Norsup, Malakula Island

[Kyle]The longish sail from Gaspard to Norsup was an easy one. We had enough wind to move us, but not so much we needed to even worry about reefing. We just sat there and let the scenery glide by. We anchored in shallow sand well back from the gently sloping beach. We could see and hear kids laughing and playing, but were too far out for anyone to try swimming to us. The only downside was that we were directly downwind of a rubbish pile someone was burning on the beach. Fortunately, it was someone’s personal garbage and not the town dump, so the fire had burned itself out after an hour or so. Then we could open the hatches again and enjoy some fresh air.

In the morning, we rowed ashore to see the town. Norsup is supposed to be the main town on Malakula, but there wasn’t much town to be seen. The ruined pier stood before a big burned-out building where ovens used to dry copra. Next to it was a smaller original version still in use. Behind them was a very large and important-looking concrete structure, in one corner of which a General Store had nestled with its feeble array of merchandise. Here, we learned that Norsup was a Company town. The store was the Company Store and the uniform houses further along the beach were Company houses. We never quite got the name of the Company, but they harvest and process copra from the surrounding hectares and hectares of very tall, uniformly spaced coconut trees that fill the whole valley.

Norsup bay is a Company Town

From the store, we walked in what we thought must be the direction of the main village, but only found a long, empty road punctuated by the occasional house and too-early-to-be-open-yet kava bars. After an hour or so of this, we arrived at the beach around the corner from where we anchored. We followed it back and finally managed to find some people.

We found the local school, rows of strangely uniform houses and even a market. The veggies were limited and what was available looked a little sorry for themselves, so we passed on stocking up with anything. There was some prepared food for sale, so I bought a wad of banana bread and Maryanne finally got a traditional dish called laplap (For only 150 Vatu ~$1.20 or 95p). Laplap is the national dish (similar to the Mexican tamale, but more flat-round), with various meats wrapped in a manioc/taro/yam dough and all wrapped in leaves from the laplap plant, it’s baked a traditional Ni-Vanuatu ground oven. Like in Fiji, it also refers to any manner of things cooked in said oven.

We found a log by the beach and sat to enjoy our food. Mine turned out not as I expected at all. There was no bread, per se, but instead a thick layer of what I think was probably congealed cassava paste. On top were a layer of bananas that had been cooked until they were dark gray. I took a bite and immediately wished I hadn’t. I can’t speak much about the flavor because I didn’t dare chew or swallow. I couldn’t get past the revolting palette of textures I was experiencing.

Maryanne’s thing wasn’t as nice. It also turned out to be a big, sticky wad of cassava, in the center of which was a small fish. It wasn’t butchered or even cleaned in any way. It came just like out of the ocean complete with head, fins, scales, bones and guts. She tried picking at it for a while to try to find little pieces of meat, but everything inside was pretty well glued together by the cassava, and bones were unavoidable. Additionally it wasn’t hot, or even warm which Maryanne struggles with (her theory being that if it is hot, there won’t be any pathogens to worry about). OK – so our local food trial wasn’t successful, but I guess Ni-Van food hasn’t hit the world stage for a reason.

One of the many great things about Vanuatu is that they have banned single-use plastic. That meant our lunches were wrapped in nice, environmentally friendly banana-like leaves. Thus we felt no pangs of guilt when we chucked the whole lot under the nearest bush for some less discerning creatures to try.

We still had plenty of daylight left, so we went in search of a tourist office of some kind. We had read that there was a cultural village nearby and were hoping to book some kind of tour. We never found it. Instead, we ended up back at the Company Store. We took a look at our map and decided we could make an afternoon of walking to the village ourselves to see what was there.

The walk immediately got long. Widely spaced palm trees with tops two hundred feet up provide almost no useable shade at street level, so our walk became a slog in the baking noonday sun.

Just before our first turnoff, we encountered an above average sized bull in the road munching on some grass. He looked at us, it wasn’t with the countenance of tame dairy cattle, but with what our African safari guide called “angry face” when referring to the water buffalo. He weighed more than a car and looked twitchy and pissed off. Yike!

This bull gave us pause for thought - to run, or not to run?

A truck arrived. The bull faced it off and won. After backing to a safe distance, a guy got out, grabbed a fence post that hadn’t been sunk into the ground yet and, with the help of the truck, herded him through an open gate back into his field. The whole time, the bull looked like he really, really wanted to charge the guy, the truck or us.

Exploring Mae Village

At length we made it to Mae, the village we were looking for. A nice man saw us walking up the road and took us to the house of an equally nice woman. We talked a bit with her in French about what on earth we were doing there. She seemed surprised we had sailed to Norsup and walked all of the way there just to see them. There were no cultural activities going on that day and much of the village was tabu for visitors, so she offered to take us on a tour of the part in which she lived. The village looked like others we have seen – but was much bigger than we expected; it had over 2000 residents, 5 churches of different denominations and a couple of large schools. She then took us on a side trail into the trees to their plantation, where we got to see coffee, cacao and vanilla plants. We were especially impressed with the cacao as we had never seen it growing before. When we got back to her house, we bartered for some veggies. She tried to give us way more than we needed. I only got out of taking it all by explaining that our pack was already pretty heavy and it was a long walk back. She made up for the difference with extra smiles and hugs.

While the kids seem to always want to help - There was at least one who was not so happy to see us (poor thing)

On the dinghy ride back, we encountered a man in an outrigger out fishing with his young grand-daughter. She was maybe two years old. We diverted to say hi. Dad was all smiles, but the poor little girl started crying in terror at our approach and trying to hide behind him on the tiny boat. He said she had done the same thing when he rowed her over to Begonia earlier to take a look. She only managed to reduce it to teary snuffling when Maryanne handed over a lollypop as a peace offering. She took it like she thought it was a trick to get her tasty little fingers in biting range. Poor thing. Her grandfather was really nice, though. We talked as long as we could before it became apparent that the kid’s heart was about to explode from fright and he had to get her out of there.

We stayed another day in the bay by Norsup, but since there hadn’t been much to do, we did not feel the need to go ashore again. That gave us time to get caught up on admin and boat jobs. Then we could get to bed early for the next morning’s sail.