For­merly known as the New Hebrides, Van­u­atu is an inde­pen­dent island chain/ coun­try located 3 hrs NE of Au and 3 hours north of NZ, fairly close to Tahiti, and was going to be our first stop in the Pacific islands. Our flight with Air Van­u­atu from Mel­bourne with a stopover in Syd­ney arrived on time mid Novem­ber, and were wel­comed by a poly­ne­sian music group that played tra­di­tional folk music that imme­di­ately made us feel we were in the Pacific, where dis­tant cul­tures remain strong and embel­ish any trav­eller that arrives there.

It was not rain­ing right then, but had obvi­ously done so very recently and were unfor­tu­nately rewarded with the unwanted answer to the obvi­ous ques­tion: will it rain all of this week? Upon hear­ing “the prob­a­bly yes” Liza and I loooked at each other and then rolled our eyes. Still, all was not lost, as storms in the Pacific are known to appear usu­ally in the after­noons, very much like in any trop­i­cal cli­mate, unless it was the rainy sea­son, which had not started yet. Supposedly.

Our pre-aranged van picked us up after we filed the com­plaint for Liza’s bro­ken suit­case, and were soon at the dock where the small boat would take us to our hotel: the Hide­away Resort (40$ p/p, dorm room), built on a small island 20 min­utes away from port Villa (Vanuatu’s cap­i­tal city) and with a well known coral reef around it. We were look­ing for­ward to days of swim­ming, snorkelling and sail­ing, plus hope­fully hav­ing the chance to learn about the local cul­ture and visit other places or even islands. We had booked 2 beds in one of the dorm rooms, but for­tu­nately it was all for us.

Home for a week

Once we set­tled in we decided to check what din­ing options we would have, and most impor­tant learn about the costs involved because it is well known that life in all island of the Pacific is very expen­sive. And this would be our first shock, as Van­u­atu turned out to be extremely so. Thus, we made our way to the super­mar­ket and pur­chased just enough food to func­tion on sur­vival mode (bread, tuna and fruit), as we still had a few months of trav­el­ling ahead and our bud­get was begin­ning to feel the pres­sure of unex­pected expenses, namely Japan and the flight to Vietnam.

Port Villa is an unin­ter­est­ing cap­i­tal city that does not offer any­thing to the tourist, except per­haps the only cafe at the water­front which enjoys beau­ti­ful sun­sets and has fun activ­i­ties (movie shows) going on plus free inter­net (good stuff in a coun­try that usu­ally charges around 6 USD per hour of use).

We spent the first three days chill­ing out at the resort, snorkelling when­ever we felt like it and read­ing books on the beach when it was not rain­ing, which unfor­tu­nately did not hap­pen as often as we would have wanted.

Snorkelling is good fun

We also checked on Efate island (the island where the cap­i­tal city is, and thus where we were) tours to be made, but at almost 100 dol­lars for a 4 hour tour that did not cover any­thing really inter­est­ing we decided to hold back. Next option was to check out how expen­sive it would be to reach Tana island, the only island in the coun­try and prob­a­bly in the Pacific where a sin­gle tribe still main­tains its tra­di­tional lifestyle, barely wear­ing any clothes and with­out elec­tric­ity. How­ever, at almost 400 USD per per­son for a 2 day tour (yes, two days, as the few oper­a­tors that have it fly you there in one day, take you to the vol­cano, spend the night, take you to the vil­lage the fol­low­ing and fly you back) we again had to dis­card the idea.

It’s a coral beach, not sandy!

See­ing that Van­u­atu was prov­ing to be a tad to expen­sive for us and that we were going to leave the coun­try with­out hav­ing seen any­thing ous­tand­ing or pecu­liar, we chose to visit the nearby water­falls. At 13 USD/ per­son they were not cheap either, but cer­tainly had a charm­ing beauty to them and were a nice back­ground for some good pictures.

So, what is there to do in Van­u­atu? It depends. if you are on a tight bud­get like us cer­tainly not much. Any activ­ity that you want to do will cost you at least 60 to 70 USD and it might not be that inter­est­ing. How­ever I really think that vis­it­ing Tana island and its prim­i­tive vil­lage is a must before it dis­ap­pears, so if you have a chance and the money go for it. Snorkelling at Hide­away Resort is quite good but not the best, although feed­ing the fish can be a lot of fun, and I can­not deny that there is a sub­tle charm in sleep­ing in your own island some­where in the Pacific. My ver­dict? If you have the money head to Van­u­atu only if you are going to visit Tana island as well. Oth­er­wise there are other islands in the Pacific that are less expen­sive ( or can be) and offer much more. Like Moorea in French Poly­ne­sia, for exam­ple. Yes, that’s Tahiti for most of us. And no, it does not have to be as expen­sive as it is famed to be.