Vanuatu's hot

If you think there are no surprises left in the Pacific, think again. Vanuatu's unspoiled charm, writes PETER CALDER, makes for a memorable holiday.

"It's a pity," says the Australian whose T-shirt announces he's been to Antarctica, "about the sand."

I squint up at him, swaying uncertainly above me on sunburned, varicose-veined legs, and then I look at the sand on which I've spread my towel. It's gritty and sparkling, a mixture of coral and volcanic origin and I wonder aloud what's the matter with it.

"It's black," he says, leaning a little closer so the fishermen folding their nets only metres away won't overhear our little secret. (It's not actually; it's more a golden breadcrumb colour and I catch
myself wondering what he'd make of Karekare in a winter westerly). "We don't like black."

For an instant I wonder who the "we" is meant to include. Him and his wife, who stands slightly apart, sneakers in hand and sneering in white jeans folded neatly to mid-calf? Perhaps he wants me to share his disappointment that Mele Beach, west of Port Vila on the south coast of Vanuatu's main island of Efate, doesn't fit the picture-postcard fantasy of a Pacific Island paradise.

Maybe he finally found his beach elsewhere, dusted with sand like beige talcum powder, just like on the telly. But he missed something special when he and his wife hopped in the taxi and left Mele behind. For Vanuatu, tucked alongside Fiji in the southeastern corner of the Melanesian archipelago, has plenty to delight the visitor who might think the Pacific holds no surprises.

Tourist-friendly without being tourist-dominated, the Y-shaped archipelago sprinkled across more than 650km of ocean provides package-holiday convenience and luxury-resort treatment for those who want pampering. But it's also a place where the unspoiled charm out of town is easy to access simply by flagging down one of the minibuses which pass in a constant stream along Vila's main streets.

Most travel deals include accommodation packages, but those who don't hanker after in-room satellite TV and minibars have options. On the Kumul "highway" - a narrow strip of two-lane tarseal which accounts for about half of Efate's sealed road - we found the rather cutely named Worawia Holiday Haven, a new family-run business which offers fan-cooled bungalows equipped with small kitchens for less than $100 a night.

The ever-smiling manager, Saipir Solomon, saw providing free transport into town day and night as part of his duties. He also hosts the island's most authentic Melanesian dance and feast night in a purpose-built, dirt-floor thatched fare in his yard next door.

Better still, the staff are talkative and friendly, refreshingly unaware of the formulas of smiling servility which international hotel chains drum into their employees from Stockholm to Sydney. Within hours we were on first-name terms - though they were never either obtrusive or intrusive - and we felt like part of the family.

To really get to know Vanuatu - the name, which mans "our land for ever," replaced the New Hebrides when the islands became independent in 1980 - would mean spending serious time and money exploring some of the outer islands.

There, some of the world's best scuba diving is to be found (including one of the world's top shipwreck dives, the SS President Coolidge) and on Pentecost Island the world's original bungi jumpers leap from bamboo towers, breaking their fall with vines tied around their ankles.

But the short-term visitor will find plenty to entrance within a few kilometres of Vila. The waters around Hideaway Island, barely 100m off Mele Beach, are thick with curious and colourful fish who will eat out of snorkellers' hands.

A midday boat takes you to the edge of the reef (although it's within flipper-swimming reach of even the slightly energetic) where the fish gather in hungry profusion before the boatman even cuts power to the outboard. The sight of the open sea only metres away may alarm the uninitiated but the guide (whose name, Joka, was, I suspect, not his at birth) puts our minds at rest about the shark danger.

"No sharks," he says, giggling at his own joke before he's even told it. "Crocodiles ate them all."

In the heat of an island midday, the cascades at nearby Mele-Maat provide a cool retreat. The locals charge 800 vatu (about $13) a head for admission to the area but it's money well spent. Well-shaded dirt tracks follow the course of a river which spills out of the hills, down through dozens of pools and, eventually, out to sea.

Manuel, the barman from our hotel, insists on taking us there on his day off and seems puzzled at the suggestion that we might pay him for his efforts.

Lithe and broad-shouldered, he's a gentle giant who once represented the island nation at basketball and as different as can be imagined from Fawlty Towers' waiter from Barcelona.

Tom, one of his neighbours, comes along, too. A beanpole in a yellow soccer shirt, who leaps in and slips out of almost every pool we pass, he doesn't have much to say for himself. "Six," is the only word I drag out of him, when we walk past his school on the way home and I ask him how many classes it has. ("Nine," Manuel corrects him.)

But Tom speaks eloquently in other ways, presenting to me swallow-shaped fern leaves which fly as gracefully as any paper aeroplane and teaching me how to throw sticks into a wild nut tree to knock down the fruit and fetch myself a tasty snack.

After sundown Vila has plenty to offer in the great indoors. Truly memorable restaurants eluded our exhaustive search but the simple and tasty presentation of the excellent local beef and seafood easily made up for that.

The highlight was the local poulet fish - so named because its thick, rich flesh looks a lot like chicken when grilled - and the long history of French influence (France and Britain jointly ruled the islands from the early 20th century until independence) means that there's no shortage of places where coffee and pastries are taken very seriously indeed.

That French influence spills over to the supermarkets (two are called Au Bon Marche) where crisp baguettes, excellent cheeses and succulent deli meats are easy to come by and you can tuck a good French wine into the basket for less than $20.

And the market, at its busiest on Friday and Saturday, is a cheap source of great fruits and vegetables. The natives of Vanuatu (ni-Vanuatu, they call themselves, or just ni-Vans) are among the world's most proficient linguists. The islands are home to almost 130 utterly distinct languages (only Papua New Guinea can lay claim to greater linguistic variety) and it's rare to run across a local of even the meanest education who's not competent in at least four of them.

I drank kava one night with a former Government worker who calculated, after a short period of counting, that he spoke seven. He came from an island to the north and had married a woman from Mele, so he needed to learn her language - as different from hers as English is from Algonquin or Korean. He nodded solemnly as he remembered the effort of achieving complete fluency. "It took at least three weeks."

This polyglot competency doesn't leave the monolingual visitor high and dry. Most of the locals have a better-than-working grasp of English (and Vanuatu's a good place to lubricate the rusty French of your schooldays).

Better still, you can try getting your head around Bislama, the English-based Melanesian pidgin which is the country's lingua franca and is used in debate in Vanuatu's Parliament.

An official language alongside English and French, Bislama has a comical ring to Westerners raised on movies where gnarled cowboys or explorers in pith helmets bellowed in playpen English at uncomprehending savages.

Public signs in Bislama abound. My favourite was on the jetty at Erakor Island, a resort only a long stone's throw offshore. A bell fashioned from a length of pipe and a steel bar hung in a tree. Beside them a hand-painted notice advised, "Sipos yu wantem ferry, yu kilem gong." ("Kilem," it transpires, means "hit;" to kill something, you "kilem ded.")

"Lukim yu after" for "see you later;" "hapi tumas" ("happy too much") for "it's a pleasure" or "bagarup tul" for a tool pressed into service to repair any damaged machinery, have an appealingly childlike simplicity about them, but the language is remarkably adaptable. I had been much amused before arriving to read the dozen-word phrase for piano. In abbreviated form it was "samting blong waetman sipos yu kilem i krae aot;" "a white man's thing, if you hit it, it cries out." But when I ran this colourful piece of whimsy past several Bislama speakers, they shook their heads in wonderment. "Our word for piano," they told me, "is piano."

CASENOTES

WHEN TO GO: Vanuatu has a warm tropical climate. The hot'n'humid summer is from November to March (average temperature 28 deg C); winter from April to October, average temperature 23 deg C.

PAPERWORK: New Zealand, Australian, British and Pacific passport-holders need only a current passport for a stay not exceeding 30 days.

MONEY: Vatu is the local currency. In the current ups and downs on world markets, it is about 58 to the NZ dollar. There are Westpac and ANZ banks in Port Vila and in Luganville on Santo Island; the Vila ANZ has an ATM. Most restaurants take credit cards. Local currency should be exchanged before leaving Vanuatu as it is rarely found outside the country. Bank hours are Monday to Friday, 8.30 am to 3 pm. Tipping and bargaining are discouraged - they go against local tradition.

SHOPPING: Most stores open at 7.30 am and close at 5 pm or 7 pm. Shops usually close from noon to 2 pm.

COSTS: You'll pay about 260 vatu for a Coke, 350 vatu for a beer (the local Tusker is good). An average restaurant meal is around 1800 vatu a head.

GETTING AROUND: Look for the minibuses with 'B' on the numberplate. You can flag them down anywhere. Fares - 100 vatu around town, 200 vatu for longer trips around the island.

HEALTH: The Central Hospital in Vila is open 24 hours a day for all medical treatment. No vaccinations are required unless entering Vanuatu from epidemic areas. Anti-malarial tablets should be taken before arrival if visiting outer islands. Tap water is safe to drink in Port Vila; bottled water is recommended on outer islands.

MORE INFO: National Tourism Office of Vanuatu, PO Box 209, Port Vila. Tel: (00678) 22685, fax: (00678) 23889. e-mail: tourism@vanuatu.com.vu

Worawia Holiday Haven