Waking up in Vanuatu’s Port Vila to a sight like this, no wonder I was itching to go ashore. In retrospect, I’d say this was the best stop on the Noordam’s South Pacific Island itinerary.
As you step off the gangway, you either go right to join one of the ship’s organised tours, or left to enter a market maze. Haggling is not part of the culture here: the price you see is the price you pay.
Next to this band of welcoming musicians is a currency exchange tent – though it’s not essential, as Aussie dollars are widely accepted. (US dollars too, though the unfavourable exchange rate gives you a lot less bang for your buck.)
Following my nose and several other passengers, I found myself boarding a water taxi for a 15-minute ride (A$5) to town.
Once there, and having fended off several tour touts, I wandered up and down the main street before ending up at the interesting local market.
Post office mural by celebrated local artist Aloi Pilioko; Duty Free Paris Shopping, exactly what you need on a South Pacific island; pidgin signs: first at the Haus Blong Handikraf (handicraft house) and then at the public library
What magnificent avos! If there wasn’t such a ready supply of fresh guacamole from the Tex Mex stand on the Noordam‘s pool deck, I’d have bought a few of these beauties.
Amazing avocados, pineapples, watermelons, yams, groundnuts and long beans at the local market
At the back of market I found a food court where Felina served me some of her impeccably fresh Fishy Fried Fish. It came with a mound of rice, a helping of cassava and – instead of the side-salad promised on the menu – some boiled kai-lan, all topped with a buttery liquid (not margarine, I devoutly hope!).
Women like Felina do all the cooking and serving, while it seems that the men do all the eating and socialising
Best of Vila Tour
I got back to the ship just in time to meet up with Roy for our three-hour tour. The guide, Arthur, an erudite former teacher, explained that Vanuatu was colonised simultaneously by both the French and the English before winning independence in 1980– but English predominates.
He communicates in pidgin with our driver, Carl, because they don’t speak the same mother tongue. Pidgin is the lingua franca; Vanuatu has around 100 different languages – not dialects, he stressed, but entirely separate languages.
Listening to one of his stories, I finally got the meaning of the sign for “kraskets” that I’d seen at the market. It’s pidgin for “grass skirts”. I love pidgin!
First stop is the Nicolai Michoutouchkine & Aloi Pilioko Foundation, an eclectic private collection of South Pacific art, memorabilia, carvings and masks – “a fascinating insight into Melanesian culture”, says the brochure – in a lush and leafy setting.
A weird and wonderful collection of art and artefacts in a lushly tropical setting
You could spend hours browsing this whimsical retreat; and we could have sat for much longer its shady front verandah, looking out at this view.
Next up was Pango urban village on the outskirts of Vila. While we were unsuspectingly admiring two cute little boys in traditional garb, three or four grownup “fierce warriors” burst in on the scene and pretended to attack us. (You have to wonder how many octogenarian cruisers’ dicky hearts have succumbed to this display over the years.)
We found out later that their leader is a cousin of our guide Arthur. Though they don’t look alike, they certainly both have the gift of the gab!
During some variously amusing patter, he sent two teenagers up trees to pick coconuts, de-husked and cracked one of them with a stone, grated the flesh out of the nut with the aid of a grater projecting from the front of a suggestive-looking stool (“from our Chinese friends”, he added mysteriously), then squeezed the cream from the grated coconut and let us taste it.
They also demonstrated starting a fire from rubbing two pieces of “firewood” together, did a welcome dance and got a couple of our group to join in. (No, not Roy and not me.)
This is also where bungee jumping originated, from the traditional practice of land-diving. On Vanuatu’s Pentecost Island, men would throw themselves off 20- to 30-metre wooden towers, with liana vines wrapped around their ankles.
According to legend, the first land-diver was a woman, who’d run away to escape her husband’s excessive sexual demands. She climbed a banyan tree, he followed her, and she jumped down from it with vines ties to her ankles; he jumped down too, but without any vines, and died on the spot.
However, the sport has been reserved for boys since the very early days, we were told: to protect the modesty of knicker-less females when their “kraskets” (pidgin for grass skirts) would fall over their faces. The tower below is a small version that little boys can use for practising their jumps.
In a sheltered area, we enjoyed a spread of cut fruit, coconut flesh and coconut water while the entertainers played and sang several tunes, including a remarkably enthusiastic rendition of “When the Saints Come Marching In”. It was so charming that I emptied my pockets into the donations box.
You’d easily be able to visit our third stop, the picturesque National Museum, on your own, but then you probably wouldn’t be treated to this lovely demonstration of “sandroing” – pidgin for, you guessed it, the traditional art of “sand drawing”, used in daily life to leave messages, explain concepts and teach children. This man introduced us to his art and drew for us three patterns, including a turtle and a canoe.
Every sandroing starts with a grid; the index finger moves fluently and may not be lifted until the pattern is complete; I think this was supposed to be a canoe; and here’s a superb turtle
The other highlight of museum – for me, anyway – was the signs in pidgin:
After a jam-packed day of sightseeing, here we are back at the Pinnacle Bar with our usual tipples – thanks, Chris!
Charming! Sounds like an island to put on our travel list.