What I wish I had known about Malekula (Vanuatu) before going...

Prior to my arrival to Vanuatu I had made some arrangements with the Malampa Travel Call Center. The call center/tourist office is based in Lakotoro and was established only a few years ago. Its main purpose is to help visitors to the northern part of the island to arrange accommodation and transportation, as some of the bungalows only receive a very spotty cell phone signal, and transportation outside Lakotoro is often scarce. The Malampa Travel Call Center has a surprisingly professional website, and all arrangements made with them in advance went smoothly.

I spent the first night in Lakotoro. As others have previously mentioned, there is precious little to do in town. There’s a small cultural center one can visit, but that’s about it. I stayed in the Lakotoro Palm Lodge at the edge of town which was friendly and accommodating. The room went for 2500 Vatu per night per person. A large home-cooked dinner with 3 courses cost 800 Vatu.

The following morning I was picked up as previously arranged through the call center and transferred to Mae to see the Big Nambas cultural show. I was the only visitor that day. Upon my arrival I was welcomed by the chief of the village, as well as the woman who would serve as my guide during my short visit. As the lady was francophone and my French is rather weak our communication was somewhat limited. The cultural show consisted of a series of 7 dances with different themes that lasted about 15-20 minutes altogether. There were roughly 15 dancers participating, most of them women and children. Even though I found it interesting to see the performers present themselves in their traditional costumes and enjoyed some of their singing, I have to say that the whole performance came across as rather stale and lackluster. The two male lead performers made most of an effort, but most everybody else was barely going through the motions with a look of utter boredom on their faces. It was quite obvious to see that they didn’t enjoy giving the presentation, nor were happy to be there. While I can understand that performing such a show can be a bit of a chore for the actors I still felt rather disappointed about the whole experience and wished I hadn’t spent 5500 Vatus + the cost of transportation for seeing it. Later I learned that most previous visitors had very similar complaints about this experience.

After the show I was transferred to Nawori Sea Bungalow opposite Wala Island on the east coast. From Mae it took about 45 minutes of driving to reach it. Nawori has a beautiful setting on a low cliff along the coastline, with great views of the sea and the small islands across the strait. The owner Etienne and his wife are very friendly and hospitable. They are also Anglophone. The room cost 2750 Vatu per night per person. Etienne’s wife prepares local meals based on whatever ingredients are available on any given day, such as omelet with boiled pieces of local pumpkin, or fried spam with local veggies. I paid 400 Vatu for each meal. Upon request the generator is run every evening from 6pm to around 9pm to provide light and electricity for charging batteries. There’s a local Kava bar only a minute’s walk away where Etienne took me for a few shells and a chat one evening, which was a nice experience. A school and the catholic church are located on a hill a 10 minute walk away, which is worth mentioning as the views over the coastline and sea are very nice from up there. If you are there on a Sunday I can also recommend visiting the church service at 8:30am. It draws a large crowd and is held in mostly Bislama, while some of the singing is also in French. It’s nice to observe the villagers dress up and gather in their Sunday’s finest. For me the main reason for going was the singing though, which was soulful and beautiful.

There’s a range of activities that can be pursued in the area. Most notably there is the cultural show of the Small Nambas which I had booked through the Malampa call center in advance. After the disappointment with the Big Nambas I dreaded seeing yet another stale performance, but fortunately everything was quite different this time around. I was welcomed by Veronique, a very friendly young woman who served as my guide during the following 90 minutes. She made a big effort to explain all the proceedings to me, and did a very good job at this as well. Other than with the Big Nambas the Small Nambas are not just about dances. There were different “stations” set up where traditional skills were presented, such as fire-making, weaving, sand drawing, and food preparation. Women freshly prepared LapLap on the beach and Veronique consequently presented me with a nice picnic on the beach to sample the just prepared food, as well as pomelo and coconuts. Compared to the Big Nambas the main and most important difference to me was not only that the performance was so much longer and more varied, but the fact that the performers actually seemed to be having fun and enjoying themselves as well. Everybody was smiling, laughing, and joking around. What a constrast! The tour had the same price as the Big Nambas tour at 5500 Vatu per person but was so much better value.

On another occasion I visited the location of an ancient village / cannibal site on the territory of a local chief. One of the chief’s sons walked me through the bush for an hour to reach it. There’s not much left of the village other than a few large stones and some bones littered here and there, but the guide did a good job making the place come alive with his explanations. There were some circumcision stones that could be seen, and most impressively, the graves of some of the guide’s ancestors. Back in the days the chiefs were apparently buried vertically. If I understood the explanations of the guide correctly a fire was then lit around the head of the deceased and kept burning for 7 days. Thereafter the skull of the dead chief would be separated from the rest of his body and consequently kept under a “sacred” stone. My guide asked if I wanted to see the skull of his great-grandfather, who was the last chief living in this village. He then reached under the rock and carefully took it out, profusely apologizing to the skull for disturbing his piece. The guide explained to me that I was only the third foreigner allowed to visit this site, which was confirmed to me by several sources later. After leaving the bush again my guide took me to his village to hang out with his buddies, drink kava, and have a chat. I paid 2500 Vatu for this tour and was very happy with it.

Lastly I visited Wala Island across the strait from Nawori bungalow for a couple of hours. The transfer to and from the island cost 1000 Vatu, and the tour of the island another 3500 Vatu. Considering the fact that there really wasn’t all that much to see on Wala it was a rather high price to pay. However, as my young guide’s father had just died a few days earlier my money directly contributed to tackling the considerable cost of him having to stage a feast for his relatives and pay for funeral expenses. In that sense I felt my money was well invested. The beach at Wala is nicer than any I have seen elsewhere in Malekula so I spent an hour splashing in the water before heading back to the bungalow. Until recently cruise ships visited this beach once or twice a month, but apparently the chief of the island pissed off the operators by suddenly demanding a much higher fee than previously agreed upon (10$ per passenger per day instead of the agreed 50.000 Vatu flat rate) so the cruise ships left and haven’t returned, which is a loss for everybody on the island.

After three nights on Malekula I was transferred back to Norsup and flew back to Santo. With hindsight I was quite happy with my stay, mostly because of the Small Nambas and the visit to the cannibal site. To me Lakotoro and the Big Nambas were a waste of time and money. For anyone travelling solo like me it may be worth considering that the expenses for the transfers are rather high, and that there really isn’t a whole lot to keep you entertained in some of the quieter places or when the weather turns bad, as it did for one afternoon while I was on the island. I suspect the agencies earn most of their money with providing transfers on the island (e.g. 4000 Vatu from Rano to Norsup airport). In some places it may be possible to catch local transportation instead, but this may be unfeasible if you have a flight to catch as it’s quite unpredictable when they are running.

See my posts about Santo and Tanna if you are interested…

Edited by: Taekyon2

Edited by: Taekyon2

Like the OP my teenage daugther I really enjoyed the Smol Namba part of our visit to Maleluka. Veronique was our guide. It was far more than penis gourds.

I would like to recommend the Malampa Call Centre. They have a web site which gives details of some of the tours that are possible. I found them to be very effiecient and reliable best of all this is organisation has local control and profits are directed locally.