Destination: VANUATU

Untouched paradise

Vanuatu, a South Pacific country formerly known as the New Hebrides, is an archipelago of 83 islands about 800 km west of Fiji and about three times as far northeast of Australia.

 It has all the attributes we in the West think of in the South Pacific: long, empty beaches; the purest white sand; coral atolls fuzzy with coconut palms; ferocious-looking (but friendly) males; sultry females; warm weather year-round ....

 Vanuatu has all that. But it has more: rugged volcanic landscapes, dense tropical rainforests, relics from the Second World War, all in a natural environment that will be a dream for ecology-loving tourists.

 And there aren't many tourists - only about 50,000 tourists a year - because of the distance. That's one of the reasons you should go there now, before it gets too crowded and too spoiled, as it well might.

 Surely, like many people, you've dreamed of leaving the rat race, escaping to the South Pacific and finding your own island - at least, an island you wouldn't have to share with many others!

 Surely you've dreamed of an idyllic existence; of living in a thatched hut, near water teeming with fish or under trees loaded with fruit; perhaps of living like Paul Gauguin, painting the natives whenever you felt like it or doing little else when you felt like that, too.

 Actually, there's much to do in Vanuatu - snorkelling, diving, sightseeing, swimming, some shopping, trekking, boating, visiting volcanoes ... how could I ever forget flying over one of them at night, looking down from the tiny Vanair plane into a fiery red mouth spitting ashes and lava into the air?

 But those are just the normal pursuits. In Vanuatu you can also seek out wild horses, dive into sunken warships, practise Bislama, the pidgin English that's the common language among 115 different languages, and explore age-old villages full of cargo cult followers.

 What's a cargo cult? It's centred on the belief that ancestors or gods will return bearing huge cargos of western goods - like the first Europeans did in the last century.

 One village worships a Coke machine that's been empty for 50 years; another thinks Prince Charles will come and marry one of their women, bringing many presents, of course.

 It struck me as fascinating.

 For another reason, so did Efate, the island with Vanuatu's capital, Vila.

 Wandering around its bayfront main street; through its 24-hour fish, fruit and veggie market, also on the waterfront; up and down this hilly, small town; in and out of its museum-cultural centre, I sometimes thought I was back in Canada.

 I was struck by the unusual number of signs in French and English, and initially I thought the signs were for the tourists.

 But I was wrong. They were a remnant of the old administration, in which the French and the English shared administrative power.

 This unusual arrangement ended in 1980, when Vanuatu became independent. But many of the country's 160,000 Melanesian residents still are bilingual. In fact, they're quadrilingual if you count their tribal language and the pidgin English, sometimes phonetic. One brand of beer, for example, is called Nambawan (number 1). So, as you can see, a good translator might come in handy.

 The French-English years, which included those of the Second World War, when the Japanese and the Allies fought each other all over the South Pacific, including Vanuatu, have left behind a host of fascinating tales.

BOTTOM LINE:

GETTING THERE: You go to Fiji on Air Pacific, a 10-hour flight from Los Angeles, or later this year, from Vancouver. Then it's a two-hour flight on Air Vanuatu to Vila. Vanuatu is a member of the Commonwealth, so Canadians don't need a visa. No vaccinations are required, either.

MORE INFO: Contact the National Tourism Office of Vanuatu, Ground Floor, Lolam House, PO Box 209, Vila, Vanuatu, South Pacific. Fax: (678) 23-889.

CURRENCY: $1 Cdn equals 80 vatu.

DEPARTURE TAX: 2,000 vatus.

VOLTAGE: 220-280, with three-point plugs.

BEST HOTEL IN PORT VILA: Le Meridien, but there are others, in other islands as well.
 
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