Hideaway Island and Mele Bay - Vanuatu Travelogue

Having just returned from a wonderful weeks break in Vanuatu, I thought that this time I would try to make my blog more descriptive, so I have written a bit of a travelogue, rather than just add captions, and illustrated it with suitable pictures.
Some of what I consider my better photos will appear in the next blog.

Vanuatu is a tropical paradise, named “the happiest place in the world” and “the land of smiles”. It’s a short three hour flight from Auckland NZ to Port Vila – the gateway to the many islands that form the country of Vanuatu.

The people who live here, the natives of Vanuatu, are the friendliest I have encountered and always have a cheery “Hello” and a smile for everyone they meet.

As tourists in this land of smiles, we are amongst the privileged few to be staying on a small island in Mele Bay, just 15 minutes drive outside the capital Port Vila. Our home for the next seven nights is an ocean view bungalow on Hideaway Island.

This coral island, just a few minutes by boat from the shore of the island of Efate, is picture perfect with palm trees, a golden beach of sand over the top of coral (so once off the sand area you need something on your feet), surrounded by constantly warm, crystal clear waters teaming with tropical fish. It’s a resort and a marine reserve, with coral reefs just metres from the beach, a mecca for scuba divers and snorkelers. I am not a great swimmer, but snorkelling here is a breeze. Even my none-swimming wife Liz braved the water, well out of her depth and comfort zone to marvel - mask on face - at the multitude of colourful fish below.

Our bungalow (number four) was at the back of the island with views over the ocean to the east of Mele Bay, meaning that every morning we were greeted by a wonderful sunrise without even having to leave our bed. Our “room” consisted of a partitioned off bedroom, bathroom, sitting area with sofa and coffee table, dining table and chairs, fridge and tea/coffee making facilities, AND a day bed.



 Outside on our deck was a table, two comfortable chairs and a hammock overlooking the azure, shallow waters inside the reef. The bungalow was basic and a little worn in places, but kept clean and tidy by our daily cleaner. The sunset in the evening was best viewed from the Hideaway Island beach bar around the other side of the island, with cocktail in hand of course.

Sunset

Sunrise

In spite of the islands small size, even when all rooms, dorms and bungalows are fully occupied, it’s not overcrowded and feels like your own private island. BUT when the cruise ships come into Port Vila it’s a slightly different story with many of the visitors making a beeline for Hideaway Island to swim, snorkel and to mail a postcard in the world’s first undersea port office.

 The post office sits in three or four metres of water (depending on whether it’s low or high tide), an easy swim from the shore and is manned by a diver for an hour at one o’clock every day, who collects the mail and brings it ashore. Fortunately for we house guests on the island, the cruise ships stay is usually brief and the extra visitors depart on the high tide, once again leaving us in peace to enjoy the tranquillity of the island.

The bar and restaurant, right on the beach have wonderful (million dollar) views over the waters of the marine reserve, to the mainland. It pays to adopt a relaxed and unhurried attitude here as the staff are locals, are constantly on “Island Time” and it can take a while longer than we are used to here in New Zealand for our food and drink orders to arrive .The cocktails are well worth the wait, chock full of fresh locally grown fruit and high end spirits.  The restaurant menu is a little predictable, mainly western in its options, which I guess is what most tourists want. However I can highly recommend the Chicken Curry – served on coconut shells – delicious!

      

Usually when me and my wife take a holiday overseas we try to do too much, run around all the tourist sights and come home needing a rest. This time we wanted a relaxing break where we could make sure that our batteries were fully re-charged. Hideaway was ideal for this. You could do as much or as little as you liked. There were kayaks, an outrigger canoe, glass bottom boat, snorkelling and scuba gear available, a lovely saltwater pool to swim in if you became bored with the ocean and volleyball on the beach for those energetic enough. Also, open air cinema two nights a week (Sunday and Wednesday) out on the beach, barbecue night (Friday) and a Melanesian Feast night (Thursday)  tables laden with all sorts of food – and all profits went to the local village.

Speaking of the local village, Tuesday afternoon you could opt to visit Mele Village – just across the water and a short walk from the jetty. With a population of around five thousand, Mele is one of the biggest – if not THE biggest - in Vanuatu. The people here have their own language, as do other villages. A villager from Mele village could not speak the language of the people in the next village, there are literally thousands of local dialects across the islands of Vanuatu. There are three languages that unify these islands and thankfully one of them is English. The other two are French and Bislama. Bislama is a kind of Creole or Pidgin English – not easy to speak straight away, but quite easy to understand.

 The hour and a half walking tour, with our guide Antoine – who is a Jack of all trades here on Hideaway (diver, guide, boatman, part time volley-baller) - gave us an idea of how the locals actually live. I can tell you that they live a very basic life. Most homes have no power or running water. Some have standpipes outside. The houses themselves are either simple palm frond structures or corrugated iron sheds. A fortunate few had homes of concrete block – usually half finished– few had glass in the windows. But they were mostly neat and tidy, as were the gardens. Most people grow their own fruit and veg and have livestock such as hens and pigs running around the place.

Many of the staff at Hideaway live here and I wondered what they thought of us tourists, with all of our electrical gadgets, living in comparative luxury on Hideaway and spending as much in a week as they earn all year. No minimum wage here and a good wage at the island was two hundred vatu (about two Australian dollars) an hour.  For a moment I felt quite guilty that I was so fortunate to have so much whilst these folk had so little, but on the other hand, if it weren’t for we tourists, these locals would have no work. Also, for people who have so little material wealth, they are genuinely happy people who appear to be more connected to the earth than we are. It makes me realise that there is much more to life than owning the latest Apple product or a big screen TV. Of course they do have Kava and the last part of our village walk is a visit to the local Kava Bar.

Here at Flight Kava Bar we formed a line to sample the brown muddy looking water, served in half coconut shells. Antoines advice was to “not smell or taste by sipping” the Kava and basically just skull it down on one go. Then to spit – if you want to – before eating a piece of fresh fruit (presumably to take the taste away). It sounded like a delightful drink…..so we skulled. My initial thoughts were “looks like muddy water, tastes like muddy water – no other effect”. But within a few seconds my lips went numb and my tongue felt like it was twice its size and things appeared to slow down somewhat. I tried to speak, but my mouth couldn’t keep up with my brain. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your opinion, the Kava wore off within ten to fifteen minutes.

All along our walk, we were approached by children offering flowers in exchange for the sweet treats we had bought at the village shop on our way in. The children are happy and smiling, just like their parents and entertain themselves playing like we used to - before Sky TV, Video games and the internet which has turned so many western children into overweight, diabetic, pasty skinned morons – they climb trees, play football, skip, fish and of course swim. For their sake I hope that their standard of living doesn’t catch up to ours…..or if it does, that they are better educated in what really matters in life and see through the illusion of the consumer society. I realise the irony of this statement as it’s the consumer society that brings us here as tourists. There is good and bad in everything I guess.

Just a short walk from Mele Village is Mele Cascades. A series of waterfalls and pools linked by quick flowing streams and well marketed by the locals. At two thousand vatu or twenty Aussie dollars entrance fee it may seem like a bit of a steep price to see a waterfall but, oddly enough, the experience of walking through the native bush for twenty minutes up hill and climbing several sets of steps in thirty degrees of heat and humidity -  crossing several streams on the way, by holding onto a rope stretched across the flow of water to stop us being swept downstream before finally arriving at the foot of the large falls and half drowning yourself trying to climb up the falls…using the handy ropes of course – makes it all worthwhile. Seriously, it’s a beautiful place to visit and well worth the twenty minutes of walking. There are a lot of pretty sights on the way – cascades of water, tranquil pools, gorgeous blooms and tropical vegetation….and when you return to the bottom there’s a bar by the waterside selling fruity cocktails (and beers and other drinks) and the prices are no worse than on Hideaway. Delicious!

More Vanuatu photos to follow in the next blog....