Vatulele, Fiji

Story by Karen Walker
Photos by Mikhail Gherman

During her heyday, Zsa Zsa Gabor had a policy of always boarding a plane in stilettos, a killer outfit with matching bag, diamonds the size of chocolates and immaculate hair and makeup. This was back in the good old days when travel was glamorous - state rooms on cruise ships, dressing up for dinner, expansive hotel lobbies, sea planes, matching luggage, Brigitte Bardot walking through the cobbled lanes of Capri in espadrilles, sipping martinis overlooking the Caribbean, and dinner at the captain’s table. Now traveling is cheap and a right of passage for the masses. Heels have given way to those active cushioned sandal things and airports around the world are thronging with middle class families and middle management. Once upon a time travel was the domain of the impossibly rich, powerful, famous or beautiful. It was glamorous, romantic and intoxicating. Now it’s the God given right of every man, woman, boy and girl to go to Kuta Beach once a year to get their hair braided.

I’ve always been obsessed by travel during it’s glamour period and have pursued it in my own little ways but not until recently was I able to live out all my glamour travel fantasies at once. Imagine a combination of “Gilligan’s Island” and Agatha Christie’s “Evil Under The Sun” and there you’ll find the island of Vatulele in Fiji.

The seaplane that takes us to Vatulele from Nadi Airport is straight out of the 50’s, jerky, noisy and very cute. After 30 minutes perched on my little wooden seat, I spot a tiny patch of dense jungle ringed by golden coral sand floating in an aqua lagoon and the whole area ringed again by the dark blue Pacific Ocean. We land in the lagoon and wade to the beach where the Vatulele team are all singing for us and we’re given our first of many many glasses of champagne. Just when I think it can’t get any better they really sock it to me. Walking up the beach to our villa, Mela, our maid, tells me I look twenty-three years old and quickly follows this up by pointing out to me the skinny mirror in the villa’s bedroom. In the span of 10 minutes I’ve become 10 years younger, 10 centimeters taller and 10 kilos lighter. I vow to never leave this place.

We’re staying in ‘The Point’; the large, white, vaguely Santa Fe style villa perched on the rise at one end of the beach with views of the lagoon, the ocean and the entire length of beach. There are two swimming pools just for us (how could we not have two pools? We simply must have one chlorinated and one fresh), a fridge stocked full of MUMM champagne, the air saturated with the smell of frangipani which is absolutely everywhere and our own butler, Tukini, and maid, Mela, living just behind us on call 24 hours a day. Having never had a butler I’m not quite sure what I’m meant to do with him. Of course there’s the obvious stuff; he’s there with our breakfast in the morning and organizing my scuba diving lesson (listen to me … ‘Darling, will you ask the butler to book my scuba diving lesson, please?’) but where do I draw the line? One morning there’s a mosquito in the bedroom at 3 a.m. Do I get up and look for the bug spray or just dial ‘1’ on the bedside phone? On another occasion I get a small jelly fish sting swimming in the lagoon and ask Tukini how long it’ll sting for and is there something I should put on it? I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere the best treatment for a jellyfish sting is vinegar; or is it human urine? Should I ask the butler to pee on my arm?

Dressing up for dinner isn’t expected of Vatulele’s guests but I find that there is just something about the luxury castaway vibe that makes people want to dress up. It must be a Ginger from “Gilligan’s Island” thing (and God only knows I’ve always wanted to be Ginger, never Mary-Anne). Every night in each of the island’s 18 villas the guests at Vatulele go about their preparation for cocktails and dinner and at around 6:30 couples (because it is mostly couples - no kids allowed except for one week a year) appear in the dusk walking down the beach to the bar and dining area. It may not quite be black tie and evening dresses but it sure as hell ain’t shorts and flip-flops either.

After cocktails the dinner gong chimes and we break into two groups. Those who’ve opted for a romantic dinner alone on the beach and those who want to be at the main dining table which is outside overlooking the Pacific Ocean with a picturesque full moon hanging above it. At some stage early on we start to figure out who we want to sit near and who we don’t. It’s like school camp all over again. There’s the rowdy, fun lot and the well behaved, refined lot and as we get to know our small group of fellow islanders it reads like a character list from any Agatha Christie murder mystery. There’s the property tycoon, the spinster sisters from California, the friendly Birkenstock-type Germans and the not-so-friendly hogging-the-tennis-court type Germans, the perfect looking honeymooners and the older couple - her dripping with jewels, a posh accent and a habit of dropping French words into each sentence, him with a limp and walking stick though regrettably no monocle or cravat, which would have suited him well. All we need now is a jewel thief who looks like Cary Grant and a murder victim; however, neither materializes. The only other character required is an impostor and I’m happy to oblige on that front. I’m sure at some point the other guests are going to realize that I can’t really afford to be here and am not really one of their rich and successful tribe and God only knows what’ll happen then. Fiji’s quite proud of its recent cannibalistic history and this worries me slightly so in order to perpetuate the appearance of being rich and completely accustomed to this lifestyle, and to continue with Vatulele tradition, we throw a cocktail party at ‘The Point’.

Now ‘The Point’ is the poshest of the posh. All the other guests are in the handful of bures on the beach, which are of course incredible, but ‘The Point’s’ kind of like the castle above it all what with the live in servants, pools, movie stars’ notes in the guest book and what not. The running gag at dinner and lunch is that we’ve come down from ‘The Point’ to grace the peasants with our presence. Of course, all the so-called peasants could no doubt easily buy my family and me ten times over but I’ll let them believe for a few days that living in this kind of luxury is nothing new to me. As far as parties go there’s never been an easier one to throw. All I need to do is say to Tukini as he serves breakfast, ‘We’re going to host cocktails tonight Tukini, will you organize it, please?’ and sure enough at 6:30 everyone shows up and Tukini pours the champagne and passes the nibbles round and everyone ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ at the luxury we’ve been living in. I show off my pools and skinny mirror and butler and feel very rich indeed. Mikhail reaps his revenge on the tennis-court-hogging German when he asks if anyone can use the pools at ‘The Point’, ‘yeah, of course, you can come up any time and help yourself to anything in the fridge too’; knowing full well that tomorrow we’ll be gone and there’ll be someone new and more deserving in residence who’ll wake up to find Klaus has put his towel on the deck chair and is splashing around for all he’s worth. I’m sure Tukini the butler also does a great job as bouncer when necessary.

Being on ‘Vatulele’ is the closest I’ve ever come to living in a Louis Vuitton luggage ad (you know the one’s with an Orient-Express-type train and a turbaned man wheeling 10 L.V. trunks along the platform and you just desperately want to be there too) and the glamour lasts right till the final minutes. There’s one last cocktail on the beach (my liver hurts) as we wait for our chopper, the Vatulele team sing to us on the sand as we climb aboard and as we lift off the beach and move over the lagoon those guests lucky enough to stay behind wave up to us from the clear, warm water below completely unaware there’s been an impostor in their midst all this time.