So Near, Yet So Far
THE SUNDAY AGE
Saturday July 29, 1995
Done Port Douglas? Been to Broome? Looking for a quick winter break that's a bit exotic? These three are just around the corner, but a million miles away. If you think about it, great resorts are like the rest of the world, but with all the imperfections removed. Inside a resort, there are no traffic jams or queues, no housework or cooking, no work. There's also no guilt: like some world from the past, no-one will tut-tut over the amount of cholesterol you consume at the breakfast buffet, or the fact that you are trying to get a suntan, or drinking a cocktail at noon.
In fact, a great resort will probably encourage you to do all of the above.
Time: 11 am. Place: Grand Hyatt, Nusa Dua, Bali. Weather, 33 degrees. Pool temperature, 31 degrees. A waiter from the pool-bar props up a blackboard announing the cocktail of the week: the `Kelapa', which comes in a coconut. Because you are a long way from home and unlikely to run into anyone you know, you will not feel the least bit embarrassed drinking it. The only thing you will feel embarrassed about, and then, not for long, is that you have come all the way to Bali, but you've barely left your hotel. In fact, you've barely left your banana lounge.
There's nothing to stop you leaving of course, except that everything you need is actually within the grounds. The Grand Hyatt Bali has five restaurants, three bars, six pools, its own shops and night market, a virtually private beach, a kids' club, a health and sports club, nightly entertainment, tennis and activities such as beach games and diving lessons for those so inclined.
It takes more than 10 minutes to walk from one end of it to the other, and three days for us to find one of the restaurants. It's big, but beautiful, with Balinese gardens filled with statues, temples and fish ponds.
This five-star Bali does not come cheap, but it is a bargain. For $XXX per night you'll get luxury you could barely afford at home. The weather is hot, the food fabulous and Balinese service wonderfully gracious. From the moment you arrive, when a lei of frangiipani is slippedaround your neck, and a gong sounded to welcome you, you're surrounded by luxury and beauty.
Should you care to venture out the gates, you'll find stylish boutiques with prices and quality to rival the Hong Kong of old. Should you wish to avoid the hurly-burly of the "you want bemo?" school of sightseeing, there are quality car-and- driver companies, and upmarket cultural and adventure tours available.
The upmarket resort enclave of Nusa Dua is isolated from the bustle of other tourist areas, and was purpose built to attract up-market travellers, and meet their standards. Its footpaths are paved, its nature strips and gardens manicured and its shopping mall filled with air-conditioned boutiques rather than open-air stalls.
But the irresistible atmosphere of Bali still pervades this western vision of paradise. The tinkle of the gamelan and the scent of incense follow wherever you go. Fact file.
Seven night packages to the Grand Hyatt start from $1531 per person, including airfares, from Ansett. Passports must have at least six months' validity. JANNE APELGREN. In three-and-a-half hours travelling from Melbourne, you can be up in the Victorian mountains, somewhere in Queensland, or in a land where they speak French, wear Chanel and have croissants and cafe au lait for breakfast.
New Caledonia's biggest attractions are its French/Melanesian flavor, its warm year-round climate and the fact that it's overseas, but actually closer and easier to get to than lot of our own resort areas.
It also has some of the most perfect beaches in the South Pacific. Many of them are on outlying islands, such as the famous Isle of Pines, the sort of place that could convince you to throw in your day job and become a beachcomber for life. There's only one problem: the price. Paradise does not come cheap. It's not hard to spend $100 per person per day on food, without wine. Charming, but fairly basic native-style bures are often more than $80 per night. You'll find French labels, but not at bargain prices.
What you will find in New Caledonia is a beautiful coastline surrounded by coral reefs, a lush and mountainous interior, good food and restaurants and a wonderful mix of French and Melanesian cultures that make you feel like you're a long way from home, even if you're not. You'll be surrounded by Peugots and Renaults, people toting their daily baguettes home, smoking Gauloises. Curiously, more tourists come from distant France and Japan, than from Australia.
Tourist authorities hope to change that, and have recently hosted 40 journalists from Australia and New Zealand, hoping they'll convince their audiences to visit. New Caledonia's latest drawcard is its first five-star hotel, Le Meridien, set right on the best part of Noumea's pleasant, but far from perfect beach at Anse Vata.
A long, skinny strip of bay beach, with coral and rock over much of its base, it is favored by devotees of two French passions, suntanning and windsurfing.
Le Meridien is an elegant and beautiful medium sized resort, with an attractive pool, three restaurants (one fabulous and formal, another a little more casual but still classy, a third poolside), health club, tennis, watersports and an adjoining casino to open mid-August. It will appeal to those who want to splurge on a romantic holiday where they can eat well, drink French wines, sleep in late, have a massage, lie on the beach and get and get away from it all without getting jet lag. They'll accept the fact that the experience might make their gold cards glow red.
Those looking for a good-value package holiday somewhere warm would be better off going to Queensland or Asia. Those who are well-enough travelled to want to try something different, and well-enough heeled to afford to, will probably enjoy the expeirence. You are, after all, overseas. You need a visa, you get to do some duty-free shopping, and you won't hear anyone talking about the footy, the traffic or the Melbourne weather. New Caledonia is an ideal holiday spot for DINKs (Double Incomes, No Kids).
``The Paris of the Pacific" might have been a good label when things French were more politically correct, but is a bit of a misnomer. There may be much that is French, but New Caledonia is not France. Noumea is very much a Pacific port town, with as many rough and gritty pockets as there are import boutiques. Noosa and Port Douglas are more sophisticated.
But, as you take a day trip through tiny Melanesian villages, to perfect, secluded beaches, you'll see things you'd never see at home. FACT FILE. A seven night package to Le Meridian starts from $1464 per person from Melbourne, including air fares, accommodation and transfers. JANNE APELGREN. YOU can fly halfway around the world in 24 hours, but the real miracle of jet travel is flying to an entirely different world in less than four.
And Vanuatu is a different world. Time has not exactly stood still here, but it definitely passes more slowly, even by the languorous standards of Melanesia. To say the locals are laid-back is a little like saying Italians are demonstrative.
More than the aircraft decelerates when you hit Port Vila's sole runway, which is still mercifully unable to cope with large planes. Vanuatu has yet to be discovered by the sort of tourist whose territorial attitude to beaches or passion for group activities can be such an irritation elsewhere (no names, but you know who).
It has many attractions as a winter getaway, and several are unique. It is, of course, stunningly beautiful: a collection of brilliant green, mountainous islands surrounded by reef and ocean, Vanuatu remains almost totally unspoilt. The winter climate is a balmy 26 degrees, day and night, the water temperature is only slightly lower.
What makes Vanuatu different is its people, with their unique cultural legacy. Until 15 years ago, the islands were jointly administered by Britain and France. So almost everyone is multilingual something of an oddity among a people whose lives have changed little since the Stone Age. They also appear to have been left the best of both cultures: the French, for instance, left their cuisine but not their manners; while the British left their manners but, thankfully, not their food.
It is a fine arrangement, and coconut crab in champagne sauce is a culinary experience you will not soon forget.
There is a lot more to Vanuatu than lazing by a lagoon and stuffing yourself, of course. It's just that, after a day or two, most visitors don't seem to feel compelled to see or do it. It doesn't take long to adapt to the local pace of life, but a whole range of options is available to the resolutely energetic.
Island-hopping on Vanair's Melanesian Connections service is a memorable experience: you can see a live volcano on Tanna Island, dive over the world's biggest army surplus store off Espiritu Santo, or visit the original bungee jumpers on Pentecost Island, to name but a few. Fact file.
Prices in Vanuatu are roughly comparable to those in Melbourne perhaps a little higher but exceptional package deals make it an emminently affordable destination. The recently refurbished Le Meridien Resort and Casino, for example, is currently offering a 13-night package for just $1239.
Air Vanuatu has a weekly direct flight to the capital, Port Vila, from Melbourne. Flying time is just over 3 1/2 hours.
? Andy Walker visited Vanuatu as a guest of Air Vanuatu and Le Meridien Resort and Casino.
© 1995 THE SUNDAY AGE