More than you'll ever need to know about my trip to Vanuatu
From tasty Tusker beer to Central Coast characters, Port Vila has it all, folks!
Last week I wrote about the crazy idea two friends and I had to go Vanuatu, and Saturday night Beth, Josie and I returned exhausted but elated at quite possibly the best girls trip the world has ever known.
What follows is a recap of our trip with information about the country as well. I’d encourage everyone who has the means to check out Vanuatu. We calculated we each spent under $2,500 AUD ($1600 USD) for flights, five nights accommodation, food and drinks, and I reckon we could have done it for less if we wanted to.
When we touched down in the capital city of Port Vila, Vanuatu, we didn’t see massive crowds. The islands are made up of just 300,000 people, and Port Vila has only 51,000, so it’s smaller than the population of Cessnock Australia and Bowling Green, Kentucky. We landed at the busiest airport within the 83 islands; it was us and maybe one other plane.
Sydney was freezing when we left, but we began sweating profusely as we stood under fans in slow lines in the humidity, waiting to get through customs. We were exhausted and hungry after the 5am train ride to Sydney that began the day. Air Vanuatu does feed you on the three hour flight, yogurt and meat pies; perhaps this was some foreboding as to what was to come for myself as a vegetarian. We got through customs and traded some cash for vatu and hopped in a taxi with a cheerful smelly man named Carlos with a few teeth. He was wonderful, pointing out the buildings, telling us about the city. The sun was setting and he stopped to let us take a photo of the pretty view.
He took us to our resort, Breakas and we tipped him only to later learn that that’s not expected. The friendly staff at Breakas put shell necklaces over our heads (I wore mine every day) and gave us fresh-flower-adorned fruit juice. We were in absolute paradise. We saw our cute rooms complete with beautiful outdoor showers.
We went back to the bar to enjoy the last of the setting sun. The highly synthed pop cover songs sung by chipmunky voices seduced us. We had our first beer of Vanuatu, Tusker (one of what would be many) and ordered a few of the strongest, strangest cocktails I’ve ever had.
Our new reality washed over us like the twilight breeze. I was stoked to be there with Beth and Josie. Beth and I have been on a few crazy trips together and we always just have THE best time, from Floriade in Canberra to Hungerford Hill in the Hunter Valley. We’ve known Josie forever but have never hung out much with her, but this is part of the reason it felt so exciting, a new energy with the three of our personalities combined. We knew she was a sweet, beautiful girl who made great cocktails, and we’d seen enough of her Instagram to know that she loved to have fun and party and share her fun life, which is the same for me and Beth.
(I joked that the bedrock of me and Beth’s friendship is the joy we find in the photographing of ourselves.) Another day I’ll write about why I love frivolous, vain, fantastic photoshoots with girlfriends. I also just loved that Josie said yes when we randomly asked her to come. She didn’t really know Beth or me that well, and it’s a big decision to drop money and go on an overseas holiday with two regulars from your bar. She joined in enthusiastically, without hesitation. She’s our type of girl.
Here’s a blow by blow of each day before I go into more cultural specifics. If you’re more interested in the culture and less interested in my personal (probably fairly predictable) holiday I’d scroll down to “Food in Port Vila”.
Monday:
After the train to Sydney and the flight, we were all exhausted out of our mind but knew that the trip had just begun. I looked out at the nearly full moon over the ocean as we walked back to our cabanas and I felt like I was in a dream.
Tuesday
The next morning we woke up and went straight back to the pool and beach. I did some yoga in front of all the guests eating breakfast, which I didn’t quite realize until Josie and Beth pointed out after the fact, lol. Hopefully they enjoyed it. That day we caught a cheap bus into town (they come every 5 minutes or so and usually look a bit like a van with a B in front of the license plate number). We walked around the markets, got some groceries and duty free booze, came back to Breakas and had some cocktails and danced on our little verandas and then took ourselves out to dinner at a nice restaurant up the road. We drunkenly walked back in the dark laughing at Josie who pat a stray dog. As we walked in the night we heard people around us laughing with us. It was a little spooky but mostly hilarious.
Wednesday
It began with a tour from Steve of Vila Hope Tours where we went to a chocolate shop, distillery, coffee roasting facility and turtle sanctuary. Then we had lunch and swam in the blue lagoon and waterfalls. It was a perfect day and Steve was a wealth of information. He was so confident and hilarious.
Then once we got back it was Melanesian night at Breakas and we watched talented men sing and dance and ate interesting food from the island.
This night was also memorable as another Breakas guest, Damien bought us all beers and then sat down with us to have a chat, much to his wife’s chagrin. Damo told us that he’d been married for 25 years and that he was in trouble tonight. He knew exactly what row we were on in the flight over as he’d been sitting behind us on the plane. He knew it was us because of one of Josie’s tattoos. He was travelling with two other couples and Martin came over later to apologize for him. We thanked Damo for the drinks and returned to our quarters without much conversation. Never-the-less his wife shot us some looks in the morning.
Thursday
Thursday was move day, we left Breakas for our Airbnb in Malapoa, about a 25 minute drive from where we were. Originally we had planned to stay at a different resort, a villa with three bedrooms right on the water, but the cyclone damage meant we had to find a different place. I’m glad we moved to a different part of the island; it gave us a new perspective and otherwise we might have been very close to Breakas, surrounded by more unhappily married couples from the central coast. The Airbnb came with a pool and incredible views of the ocean, but it was harder to get around. You couldn't just catch a bus to town like you could with Breakas. Also, a random dog got through the fence and we couldn’t get rid of him. Fortunately he was domesticated and friendly. We named him Jeremy. We were thrilled to have some privacy and a new guard dog, so we stripped down and started swimming in the saltwater pool. Josie started making cocktails. Steve was supposed to come back to take us to a Kava bar, but we never heard from him, so cocktails was the main event of the day. It was a night of devilish delicious girlish fun with much content made.
Friday:
Friday morning was recovery from cocktails night. We didn’t do much, although Beth and I walked down to the beach and found some shells, doing our best to avoid quite a few wild dogs. On the way we saw some men building a hotel along the water. They were mixing concrete and wearing thongs. When we walked past them, they started singing a song we’d never heard, cuteeeee. We came back and got ready for our new guide and driver, Willie, to pick us up for the Kava experience, something that we’d heard about all week. (Willie also broke into song regularly while we travelled together.) We were going out to dinner at the Beach Bar. Everyone knows Friday night is the best night to go as there is also a fire dancing show put on by locals. You can read more about my kava experience below. The Beach Bar is an experience for tourists rather than locals, but we still had a great time. Also, when we got back, my brand new shoes I’d bought specifically for the trip were both missing! I was silly and left them on the deck. Was it Jeremy? Was it a person? We don’t know. RIP shoes, I hope someone has them who needs them more than me.
Saturday
This was sadly our last day. Willie picked us up again and took us to the markets where I got some souvenirs and a nice woman put my hair and Beth’s in beaded braids. I asked Willie if it was bad that I, as an American white girl had my hair in cornrows like the Ni van people. “No no, same same” he said of me and him. It made me smile.
Willie took us to the National Museum of Vanuatu and then we went to a French restaurant along the water and drank a few more Tuskers and enjoyed the sunshine. We talked about different places we wanted to travel in the future. We hung out for a few hours and then Willie dropped us at the airport. The plane was unexpectedly delayed, so we decided to drink more Tusker and take more photos
We laughed and went through all our content on the plane, and then proceeded to take the worst train ride of my life back to Newcastle in which 5 million high teenagers boarded alongside us and sat on the floor by the seats, screaming and vaping the entire time. Welcome home.
Here are more details on the specifics of the country Vanuatu.
Food in Port Villa
Our resort came with free breakfast, continental style with little pastries, instant coffee, tea and toast. The only thing fresh were little scrumptious green bananas. We would learn that the fresh produce was in short supply because of the two cyclones in a row a few months ago; the crops have been decimated. I was excited to try lots of fresh fruit, but for the time being, I would tell other vegetarians to keep your hopes fairly low when it comes to food. The main produce we saw at the markets were little bunches of greens and huge root vegetables. We got tomatoes and coconuts at the grocery store, and we did eat some nice yams and root vegetables in particular, but I wouldn’t describe the island as a degustation paradise. Seafood fans might feel differently. While Beth and I were swimming by the resort in the shallow water looking at the coral, crabs, starfish and more, a man walked in nearby, threw in a fishing net in, and pulled it out full of fish! It wouldn’t have taken him more than 10 minutes. If there was ever a time to pause my vegetarianism it probably would have been this trip; I accidentally ate meat a few times anyway. I ate icy cold ice cream at the markets and had quite a few tasty creamy drinks at the bar. The food was not my favorite part, but I survived and it was reminded first hand of how incredibly spoiled for choice I am in the US and Australia.
When nice food is available, it can be quite expensive. On the second night Cafe VIla and we had moussaka, vegie currie, steak, some entres, a cocktail, a bottle of champaign and it was nearly $200 AUD, which is probably what I would expect to pay for three in Australia as well. I’m guessing because it’s a remote place, Vanuatu’s food is not exactly easy to get and therefore expensive. We found some really delicious cheeses at the grocery store but also some gross expired cheese. We found lots of Woolies (Australian grocery brand) products in the grocery store too.
Alcohol
Tusker is the beer of Vanuatu made locally in Port Villa and in tourist locations it tends to be sold for $5 AUD, 3.50 USD. I drank more beers in the last five days than I have in the last five years. I wouldn’t describe myself as a big beer fan, but the hit or miss cocktails made a refreshing, know-what-you’re-getting cheap beer pretty bloody enticing. They came in bitter flavors (stronger) and lemon which was nice, a bit sweeter. Also, there’s some really nice tasting spirits made in Vanuatu as well. Josie’s bartending skills came in handy, she made incredible drinks combining Coconut Tequila, Bacardi Rum, Pineapple Juice and Passionfruit Liqueur.
Kava
I must discuss another beverage in Vanuatu that’s a big local favorite. Our tour guide Steve said “Coming to Vanuatu and not drinking Kava is like going to Sydney and not seeing the Opera House. If you come to Vanuatu and you don’t drink the Kava, you didn’t go to Vanuatu.” Kava comes from a root, and people drink it all the time. It’s a sedative and locals have different recommendations on the best way to drink it. One piece of advice is the same though: get it down fast. Don’t sip it, slam it. When Willie took us to the Blue Galaxy Kava bar, we paid a couple of bucks for three cups of the murky grey beverage in the pot, served at room temperature. The Kava Bar was well built and maintained with a pool table. There was a long trough with faucets where people can rinse their mouth out after they drink the bitter brew. Bitter it was. Josie and I slammed it down and instantly felt our lips and teeth go numb. Beth was not a fan, so we finished hers. Then we all got more Tusker to wash it down. (Willie was not a Kava fan, so it turns out that not every single Ni Van person drinks the stuff.)
Then everything slowed down a little and Josie and I started to feel relaxed. We’d joked about being nervous and clenched during this trip, and on our last night we “unclenched” during this kava session. It was a body high rather than a head high and nothing like marijuana or really anything else I’d ever tried before. I finally understood how everyone on the island was laid back and on “island time” in a way that just doesn’t happen at home. In retrospect, having the little extra at the end might have been a little bit too much, because we went to the Beach Bar afterwards and it took me a while to come back to earth. I remember sitting at the bar finding it hard to even speak.
Kava was fun enough for me to buy some to bring back, but the taste really is shocking. I woke up early the next morning still feeling the taste in my mouth, almost feeling like it might come up again. But I don’t regret it; it was probably one of the main highlights of the trip.
Nature
The Kava was wild, but the reason Beth brought up us going to Vanuatu to begin with was because of the natural island beauty. We swam in the blue lagoon and under the waterfalls. Just looking at the shells in the clear water was so special, we saw so many starfish and brightly colored little sea creatures. There were heaps of coconut plantations. The Island we were on, Efate is run on renewable energy including coconut oil, solar and wind.
Culture
This is the only country I’ve visited that I guess you could say has successfully “decolonized.” The French and British left in 1980, and the indigenous population, the Ni Vans took over again. It was a peaceful revolution according to our tour guide Steve; they just asked the colonizers for their independence and they said yes, HA! A crazy Ni Van named Jimmy Stevens instigated the “Coconut War” so there was some bloodshed that happened but it was all between the Ni vans not the settlers. On the Vanuatu flag the red color is for the blood shed, the green is for the incredible nature, the yellow is for Christianity as almost everyone on the island is Christian, and the black is for the Melanesian skin color. The Y shape represents the shape of the 83 islands and the images in the middle is for tusks and ferns.
There is still British and French cultural influence of course; all people here either go to English schools or French schools. (In the English schools they teach in English but the language they learn is French. In French schools they teach in French but they language they learn is English. Most people on the island speak both languages, but the native language is a pigeon English called Bislama and across the islands there are 113 dialects. Steve described it as “broken English in French grammar.” The signs you read are in Bislama, you read the language the way you say it, you can sound it out phonetically and understand what it means.
Only people indigenous to each island can own land on said island. So that means that both Willie and Steve can’t own land on Efate Island, as their ancestors are from different islands in Vanuatu. They could lease land in Efate for up to 75 years if they wanted to, but only the Indigenous own the land and only the Indigenous can approve others to lease the land.
Families all live together, often in the same space. When a woman gets married, she marries into the man’s family, and if the man dies and she wants to marry another man she has to get permission from the original family to leave, and her children stay with the original husband’s family. If she wants to get divorced and remarried it's the same. If a man wants to marry a woman he has to bring a dowry usually of livestock, and Willie and Steve joked they are not yet married because they need a bigger dowry.
Both Willie and Steve spent time working in Australia. Steve picked mangos in the Northern Territory and Willie picked asparagus in Victoria. In Vanuatu minimum wage is $3AUD a day and Steve told us what a big deal it was to make $26 or $27 an hour in Australia. “I’d kill myself for that kind of money” he said, implying he’d work nonstop.
Steve also told me that women make up 70% of the Vanuatu population, but didn’t explain how or why. I asked Willie, with families living so close together, how do the parents ever find time to have sex, and he said that they find time as most people don’t work, ha. I believe he said something like 65% of people on the islands are unemployed, so I guess the parents can find a way to make sexy time together at some stage during the day.
Steve said in Port Villa the biggest crime is domestic violence and that is why most men go to prison. There are two main prisons on the island, the high risk (a British prison) and the low risk, a French Prison. The men are so well behaved in the French prison that every morning they drive themselves to do work along the side of the road and then they drive themselves back to prison in the evening.
They told me that drunk driving is legal on the island and there’s no breathalyzer test. Steve joked that you know a person is driving drunk in Port Vila because they are driving straight, despite the potholes.
In Conclusion
Well dear readers if you have made it to the end of this memory/fact dump, I applaud you. I tell you what, hammering this out was almost as much fun as it was actually being there. This is why travel and experience are such good investments. Good memories are better than anything else. The world might be ending soon. AI is taking over. Climate change is happening. Nuclear war looms. Nothing is certain. You can’t take it with you, but you can take some steamy island photos. Travel with mischievous, relaxed fun people who make you feel happy. Drink a few Tuskers and slam down some strange sedative juice. Watch the sun go down; it might not tomorrow.
I giggled through the whole thing! I love it!!
Really impressive ❤️🌴
Love it