Fantasy island
Everyone is beautiful at Vomo, even you for the time you’re there... writes Yvonne van Dongen.
Idon’t know what to say about Vomo Island, I really don’t. I mean a story needs conflict, things need to happen, preferably some of them bad, or at least weird or funny. But it’s not like that at Vomo. Vomo is all about perfection. Vomo is perfection. Vomo is all your tropical island fantasies come true and then goldplated.
‘‘This is the real Fiji,’’ one of the guests said with a sigh. I was tempted to say, ‘‘No darling, the real Fiji is a poor scrappy village,’’ but I didn’t have the heart. Not at Vomo. She meant it’s not like the big resorts on the main island and she’s right there, thank God. Everyone is beautiful at Vomo, even you for the time you’re there. And there’s not many of you.
Vomo is 32 villas on a 103-hectare island between the Yasawa and Mamanuca islands. It costs lots to get here and even more to stay but, let me tell you, if you can afford it it’s worth every penny.
So back to the tropical island fantasy.
It starts like this: helicoptering in. That’s how most of the guests arrive. Me? I came by seaplane, left by boat. All good, just time-consuming but let’s face it, I’m a writer. My time isn’t that valuable.
Then a welcome song by staff, beautiful voices all harmonising by people you later see carrying your appalling underwear to the free laundry service.
Then there’s a welcome drink and those staff saying ‘‘Welcome Home’’ to you now and for most of the first day or so, which is so much cheese you’d normally gag except you’re at Vomo
The days pass in a pleasurable blur marked only by different destinations for drinks and nightly entertainment. Again, the staff reveal their true talents as singers and dancers.
and it’s true. Everyone knows your name straight away.
‘‘Hello Yvonne,’’ says the gardener clipping the hibiscus as you walk to your bure. At home you’d think this creepy. Now it’s just grand.
Then to the days. They start like this: falling out of bed into the sea shushing just beyond your designer bure, then lolloping lazily to the restaurant fronting the huge pool which is actually too warm, thanks to the hot sun (hey, a bad thing!). You then select an absurd amount of food from the cool room, which is like a walk-in fridge (you consider staying there all day) and then choose something from the menu as well because you can (maybe another bad thing, though delicious at the time), then chat to some other guests and look at your watch and say ‘‘Help, is that the time?’’ because you’ve got snorkelling at 11 and you slept in.
Snorkelling means going out in a boat with some strapping staff and then pootling around a nearby reef nobody but Vomo-ites visit.
The reef is all autumnal tones with the occasional day-glo pink, blue or purple tips and the coral looks variously like cacti, antlers, plates and brains. Stripes are big in the fish world and it’s always a pleasure to see those tiny electric blue swimmers that turn up on every tropical reef.
Then, with your face still bearing snorkel mask marks, you make your way to lunch. You’ve earned it. Plus, as the Fijians say, the more you eat, the better you float. You plan to snorkel daily.
A three-course lunch. Hmmm... should you have the pineapple gazpacho starter followed by quinoa crumbed chicken schnitzel with tarragon butter, beans and tomato salad or the grilled prawn salad? The vege wrap or the char-grilled steak? Stressful. Should you have dessert? Not even a question. Course you should. It’s part of the Vomo deal. All the food and activities you can eat and you are now officially greedy.
If only you didn’t want to sleep so much. Relaxing does that to you. We remark on it to one another, us lucky Vomo-ites.
How weary we all feel, how deliciously, sensuously weary because for once in our successful busy lives we can give in to that sensation and oh, it’s nice. Though there is that massage you booked earlier with a hearty Balinese masseuse who says your shoulders are so tight she needs at least three hours pulverising the builtup tension that sits like a massive rock under your skin and must be ground by her knuckles into pebbles. What the? This is up-selling, surely. You go to yoga regularly. Why, you’re practically a yogini! You can slow your heart rate down to practically monk level. You adore Savasana (aka the corpse yoga pose). Could lie there for hours. And as for alternate nostril breathing, you nailed that first go. So why does her deep tissue massage hurt so bloody much?
That was gruelling. You need a lie down. Maybe a bath. Yes a bath with L’Occitane products. In one of those big egg-shaped baths that take ages to