Another paradise Island

  Port Vila, Vanuatu Thursday, January 22, 2015

For some reason Jody had wanted to come here for ages although even she can't remember why. Vanuatu sits in the Pacific Ocean north of Australia and New Zealand and somewhere on a line in-between them. The next closest islands are New Caledonia (French). So it is quite remote. That makes it fairly awkward to get to - not difficult - it’s just that only 3 main stream airlines come here - Qantas, Air New Zealand and Vanuatu Air itself. It means there aren’t many destinations you can get to from here. Our route to Borneo was going to be a wiggly one! When we arrived it was raining and we thought oh no! Then we were informed it was also cyclone season and we thought OH NO! But luckily, most days have been bright and sunny with just occasional rain. We went through customs (we use the term loosely here) and arrived to a lovely string band playing in arrivals with the men all singing. The style is of everyman is out of tune but they all harmonise together. It’s actually lovely to hear when they are playing their instruments too. Christine and Vince met us from where we will be staying and stopped for us to pick up some cold drinks on the way to Tara Beach. We found out later that this "resort" (another loose term here) is an attempt by the locals to compete with the large Chinese/Australian/New Zealander owned resorts. It is run by local people and absolutely every local we spoke to whilst we were here, seemed to be related to Christine in some way! Tara Beach is a lovely little hideaway down the end of a 5km unsealed road which means it doesn’t get any passing trade or very busy. Occasionally when the cruise ships come in they do take people for the lunch time period as this is also a fantastic spot for snorkelling. There are an amazing amount of different varieties of fish, corals and anemones. Unfortunately there is also the “Crown of thorns" starfish present so the corals may not be around for much longer. They will also lend you a kayaks too if you want one. We felt at times like we were staying with our granny she was so sweet and her husband Lulu plays the guitar for you when you arrive with some welcome songs. Wonderful. Our bungalow was right on the water front with our own terrace for sitting on. But it is a little way out of town and takes about 30 mins by car to get there - mainly because of the poor state of the road they have to drive so slowly. So during a trip into town on day 3, we met the lovely Korin at her stand selling trips and excursions. We booked a trip to Tanna Island leaving on Sunday, returning Monday as we felt we needed to move on somewhere else and this gave us the chance to see another island in Vanuatu.That same evening we hopped on the little ferry to Hideaway Island to see a local show, Now to say we were impressed with Hideaway island was an understatement. It is it’s own little island with a small resort on it. Resort means there is a bar and reception and a pool. Oh and a pool table. They had a dive school which pricked Bryan’s ears right up and they loan out snorkelling gear too. We checked with reception and their rooms although tiny, came in just a fraction over what we were paying at Tara Beach so we booked our room for our return from Tanna in 4 days’ time. At the show, we were greeted with woven banana leaf headbands and offered a cup of caver. Now we knew about this from our trip to Fiji and we knew it is supposed to be quite hallucinogenic but not in an alcoholic way - more of a banned substance way. But also disgusting - like drinking muddy water, so we both went “low tide” with our cup and watched everyone else pulling faces as they were faced with “high tide” cupfuls! The show was very sweet. More of the local string band out of tune singing and a huge buffet of local food. They had so much vegetarian food too Jody didn’t go hungry either. The lady who was running it seemed quite shy and was telling us stories about the songs. The whole feel was more of a group of people who had got together to do this, rather than a professional slick operation. But we loved it for that. We felt like it really was run by locals. And yes you have guessed it, the people running it were from Christine’s village! The following day we went for an island tour. We almost didn’t make it as we had booked for Christine to take us. She was a no show at breakfast and Lulu informed us it was her day off today. What!! She was supposed to be taking us out today! So some frantic calls to Korin and we dashed into town to meet up with a tour that had already left. Luckily we made it and we have written a separate entry for that trip too. That evening was the Fire Show at Sunset Bar. So we headed off there - Christine had reserved us a table because her cousin worked there! We were joined by an Aussie couple staying in the bungalow next to ours - Lizzie & Dave and the evening was great. Good food, good company and the fire show was great too. All local youngsters that had left school too early without many skills, but all had a talent and a passion for this. They were excellent. The following day we shot off from Tara Beach very early and headed to Tanna to see the active volcano (which you can read about separately). We had planned our return from Tanna to be Monday but thanks to a mechanical fault of the plane we were due to leave in, it never even made it to Tanna so we actually returned on Tuesday. Hideaway Island is lovely. Unfortunately they also take cruise ship tours and when we arrived it was packed. Luckily they all disappear by 3:30 though so most of our time here was very peaceful. From what we can make out there are only about 4 couples and one single Chinese lady staying here. Perfect! The staff here are really lovely and the ladies in the kitchen sing (more of the out of tune songs again) and there is lots of friendly banter between them all. Nothing is too much trouble for any of them making feel really welcoming and a place you want to just hang around in. Whilst we were here, Bryan got plenty of dive time in, snorkelling was just 50 yards from our door and there was so much to see for both of us. Bryan’s highlight was an octopus and Jody just loved seeing the corals. Normally snorkelling you see heaps of fish but rare to see living coral especially in the abundance and variety there is here. We also spotted turtles whilst eating breakfast and we heard rumours of a dugong living close by with her calf. Now that would be something to see! We have loved Vanuatu. The people are just so friendly and we felt very relaxed and very safe here. To get here from England is a huge trek and would involve many flights and be very expensive so whilst we would say you must come here if you get the chance, we know for most people that is unlikely. We are so glad to have had the opportunity to come here we feel very lucky (again) [gallery columns="4" ids="10209,10216,10221,10226,10235,10237,10243,10251,10258,10266,10273,10281,10290,10294,10300,10306,10317,10323,10333,10339,10345,10360,10367,10379,10391,10404,10416,10424,10438,10448,10459,10469,10476,10485,10493,10500,10509,10522,10530,10537,10549,10559,10569,10579,10588,10597,10603,10609,10620,10629,10634,10639,10643,10656,10660,10669,10675,10681,10691,10694"]