A simple pleasure
Vanuatu is a bit of a surprise package. Its like Fiji’s introverted little brother, not backward just quieter. By my very rough grip on geography Vanuatu is a scattering of islands north of New Caledonia and east of Fiji. Port Vila is the capital on the island of Efate with a population of roughly 40,000.
I can’t tell you much about the demographic beyond the fact that there’s a fairly heavy French influence and the Chinese have a sturdy commercial presence.
I spent two weeks there over Christmas and I can’t say I genuinely learned a great deal about how it’s all put together.
But I can tell you about my holiday there and roundly extol the virtues of a country I feel drawn to taking every chance I get to go to.
For starters the flight from Auckland is only two and half hours; a definite plus when you travel with children.
The Air Vanuatu flights are basic but clean and friendly and that could also just about sum up most of the country.
While it sounds exotic spending Christmas turning pink on a tropical island, it wasn’t on a whim.
It came about through my inlaws inexplicable urge to spend their holidays in close proximity to each other. So in the spirit of togetherness and to complete the pack of 14, me, my wife and the kids joined in the fun. I’ll spare you details of the family dynamic, that’s just between me and my therapist.
Vanuatu is clean but in a slight state of disrepair. They’re in the strike zone for tropical cyclones and still picking up the pieces from Pam in 2015. While they were spared the full force of Gita no one expects they’ll miss out on all the fun of cyclone season this year.
Tin sheds don’t weather storms well.
Neither do roads. Actually I’m not sure you can entirely blame storm damage but the roads are almost more pothole than tarmac. Since we stayed about an hour out of Port Vila there was ample opportunity to soak up the bumps.
I drove once but the deafening chorus of co-pilots every time I strayed into a pothole put me off the experience. I figure that enough trips and you roughly map out the worst of the craters but I wasn’t keen to gain the practice.
Still even after an hour spent in Satan’s limo the final destination was worth the pain.
Port Havannah is a sweeping stretch of sun-bleached coastline dotted by villages, resorts and holiday homes.
The holiday homes were all built to capitalise on the fact that every one can have their own slice of the beach and easy access to the warm and relatively shallow waters teeming with life.
Our house was a large but basic dwelling with concrete floors and few in the way of mod cons. But the sweep of lawn sloping gently down the cornflour sand made it something truly special.
This is where the story gets a little dull since, apart from growing a beard, the days from then on were mostly spent wandering down to the sea, basking for an hour or two, refuelling then sliding back into the water.
The water is crystal and temperate. It truly puts the postcards to shame.
There were a couple of yachts moored about 200m from the shore and my far more testosteronedrenched brother-in-law would get up and swim out to them at 6am every day.
The water is so clear you can see the bottom even 20 odd metres down so there’s no great unknown but I took no comfort in that.
I did it once on the last day and put in an easy personal best. I wasn’t keen to linger.
The coastline was also dotted with beach bars which came in handy of an evening.
Vanuatu has some slightly strange liquor laws so a couple of days either side or Christmas and New Years there’s a lockdown on off-licence sales. But no such problem in the on licence establishments. Maybe that’s their solution to pre-loading.
We were a little self-sufficient given that there was a dairy on the corner. Depending on the time of year you can buy fish from the locals and the markets are groaning with cheap local produce. Given that everything else is imported, the supermarkets in Port Vila were a little on the pricey side but eating out wasn’t prohibitive.
Maybe part of Vanuatu’s greatest charm was its simplicity. If we did venture out it was typically to visit another beach or find a new beach bar. There are a couple of freshwater swimming holes that make for a nice change of pace.
The people were genuinely lovely, quiet and accommodating. Strike a time when the cruise ships are in then you may be squeezed a bit on prices but mostly the vendors are anything but pushy.
Heartbreaking when you think that they greet life with such a beautiful spirit only to repeatedly have everything they own flattened by the vicious cyclones that regularly stray across to the islands.
Still they are a resilient nation. They have to be.
So Vanuatu could just about be my spiritual home if I was deep enough to have such a thing.
One of my colleagues described it as good for the soul. I don’t think she could have summed it up better.