Look there, the date!".
And there it was, printed around the bottom of the the bottle was the bottle makers name usually of Sydney, and the date was stamped out of the blown glass in the middle of the bottom of the bottle "1937".
It looked as clear as the day it was stamped "This one is very good. The oldest one. The Australian they drank beer. Plenty of beer. They had beer bottles different from these here, they are ginger ale!"
They were darker brown stubbies of clearly what would have contained ginger ale some 70 years ago.
This bloke was utterly relentless and talk about talking the leg off a table!
I can't remember him taking a breath.
At this stage I was exhausted by the pace of the seemingly endless stream of consciousness from this wild and crazy dude.
At some point our most obliging host wandered to the other end of the room "Here is a Jeep radiator. A radiator from a Jeep. A small truck, you know a Jeep? When the American left here after the war, here they did not take anything from here, they left everything behind. Jeeps, trucks, hel-eec-olpters, planes, everything left along here - bulldozed into the sea. Bulldozed!".
We were hoping that he would leave it that, as we were "the full bottle" on the temporary invasion of Éfaté by the Americans by now.
Pardon the pun.
But on he went "I found this one here. You see you will see a coil that is from an electrical in the American for the airplanes. And here bullets. Yes, bullet too, all bullets!
They were brass .30" spent round casings that had been burnished brightly by decades of tumbling around in beach sand and crushed coral.
Taking pride of place of place on the top of the display cases was a totally corroded old M1 Carbine, "real gun", which he went on to explain was the shooter of choice for the American army in the Pacific.
In feigning a gunshot he said "Bang!"
Then he suddenly stopped talking.
We looked around for another minute or so and then he announced "Thank you very much for coming to the World War Two Museum here in Éfaté. Thank you. It is good and I am proud of it. You are welcome. Welkam to come again. I hope you have enjoyed your visit at the World War Two Museum. Thank you. Enjoy your way".
Then he led us outside to his verandah and without further ceremony bid us adieu.
As we got back to George and Sonny's mini-bus, and they had "seen it all before" smiling faces, and it was hard not to burst out laughing at this strange, eccentric man.
But then I was stopped in my tracks as I started to imagine what kind of life he might have lived out here, on the point, on his land; his plot would amount to less then an half an acre, but with three score and ten miles of coast for him to wander along without end; looking, looking, always looking.
Here was a contented man I thought, precisely because he - to me anyway - he hadn't found what he is looking for, nor does he expect to at his age, but his collection is very clearly a reflection of his entire world.
His obsession with these particular things that have no value, except as long standing curiosities, is not just happily accepted in the community, but celebrated as just one of these things.
It was never designed as a tourist attraction [there is an official WWII Museum along the road, where we didn't stop].
It's obsession without end, and to achieve it, he must have walked as relentlessly as he talked for his whole life - hundreds, perhaps thousands of kilometres through the same coastline, the same villages, again and again, looking, looking, looking, always looking for the next big thing.
The whole act really did take less than 15 minutes...about 12 and half by my watch.
At just a token 200vt a head, it is some of the best money you can spend for the entertainment value, and you'll help keep this grand old man going until he reaches his grave, where he will no doubt be given a decent Christian funeral and be very carefully buried according to kastom along with all his treasure, as a mark of respect and honour.
Drop in if you ever go by his way, it's guaranteed he'll be pleased to see you.
All power to his oars.
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