Fantasy Islands : It’s Hard to Find an Escape More Remote Than Any of These South Pacific Outposts. With the Current Transpacific Air-Fare Bargains, There’s No Better Time to Go. : Vanuatu: Jungle Adventure

We were threading our way through tanglefoot vines when, suddenly, our dogs wheeled away into the bush. Pathetic squeals could be heard in concert with their excited barking.

Ronni Senmor, barefoot but the more agile of my two local guides, let out a whoop, gave chase and returned hoisting a wild pig.

What luck. Not only might we eat well tonight, we now had another gift for the mountain villagers of Laboncbonc, some of whom were former headhunters whose attitude toward visitors could be somewhat fitful. Just moments earlier down the trail, we had spied a 62-inch wood-tipped arrow apparently lost by the village headman. Now we brought it and the pig along, hoping to win his approval.

Not to worry. Affection comes easily today to the people of this South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, known as New Hebrides until its independence from joint French-British rule in 1980. Their smiles radiate, and their laughter shimmers like the turquoise lagoons that cushion their shores.

Forming a “Y” just below the Equator between Fiji and Australia, the islands of Vanuatu (pronounced Vaw-new-AW-too) were the real-life setting for the musical “South Pacific.”

It’s where James Michener set his wartime tales, where the mysterious John Frum followers still wait for the Great White Ship, where some say boys diving off banyan-tree towers with vines attached to their ankles gave rise to the modern sport of bungee jumping.

But now it’s Vanuatu taking a free-fall into the 20th Century, and there’s a battle raging for the hearts and ways of people like the Small Nambas tribe in Laboncbonc. Tugging one way are the missionaries. Pulling another are the cultural traditionalist who preach preservation.

Modernization has touched off similar conflict around the world where custom remains as strong as it is here in the deep Pacific. And there’s a role to play for the traveler willing to step gently into the fray.

En route to Laboncbonc, the squealing intensified as Alben Ruben, my other guide and interpreter of both culture and language, drew his machete. He slit, gutted and bisected the pig, skewering the two halves with a pole cut from a bamboo thicket. He then wiped his hands on the jungle carpet, picked up the load with Senmor holding the other end, and laughed as we resumed our plodding up the mountain spine.

At some point I fretted again about how the Nambas would receive us--one white stranger with two Nambas who lived an eight-hour walk away down on the coast. “Hey,” said Ruben, laughing. “If they don’t like our pig, we’ll just sleep somewhere else.”

Our arrival in Laboncbonc was timed right, culturally speaking. They potted the last kakae man, or victim of cannibalism, in 1969. The last elder traded his penis leaf-wrapper for Western-style shorts two years ago. Their huts now have frond walls as an improvement over mere roofs that reached to the ground. More ominously, disease and emigration have dwindled their numbers to 24: four families, one widow and a handsome bachelor named Liwah Mendua, who arrived after us carrying a soccer ball up from the coast where the occasional ship brings things from the outside.

Yet, much of their tradition remains unspoiled. Elaborate ceremony still envelops the circumcision of boys. There are rituals for planting water taro, for luring the rains, for hunting a bat they call flying fox, for death. Ceremony still marks their lifelong progression through a series of grades aimed at having power in the afterlife, and an elderly Namba man having passed all 19 steps is considered more godlike than human.

There are no guns in Laboncbonc. The headman, Maro Males, who doesn’t know his age, still keeps the knobby club he used to clobber enemies with in battle. His wife, Lusek Trai, still makes grass skirts she wears in ceremony.

There is no electricity here. Only two of the seven huts have lanterns. Water is carried from the creek. Visitors and villagers alike sleep on the ground, on grass mats or on a layer of banana leaves. Father still teaches son how to draw flame from a fire stick, though nowadays their sweaty labor at this chore is likely to also draw some joshing from those watching: “I’m glad this isn’t a cold morning or we’d be pretty hungry by the time you guys finish.”

And they cook up a mean pig. Ours went into a pit covered by red-hot rocks. Many hours later when it emerged, the meat fell away perfectly from the bone.

To understand how these and other vestiges of traditional culture have become the object of battle, it’s necessary to know some of Vanuatu’s history. It parallels much of the wild western side of the Pacific, where the dark-skinned Melanesians first arrived from Southeast Asia via Indonesia at least 40,000 years ago.

Life before the first white face arrived was a serene voyage through time, spiked regularly by moments of sheer terror. Much as they do today, the people whiled away the days tending their gardens of yams and taro, a tuber that is cooked, mashed and then wrapped in pungent cabbage leaves to become laplap, the national dish. Then they’d be off on a headhunting foray or, more often, they’d have to flee from headhunters. Women were kidnaped. Men would be slain. Those killed would be eaten to ward off an attack by the victim’s spirit.

Suspicion and fear prevailed. Coastal dwellers moved into the land’s rugged folds and thick rain forest. Villages became isolated. Today in Vanuatu, there remain more than 115 distinct languages and many, many dialects, scattered over the 74 populated islands. (Locals who have had contact with Westerners are the natural interpreters for tourists. Children can speak some English or French, learned in school.) Distinct customs developed within village borders. The Small Nambas, named for the size of their penis wrappers, laid the bones of their dead above ground. Just to the north live the Big Nambas, whose wrappers were larger, and they have preferred burial.

The Spaniard Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, traveling in search of Terra Australis, arrived in 1606, followed by James Cook in 1768, sandalwood loggers in the 1810s and then labor recruiters who would lure, connive or simply kidnap islanders for the plantations of Fiji and Australia. The exploitation created hard feelings. The first two missionaries set foot in 1839 and were promptly eaten.

But their followers pressed on, as did the traders. Many Small Nambas came down to the coast, where on May 30, 1945, the village of Lawa was created around a mission school. Alben Ruben was 2 when his family migrated. Those in Laboncbonc held out and resisted all proselytizing until shortly after independence in 1980, when one of their own returned from the outside having become a Jehovah’s Witness. For his part, Ruben is trying to preserve the dance, song and customs of his people. His goal is to lure tourists, and his reason might well shock the romantic. “If we can put on a dance, for the tourist, we can make money,” said Ruben.

Since independence, the government schools have charged as much as $300 in annual tuition, a prohibitive sum for many. Illiteracy hovers at 40%. My guide Senmor fell in love with my Nike running shoes, but, saddened though he was, he turned them down as barter for his services to take cash for his kids’ tuition. For the past year Ruben’s wife has lived in the capital city of Port Vila, working as a maid to keep their three children in school.

Cash can be made in urban Vila (pop. 21,000), where there are jobs serving cappuccino to tourists, driving minivan buses for locals, selling papaya or handicrafts. Even modern careers can be found. A former Small Namba highlander now directs Radio Vanuatu.

But the cash economy is minimal for the 135,000 others who live in the more isolated regions where trading ships call infrequently. Visitors to Lawa can eat freely of the papaya and sweet fruit that surround the cacao beans. It has no value to the locals, since they can’t take it to market. The only exportable items are dried coconut, called copra, and to a lesser extent dried cacao beans for making chocolate. Prices for both have plunged. Copra brought 15 cents a pound in 1975; a pound now brings 6 cents.

Ruben, who earns some cash as a guide, is one of 45 field representatives for the cultural center based in Port Vila. Its two-room museum has a breathtaking collection of masks, head wear, wooden gongs, jewelry and photographs. The center is run by Jack Keitadi, a busy man by Vanuatu standards, who fields dozens of phone calls a day. Keitadi has worked there since 1978 and any visitor wishing to see Vanuatu’s wilder side should talk to him first. He’s also at the forefront of the country’s traditional culture movement, which is part preservation--he has collected 1,000 hours of oral history to date--and part activism rooted in vatu, the country’s currency.

“Tourism has always got its good and bad effects, I know,” Keitadi said. “But by utilizing the tourist, the people can help to bring their traditions back. Not necessarily in everyday living, but at special times that would give them an appreciation of their cultural heritage. And by interesting the people of an area to retain their dancing, here is something they can get vatu from, from their own culture.”

Vanuatu brims with the exotic and fascinating. On the island of Pentecost visitors can watch the land-diving ceremonies, which, according to legend, began when the young wife of a tribesman she found unbearable lured him into chasing her off a tall tree. He hit the ground. But she safely dangled in the air, having tied vines around her ankles, and lived a free woman.

Sorcery and other customs run deep on Tanna, the outer island of choice for most visitors because of the active volcano, Mt. Yasur. Its rim can be safely visited at night during eruptions. Here, too, live followers of the mysterious John Frum cargo cult. The most widely accepted explanation of its origins is that the islanders developed a lust for modern goods after American soldiers in World War II left behind mountains of goods. John Frum may have been a supply sergeant whose return they’re awaiting.

Ceremonial dancers and singers from throughout Vanuatu gathered on the island of Espiritu Santo in July for the second annual arts festival, and the third event is expected this summer. Air Vanuatu is safe and efficient, and the $80 flight one-way to Santo or Tanno skims the water dotted with atolls and islets. But the travel companies that arrange trips to such places say that many visitors find no urge to leave cosmopolitan Vila--with all its white sand beaches, spectacular snorkeling or diving, and strong kava, a psychoactive drink made from the root of a pepper plant.

And yet, in a place where time seems to regularly stop, time is short for the visitor keen on experiencing some traditional ways. Kava is getting stiff competition from Tusker, a new local beer. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have 189 members but drew 640 at two recent conventions; various religions have converted as much as 90% of the population. Laboncbonc has scheduled a circumcision ritual for the end of this year, but headman Males said that a more general ceremony scheduled for the same time may well be the last. There are not enough Nambas left to make it work.

Near Lawa is the abandoned village of Melpe, a place steeped in magic and mysticism. Ruben stopped at Melpe’s edge, where he picked up a leafless five-foot branch and said a prayer that allowed us to enter. As we wandered about he explained the significance of the prayer stones, which ranged in size from that of a fire hydrant to a house. There was a sun stone, a famine stone, a stone of birth, a stone to create sickness and death. A circle of stones was used to bring back wellness. Here and there Ruben lashed away the encroaching rain forest vines.

Within a shelter of coral tiles rest a skull and bones that are said to be the remains of the first man to settle the region. This is the holiest place within Melpe, and Ruben grew very still.

Half the natural beauty of Vanuatu is above water. Half is below.

Near Vila are coral gardens with 10-foot splays in jet black or soft reds, wrecks where puppet fish lurk in rusted cavities, walls that drop straight off, and fish of deeply rich colors. World War II wrecks, including the USS President Coolidge, are within easy reach off Espiritu Santo.

This is not the Caribbean, where the coral has been trampled. These South Pacific reefs, which lay under vivid turquoise blankets of sea, are truly wild places in a world well-traveled.

There’s much to be said for mere snorkeling. Paddling around on the surface will keep you bathed in sunlight and much warmer than diving below. Vanuatu lies below the Equator, and during its winter divers who wear insulating skins as well as 1/4-inch wet suits can still end up being cold toward the end of the day’s second dive.

One of the best spots for snorkeling is at Mele Island. It’s a 10-minute drive north of Vila that the ubiquitous taxi vans run regularly for $2 each way. At the shore, which U.S. Marines used for landing practice during World War II, a skiff takes you 100 yards across to Mele for free. The one-acre island has a moderately priced hotel resort called Hideaway. But most of the dozen or so daily visitors come just for the sun, sand and feeding--fish, that is.

At first they look shy. Then they gather about. But wave the hunk of bread you’re holding below water, and the feeding frenzy begins. The littlest fish dart in and out, stealing the wet crumbs. The bold big ones just hover about and grab.

It takes only a few nips to get used to fish lips gently noshing your fingertips. The fish here teem, because the waters around Mele are protected from fishing as a national marine preserve.

When snorkeling off wilder places like Malakula, ask the locals about safety. They bob for shells and know the dangers. Near Lawa I was told that the sharks were friendly. Sure enough, one big one came close but paid me no mind. But just 20 miles north at Bamboo Bay, for instance, they’re known to be more cantankerous.

But for the really big stuff--slow gropers that loll about, unblemished coral fans stretching 15 feet wide, and most wrecks--you have to go deep.

A popular dive is the Star of Russia, just 400 yards off the main wharf of Vila, where an Australian cruise ship ties up every two weeks. Eighty-nine meters long, the schooner sits upright about 40 yards down. We dropped along the buoy rope, gathered our bearings and then swam through the wreck from room to room.

Floating about, feeling its beams, you could almost hear its creaking roll on the currents that used to take it across the Pacific.

GUIDEBOOK

Vanuatu

Getting there: Qantas and Air New Zealand fly direct from Los Angeles to Nadi, Fiji, with a refueling stop in Honolulu (total trip time, 13 hours). Both airlines currently offer special round-trip excursion fares of about $790, with seven-day advance purchase. Air Pacific makes the two-hour connection from Nadi to Port-Vila on the island of Efate for $200 one way. The Port-Vila departure tax is $15. Air Vanuatu makes the one-hour flight from Port-Vila to South West Bay (the airstrip near Lawa Village) on Malakula on Tuesdays and Thursdays for $80 round trip, with a $2 airport tax.

Where to stay and eat: At the top end in Port-Vila is the Radisson Royal Palms Resort, sarting at $110 for a single. At the Iriki Island Resort, on its own island two minutes from downtown Port-Vila, bungalows start at $100. At stately Hotel Rossi in the town center, singles start at $35. For lunch, take a loaf of French bread, cheese and a bottle of French wine to the beach. Elegant French dinners can be had in Port-Vila at Le Rendezvous or L’Houstalet, which serve coconut crab, frogs legs and, of course, escargot.

How to get a guide: Contact guide Alben Ruben through the cultural center in Port-Vila. There are no lodges or guest houses in Lawa Village, but Ruben will sleep with his children to free up his room. There are no restaurants. Bring your own food or eat with the locals. Walking from Lawa to Laboncbonc takes six hours, for about $15 a day guide services. Boys can be hired to carry your bags. At Laboncbonc, you’ll sleep on the ground near a fire because it’s cooler in the mountains. Bring a sheet and sleeping pad.