It took a long time for us to get to Vanuatu! In fact, it was 24 hours from Vancouver via Fiji (where we had a 9-hour layover). Unlike with many of our travels, we had not really done much research before arrival. We did buy a ‘guidebook’ on Amazon, but we are virtually certain AI wrote it (more A than I), because it was all boilerplate. (More fools us: we should have suspected something given that the author ‘wrote’ 40 other guidebooks!) So we come here with very few preconceptions, ready to figure things out for ourselves. Here are our first thoughts on Vanuatu.
Since one can’t help making comparisons, especially in a new place, our first thoughts were that Vanuatu was something of a cross between Bonaire and Cabo Verde. It has the natural beauty of both places, including water most everywhere you look. It looks a bit wealthier than Cabo Verde but not as spruced-up as Bonaire. And the climate has that sultriness we know from both places.
That said, however, it took only a few days before the place began to take on its own unique character.
The first thing we noticed is how friendly people here are. That’s not surprising in itself (we’ve met friendly people everywhere). What is surprising is just how friendly people are. Stop anywhere on the street and within a minute someone will strike up a conversation. Now whereas in many places this is preamble to an economic gambit, we have not so far found that to be the case here. People are just friendly, and interested in talking to strangers.
The second thing was our fellow tourists. Very few people we know could locate Vanuatu, even broadly, on a map. So we were surprised by the number of tourists here. But, of course, they come not from Europe or North America, but rather from Australia and New Zealand. And there are quite a lot of them, many with families. Some stores and restaurants even have their prices in Australian dollars.
We have lots more to say about food, but for now, we’ll just note that there is an interesting blend of goods on display in grocery stores. For instance, we found Bonne Maman preserves next to Marmite, perhaps indicating two important influences on the place. And in local markets, unlike in many places, the sellers do not badger you as you walk through. One does not bargain, and one does not tip. In fact, tipping can be seen as insulting. (Alas, we discovered this after John insisted upon tipping our taxi driver from the airport!)
Bislama is the official language here, although French and English are both widely spoken. We have a lot to say about languages in Vanuatu too – for now we will just note that Bislama is a creole language based partly on English, and we have enjoyed reading signs and more or less understanding them.
So although we’ll be in Vanuatu only for a few weeks, we can already see that there will be lots of fun things to do, both in Port Vila and elsewhere on this island, not to mention some of the other islands, at least one of which has an active volcano! Stay tuned to see how accurate our first thoughts about Vanuatu turn out to be.
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