Vanuatu: The Land Divers of Pentecost
He looked a little nervous, and to be honest who could blame him. Taking tentative steps out onto the precarious looking strut projecting from the top of the wooden tower, itself swaying in the light wind, he slowly reached the jumping point. He was about 20 metres up. Arms raised high to indicate he was ready, he asked for a song and the party of elders and women behind him responded with a rousing call to action. Visibly inspired by the noise, he squatted on his heels, crossed his arms across his chest, and started to fall forwards. At the point of no return, he pushed off hard with his feet and took to the air, falling in a wide arc until the vines strapped to his ankles tightened, breaking his fall just above the soil below. His head brushed the ground as he swung back towards the tower. He was the last to go and we gave him rapturous applause as his fellow jumpers slapped him heartily on the back. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite as brave as that.
A fitting culmination to the totally thrilling spectacle of Nahgol (Nangol) or ‘land diving’, a tradition amongst the tribes of Pentecost Island going back centuries where men and boys throw themselves from tall wooden towers every weekend for three months each year to coincide with the annual yam harvest. The origins of this bizarre practice, thought to have inspired the modern activity of bungee jumping, are lost in time, but are based on a story of a local woman who, weary of her husband’s tiresome sexual advances, escaped from him up a very tall tree. The randy husband pursued her, so she tied liana vines to her legs and jumped off. The erotically crazed husband followed suit, but rather carelessly neglected to use any vines to break his fall and plummeted to his death. Supposedly, subsequent women started the tradition to honour the original jumper, but their menfolk decided this was far too dangerous and took on the practice themselves (and to make sure they were never ‘tricked’ again). Nowadays, it’s performed from specially built towers and regarded as a test of masculinity, a way to ensure a productive harvest and as a means of earning money from tourism.
Locals gather to greet us by the Banyan tree
Not much on sale today
The warm-up guy gets us going….
‘Jeremy’, vine inspector
Elders lead a rousing rendition of Van Halen’s ‘Jump’…
Unsurprisingly, it’s a bloody dangerous business. Though deaths are rare, injury is not and of the 7 lads and men jumping for us, a couple hit the ground a little heavier than they might have wanted. One looked stunned, another was OK, but had to retire quickly due to a wardrobe malfunction (his lower abdominal leaf arrangement started to fail). Queen Elizabelth and Prince Philp witnessed a Nahgol in 1974 on the same trip that started the Philip ‘cult’, but it was out of season and the vines used were not in prime condition. Unfortunately both vines snapped for one unhappy diver and he broke his back on landing, dying 2 days later in hospital.
No such tragedy here thank goodness, just an ever increasing display of bravado as the younger jumpers (they start at just 8 years old and have to retire at 35) flung themselves from the lowest rungs then handed over to the older, more experienced guys who got the small crowd going by whooping, clapping and jigging around before leaping skywards from the higher positions on the tower. It was a major reason, in fact the major reason, why we’d come to Vanuatu in the first place, and just two hours earlier we were convinced Air Vanuatu had cocked up so badly that we wouldn’t be able to get to Pentecost at all…..
It all stemmed from the cancellation of our flight back from Malekula on Thursday. Not that they bothered to tell us, but we were shifted to a flight the day after, in the afternoon. Our flight to Pentecost was on Friday morning, so we were sure to miss that. But we’d thought of this before and knew we could get a Saturday morning flight to Pentecost if the need arose, so we should have been fine. We emailed and emailed, and Edna phoned the Air Vanuatu offices more than 10 times on our behalf, chasing progress on the change of flights. On each occasion she was told it was in hand. But still nervous that we hadn’t received any confirmation, we opted to take the weekly overnight ferry on Thursday evening, so we could spend Friday in Port Vila. This was partly to ensure we were OK for Saturday (visiting the Air Vanuatu offices seemed prudent) but also as I really needed to confirm whether I had a case of gout or not in my foot – the pain had lessened, but I knew I wasn’t on the right drugs.
Edna’s son Jonathan kindly went out to buy us some tickets for the evening ferry departure and we spent a largely boring day waiting for it to arrive. Then we queued in the heat at the docks whilst cargo was shifted from the ship to shore and more random stuff loaded on via forklifts driven at manic speed and with little regard for anyone in the way. It seemed infinitely more important to perform this little mechanised dance than allowing any passengers to board. To pass the time we chatted to a rather eccentric Bulgarian woman with a six year old child who’d escaped her husband’s yacht as it was making her seasick, though they’d been sailing the Pacific for over 4 months. About 5pm we were eventually allowed to board, chucking the bags into a large metal crate, and discovered that the ship was already very busy with other passengers from Espirito Santo Island. At least we were lucky enough to find a long seat with a space in front, so we knew we’d be able to stretch out and maybe even sleep a little.
The rest of the ship looked like a scene from a refuge camp – women and wailing kids laid out on rattan mats, stuff strewn everywhere, bags, shoes & bodies. All needed to be negotiated over and around to reach the loos, or anywhere else for that matter. Edna had warned that the boat was normally very cold due to an over-active air conditioning system, so very kindly leant us some sleeping bags. We bedded down for the night, Helen on the seat, myself on the floor in front. Little sleep was achieved though – for one the sea was as rough as hell and the ship lurched and crashed with jarring bangs that lifted your body off the floor each time. For another the population onboard were busy conducting an arms-race of gadget noise. When one played videos on their phone, others played them louder to compensate. We were, at least, toasty warm….
About to board the Malekula to Efate ferry (not)
A night on the Malekula to Efate ferry (note handy Russian Railways eyemask)
Docking two hours late at Port Vila, the same charade with cargo was being played out and leaving us all wondering when the hell we could get off. Bizarrely, our favourite taxi driver Ronnie appeared onboard and led us off down a tiny corridor for the crew. He’d apparently got bored of waiting and persuaded the crew to make an exception and let us off early. We routed through the packed metal crate to find our bags then merrily hopped off the boat leaving the rest in limbo. You could feel the stares of envy boring into our backs as we tripped off the gangplank….
So then played out the most frustrating and stressful day of the trip so far. I got dropped off at the clinic and had a blood test done, the doctor assuring me that I’d get the results back at 2pm so I could buy any further drugs I needed before we left Port Vila, knowing we were not coming back into town again. I should have known it was going to be a bad day when the French nurse couldn’t get any blood out of my right arm, though she tried several times and in several places. She eventually managed to get some from my left arm but by then I was already starting to look like a junkie.
Back at the motel, we emailed Air Vanuatu again. Then we rang using the ropey manager’s phone. From my conversation it transpired that absolutely zero progress had been made in changing our flight. It was now 11am. We were told as we’d booked ages ago, our data was not on their new system (we were aghast – a system migration with no data transfer!! Rule number one!!) and it would take some liaison with another department. Oh, and the flight we were due to get back to Port Vila on Sunday, well that was cancelled too (though of course we’d received no notification of that at all). We argued. I ranted a bit. I ranted a lot. We gave them til 2pm to sort it all out….
Somewhat frazzled, we decided to walk into town and do a bit of souvenir shopping for some light relief, even though we were getting that inevitable sinking feeling. It reached 2pm – no phone calls or messages from the doctors or the airline. We decided to divide and conquer. I walked to the doctors and we got our mate Ronnie to take Helen to the Air Vanuatu offices.
At the doctors, Dr Israel had left. The ladies on reception tried to find out what was going on. No test results were there, and none were likely as they couldn’t locate the tester. I hung around for an hour, then an hour more. I complained, a lot, and demanded to speak to the doctor. 20 minutes later he phoned. Sorry no results. He was at least apologetic. I’d paid a small fortune for this private test and was seriously unamused. He promised to phone me and if need be issue a prescription by email that I could use when next at a pharmacy. I said that would be in New Caledonia. No problem, he ‘assured’ me, prescriptions are valid all over the South Pacific. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t believe him. Exasperated, further frazzled and increasingly in pain (the latter being largely psychosomatic I’m sure), I had no alternative but to leave and see what was occurring with our other major issue.
Helen was having no fun either, but at least had the support of Ronnie’s son, Emile, who’d swapped as driver part way to the airport and insisted on coming in with her. The woman Helen was dealing with did not seem to understand the problem, seemingly had no access to put us onto the new system, claimed it would take 24 hours, stated repeatedly that she wanted to leave the office and go home and then that the flight was full anyway. After 3 hours of back and forth between the woman and her manager, there was still no progress and it was now office closing time. Helen refused to budge and demanded to speak to / see a senior manager. One would ring, she was told. No-one believed it of course. We had to concede defeat at this point as despite our efforts, it was just not happening.
Helen left to come back. Meanwhile Edna (who’d gotten the same Friday afternoon flight from Malekula we’d been rescheduled to), turned up at the motel to collect her sleeping bags and see if we wished to go out to dinner. Though we’d been really looking forward to that we had no choice but to turn her down. Helen arrived later and had actually spoken to a senior manger, a guy from Italy who’d been in the job 3 weeks and was already wondering what the hell he’d done, by all accounts.
He promised to help, emailed us several times and with a bit of intervention got us on the wait list for the Saturday flight, though with no guarantees. He emailed the ground staff, advising them of our arrival with a strong request to help us get the flight if it were at all possible. At last, someone taking it seriously and a glimmer of hope. We resolved to turn up and see, having come this far…
Though I was under strict instructions not to drink, at dinner we uttered a few expletives and sank into a few relief beers (which always seems to improve the taste). At about 11pm, our new mate Fabio, who turns out to be Air Vanuatu’s Chief Operations Officer, sent us some dummy ‘tickets’, including a return on Monday. Meanwhile someone else at Air Vanuatu sent us some other tickets for a flight to Pentecost in March 2027. We laughed with mild hysteria and ignored them…
A 4:30am get-up for a flight we didn’t know whether we had or not. We presented our emailed ‘tickets’. The staff gave us boarding passes and not a question was asked. We were dubious and thought bound to be approached later with a ‘sorry but the flight’s full’ conversation. A guy from Oxford struck up a lively conversation with us and we were mercifully distracted for 2 hours. The flight was called. Still no-one approached. We hastily paid our departure tax seconds before the little booth shut, then made our way out to board the plane. Still no-one stopped us. We sat near the front and everyone else boarded. We noticed 2 empty seats. The doors shut and we started to taxi to the runway. Even then we half expected a police jeep to belt down after us, stop the plane and make us get off. Only once we were actually in the air did we finally believe we’d succeeded. The last minute intervention of our Italian saviour had evidently won through.
A miracle with two wings……
We were as happy as a dog with two appendages for the rest of the day. We met Silas, our wonderful guesthouse host, who’d warned us how appallingly bad Air Vanuatu was. “You weren’t wrong”, we told him and he grimly smiled in a ‘I’ve heard it all before’ kind of way. We met American Nick and his Spanish girlfriend Andrea who were both lovely and together we left to see the Land Diving. As you’d imagine, it was especially sweet to be there, and even the party of ignorant Russian tourists who’d flown in on the booked-out expensive private day trips could not dent our enjoyment in the least. It was a real treat indeed.
The beautiful island of Pentecost
Later that day, we combed the beach & I went snorkelling on the marvellous reef just off the shore near the guesthouse. The fish seemed bright and welcoming, though no doubt that was simply my hyper-happy mood exerting itself. Silas asked us if we’d like to go to the local kava bar before dinner and we jumped at the chance.
Unlike our previous kava experience at Yakel village a few days before, this was most definitely the real deal. Silas, along with his cousin Michael, took us to a shack with a beaten dirt floor. It was a dimly lit place, with thin benches around the inside, a ‘bar’ and a couple of home-made bunk beds. We all started with a medium sized bowl of freshly made kava. The kava on Pentecost is highly prized and is a major Vanuatu export as well as a staple of daily life here. As such we were hoping for a more pleasant time, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. A guy behind the bar, having taken our orders, hoisted a dirty white bucket onto the bar top. He dipped the bowls in the grey-brown liquid inside and passed them over. We all downed the contents at the same time. The tingling sensation was profound and we all felt like we’d imbibed something pretty substantial. We waited for a while and had another round, the same again for Nick and myself and a smaller portion for the ladies (unsurprisingly there were no other women there and both were considered honorary blokes for the occasion). We chatted with Michael, who sat opposite wearing a pair of dark shades. “Are you a regular here Michael?” we enquired. “Yes.” “Are you here most nights?” “Everynight, everynight.” “And how much kava do you drink, how many bowls a night?” “Eleven” he said, very specifically, and chuckled. The others round the bar chuckled too. Michael, it seemed, was a regular kava fiend and had all the badges to prove it – slurred speech, eye problems and patchy, stretched and very peculiar looking skin. He also had no toenails.
“Another?” Silas asked. Nick and I looked at each other and another was duly ordered. We’d reached the point where we were bullet proof. The third was downed and off we trotted back for dinner. But between leaving the bar and getting back to the guesthouse, a mere 10 minute walk, we’d all descended into a state of extreme lethargy and an initially mild, but ever increasing nausea. We ate dinner in silence, just trying to concentrate on eating enough to make it look acceptable, though none of us enjoyed anything. We ate what we could, then all of us sheepishly trudged off to bed. It wasn’t even 8 o’clock. Discussing it the next day we all concluded that we’d felt ‘drugged’, and not in a good way.
The Kuzukan Kava Bar
At the kava bar with Silas, Nick and Andrea
Michael at the kava bar
Michael the waterfall guide
A wonderful antidote was found in a morning trip out to a local waterfall. Helen opted to stay as the going was likely to be tough and wet (she’d banged her toe a few days before and suspected it was broken), so the three of us set out with a remarkably cheerful Michael as our guide. “So how much kava did you get through last night?” we asked. “Eleven bowls, eleven.” We needn’t have asked really. The going was indeed a little tough and steep and exacerbated by the burning hot sun. Mercifully, after about an hour, we reached the river that led directly to the falls. Merciful as the shade was blissful, but otherwise the going was tricky. Placing careful footsteps in a fast flowing river that was often only ankle deep, but occasionally up to mid thighs, where deeper pools and slippery rocks proved ever present hazards was a real challenge. We made it up OK, but Andrea stumbled and went under on the return, dunking her bags and phone. The waterfall proved to be 2 waterfalls, one a torrent gushing over a smooth boulder that looked almost artificial, the other a thundering cascade that fell into a deep pool where swimming was simply joy itself. We found a ledge under an overhang next to the falls that we could haul ourselves out onto and marvel at the surroundings. Wonderful stuff. A brief stop at a tiny Jehovah’s Witness church to see Michael’s ‘family’ on the way back. We sat there with wet arses and tried to make conversation though our guide. As conversation wasn’t exactly his strong suit, it proved a little futile, but they were welcoming nonetheless….
The waterfall known as ‘top waterfall number 1’
Approaching ‘top waterfall number 2’
Later that afternoon after another snorkel, Silas informed us that he’d arranged for some lads to show us the art of kava making by hand. We inwardly groaned, anticipating another evening of drug-induced torpor and politely declined to drink any more before we’d even got there. We were led to the local Nakamal, a traditional village meeting house that didn’t seem that different from the kava bar in looks or lighting. In the dimness of the fading light, a couple of boys, aged 16 and 18, who insisted they were not yet old enough to drink, carefully went through the steps needed to produce a potent brew for us. A fascinating process involving the hacking of kava roots with machetes, a careful removal of the outer skin, also with a machete (producing something that looked like chopped ginger), a thorough washing, then a grinding by hand with a stone tool that resembled a lemon squeezer to produce kava ‘flakes’. Unlike in Tanna, the flakes are not chewed by virgins, they’re simply ground to a point where mixing with water can produce a thin liquid. This was then strained through the fine mesh of a coconut husk to remove any specks of soil and presented in a small coconut bowl. We had to try it after all that effort (it took about an hour and half to get this far), whether we wanted to or not. We all had a small bowl, but with a punch that almost knocked us off our feet… Potent though it was, none of us felt anywhere near as bad as the previous night, clearly having gotten used to it already. No doubt a slippery slope indeed…..
Kava roots being machete’d
Purifying the kava
Grinding the kava root fragments by hand
Now relaxed and happy, we didn’t even think about the flight back to Efate Island and Port Vila the next day. We needn’t have worried either – there were 6 people on it. An undignified moment in the garden of the motel to repack our stuff (never good when all your worldly goods are strewn about for all to see), then a difficult bus journey up to the Bon Marche supermarket from where we could catch a longer distance bus to our final destination, the ‘Banana Bay Beach Club’ on the south coast of Efate. We arrived after a rather circuitous route at the Bon Marche to find only one other bus about. Turns out there are 2 Bon Marche supermarkets and this was the wrong one. Another uncomfortable half hour crammed in another tiny mini bus and we eventually arrived in the right place only to find that no-one was going our way. We asked about and a young lad assisted us in convincing someone to take us there – another hour later we’d made it, but at the expense of a considerable amount of sweat and energy.
The Banana Bay Beach Club was nowhere near as dodgy as it sounded. Just a tiny place with only 3 rooms, we upgraded to a lovely minimalist white villa and enjoyed peace and quiet for our final few days, luckily timed against an ever deteriorating weather picture where the wind picked up and howled around the place and torrential rain lashed against our shutters. A world away from Tanna, Malekula or Pentecost.
Leaving Vanuatu was a strange experience. By all rights we should have been glad to be getting out, having gone through some of the most challenging and frustrating days on the trip. But that wasn’t really the case. It reminded us a little of India, or at least the feeling you have of it, where despite its obvious problems and the maddening situations you encounter, you feel a strange compulsion to go back and do it all again. Perhaps, like kava, it’s a flavour of chaos that becomes addictive, despite its dubious taste. Perhaps it’s a reaction to the relief of survival. Or perhaps it’s the Ni-Vanuatu themselves – engaging, with bags of character and in the main as welcoming and friendly as you could wish for. I suspect it might be all of that….
Footnote: As I was sat on the bed writing (this article as it happens) at the Banana Bay place, the mattress suddenly started to shake and wobble all over the place. I wondered what on earth was going on. Poltergeist? Earthquake? Suspecting the latter I rushed outside to see if Helen was OK. She was, but had stumbled over thinking she’d just been clumsy. We discovered later that Efate Island had suffered a magnitude 6 quake. Luckily it only lasted a few seconds and no damage was done. That’s the second quake we’ve had on this trip (last one in Chitral, Pakistan).
Footnote (literally): On the evening of our farcical day, whilst we were liaising with Fabio, Dr Israel called. He’d managed to persuade someone to test my blood that evening and was pleased to confirm that the results were negative – no gout in my foot and no other dugs needed. A bit of good news in the day’s melee, but I’m still none the wiser as to what was actually the matter. Helen’s toe bulged and became an alarming shade of purple, but the pain diminished quickly – a bad bruise, but not a suspected fractured distal phalanx after all….
Simon (21st May 2026)
Sounds like after all that hassle it was worth it! Those waterfalls look gorgeous, i could have done with that this week😅
You didnt fancy giving the land diving a go yourself??
Glad the toes are on the mend and no gout or broken bones
Well i am Exhausted after reading this episode.what a time you had getting to the destination. So glad the toe is better even though the “boil tablets:” didn’t help..so now don’t drink. “Kava” again.whats next i wonder?