There is a bit of a festival atmosphere in Luganville at the moment. I’ve only been here a few weeks, but it seems in the last 10 days there has been a noticeable increase in the hive of activity down main street, people hanging from cranes (see photo), kind of like the feel you get in a small kiwi bach town in the lead up to new years eve. Sadly, this increased hum in not a cause for celebration, and is in fact due to the evacuation of 11,000 people from the island of Ambae because of falling volcanic ash.