Pentecost Nagol - Bunlap

We are planning to head to Pentecost this April and would love to visit a land diving village. LP guidebook mentions traditional diving in Bunlap, which you can hike to across the bottom of the island. Does anyone have any info on this, most particularly WHICH DAY of the week it happens? (I heard 'weekend' - if we arrive Saturday afternoon, will we be too late?)
Are there other traditional villages which keep the nagol traditions, besides the towers they set up for day-tripping tourists near the airport?

thanks!

David

hi david, they usually have the dives saturday mornings as far as i know so you might be too late arriving in the arvo.

I trekked around that area a couple of years ago, not at Nagol time though. All the inland villages (Bunlap, Ratap, Lonlibili) are pretty traditional in terms of dress, spiritual beliefs, customs such as village ceremonies and dances. Trouble is even Bunlap is only 4 or 5 hours' walk from the nearest road at Salap which is only a 1 or 2 hour drive from the airport. So all of these villages, despite looking very traditional, are very used to having tourists come. They will all charge quite a bit for you to be able to attend the Nagol. When I was there they were charging 1000 vatu to enter any village and 10000 vatu (then US$100) to photograph any village. These were laws imposed by a chief that no one was allowed to disobey and even I, a scruffy backpacker turning up on my own, speaking Bislama and with just a local porter for company, was not exempt. It was quite a shock and quite unlike any of the other islands I visited on my 6 weeks in Vanuatu where the hospitality and lack of money-grabbing mentality was quite amazing.

Just looked through the LP guide. Are there really no ferries going to Pentecost? I suppose that might reduce the cost drastically. The travel agencies in Port Vila are charging about 45,000 vatu for the day trip.

the LP guide to Vanuatu is the worst I've ever used. Of course there are ferries and small cargo boats going to Pentecost

The cheapest and quickest way to enter Northern Vanuatu is on the direct flight from Brisbane to Santo which leaves every Tuesday morning. You can fly from Sydney every other day but it will take a little longer and you will pay a little more. In any event it will be less than VT45,000 more.

The land dive tours charter their own planes but you could always take a regular flight. Flights from Vila to Pentecost go every Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and from Santo every Wednesday. The flight from Santo is shorter and costs around VT7,000 and from Vila it is around VT11,000. Once on the ground you can hike to your preferred village. The chief of every village will demand payment. Jumping happens each Saturday in April and May.

The ferry from Vila will be cheaper and take about 40 hours. You will be sitting on the deck and must feed yourself. Take your own mat. It is a pretty good way to meet the locals and maybe their prize pigs or chickens too. The boats leave roughly every 2 weeks and the timetable is a matter of conjecture - there isn't one. One boat leaves from the wharf directly beside the Vila market and the other leaves from Star Wharf which is beside the cruise ship wharf. Go to the office at each wharf and ask when the next boat leaves.

I agree the boats are a great way to meet locals, I'd highly recommend it if you can put up with the total lack of beds and the almost total lack of sleeping space! I took a few boats in Vanuatu and actually some of them do feed you.

There is also a boat from Santo to Pentecost, supposed to leave once a week but almost never does

You're a tougher man than me EddyV.

So it looks like the flight times mean a minimum five day trip (out on Wednesday, back on Monday)

Does anyone know anything about trekking opportunities (Mt Vetmar? anything else?), ideally in the south, but if in the north how easy is it to get a truck down (I know you can trek down from the north to south in 5 days, but we probably wouldn't have time)

thanks!

David

I went to Pentecost last week, so thought I would post some info to help anyone who might be interested in planning a trip there.

The land dive ceremonies are held every Saturday in April, May and June, at around 11am at a tower near the airport in Lonorore. There is apparently a max of 50 tourists allowed, there were around 25 when I was there. There is also a (smaller) tower built at Pangi, which is used only a few times a year when a cruise ship comes in (and there can be over 2000 tourists!)
There are NO towers simply built in villages anymore, diving is only arranged for tourists - which is a pity in a way, but at the same stage, its a genuine and certainly impressive ceremony.

The exception to this is that Bunlap, the only remaining full kastom village on the island, does build its own tower when the yam harvest is completed and have one full day of celebrations with lots of land divers (70-80 divers from a 30-40m tower, compared with 10 divers from a 15m tower at Lonorore). Tourists are allowed to go and visit this (you'll have to pay Vatu12,000, which is also the fee for 'walk ins' at Lonorore), but they have to trek over to Bunlap and its only on one day per year. This can be any day of the week and is not planned in advance. For 2010 they have not yet started to build the tower and couldn't specify when the diving is likely to take place ("when the harvest is finished"), my guess would be late May.

The main options to see the land diving are:

1/ Day trip from Port Vila. Best to go with Air Vanuatu (Vatu36,000), though also run by Unity Airlines (Vatu44,600). The day trip leaves early Saturday, has a bit of time in Pentecost before the land dive, and then lunch on the beach before heading back to Vila. Unity Airlines fly straight out and have lunch on Epi instead (so only spend a couple of hours in Pentecost). Its possible in theory to organise a day trip from Santo, but there are no flights organised, so in reality this is only organised by Mayumi from Wrecks to Rainforest when there is a decent group (because it requires her to pay for the flight diversion of an Air Vanuatu flight). Air Vanuatu contact is David - tours@airvanuatu.com. There are many other tour companies in Vanuatu that offer the trip (sometimes also including a 1-2 night stay, see below), but they all either use Air Vanuatu or Unity, so there is no real point booking with them. As with all Air Vanuatu domestic flights, you get a discount (they say 20%, but its really around 13%) if you have an international ticket (either in or out) with them.

2/ A two night trip, starting in Port Vila and ending either back in Vila or in Santo. You can get David at Air Van to sort this out for you, or you could just book onto the Saturday morning flight from Vila to Lonorore at 8am (which is the same one used by the day tours) and then book a flight on Monday. The Monday morning flight leaves Lonorore at 8:30am and arrives in Santo at 9:20am, before flying on to Vila later in the day.
This is a fantastic option, because you get to see the land diving, but also spend a couple of nights in Pentecost. You can visit the waterfall or the hot springs on saturday afternoon, or just relax on the beach. You'll probably be invited to a nakamal and the local kava is very strong! (though this only applies if you're a man - on Pentecost women are still not allowed to drink kava, unlike Efate or Santo). On Sunday you could visit Bunlap. This is a 4 hour trek each way at a fairly fast pace over hilly terrain. You can arrange a truck from Pangi to Ranwas (1 hour) for Vatu6000 o/w, Vatu10,000 return, which leaves just a sweaty 40 minute trek through the forest to get to Bunlap. Bunlap is a very traditional village where most of the men still wear nambas all the time (unlike in many kastom villages such as Ipai or Yakel in Tanna where they just dress up when tourists are expected), although many of the younger women now wear skirts and t-shirts rather than just the traditional grass skirts. You have to pay Vatu1,000 entry per person, and if you want to take photos its currently a steep Vatu5,000 extra (though its possible they may agree to reduce this in the future).

3/ you could try to combine a trip with visiting Ambrym. There is a supply boat going FROM Pentecost to Ambrym every Tuesday (Vatu2,000), or you can hire a speedboat to take you from Pangi to north Ambrym (Vatu10,000, 1-2 hours) and then another on to western Ambrym for the volcano (Vatu8,000). I'm not sure when the supply boat makes its return journey, it would also carry on to Santo, though this would be quite a trip.

Hope this helps

David

eudjf - are you sure Bunlap is the only remaining full Kastom village in South Pentecost? I spent some time trekking independently around South Pentecost in 2008 and back then there were five full Kastom villages - Ratap, Bunlap, Lonlibili and a couple of others I can't remember the names of. I spent time in both Ratap and Bunlap. When I went to Ratap almost all the men wore just nambas every day and the women grass skirts. By luck in Ratap I happened to witness and take part in a 3-hour 200-person dance where people from Ratap, Bunlap and other inland villages celebrated the opening of a new nakamal (men's meeting house) they had been building for over a year. Given all this, I am very surprised to hear that 2 years later Bunlap is the only remaining full kastom village!