New Caledonia - Land of mines - Ueli & Alisha

South Pacific – First stop Noumea

After spending a fabulous time with Sir Maui, we had to say our goodbyes and fly to Noumea, New Caledonia, our first stop of the South Pacific Ocean. When we booked for New Caledonia, we pictured pristine beaches, lots of marine life and snorkeling, overwater bungalows, and in general, island life. So, we arrive at Noumea International airport at 11pm and arrange for a taxi to our hotel, about 45mins by car. It’s a little difficult to really feel the island life at night. It had been a long day of travelling so we were just happy to be in a clean room. And after 3 weeks of using shared bathrooms for which we had to step out in the cold and walk at least 50 meters, I must add that we were ecstatic to walk only 5 steps and be able to use a PRIVATE bathroom, Voila!

Rough start in New Caledonia

With lots of language barriers, Ueli overworked his memory trying to remember however much French he could. And me, testing to see if any Spanish worlds could be understood instead of French. In our defense, the first question we would generally ask is “Do you speak English?” and without any sense of sympathy, the blunt response most of the time was, “No” without any effort to help further. Even if we did manage to find someone who understood and spoke English, all responses were still in French. Having spent the first night in Anse Vata, the tourist bay of Noumea, Ueli and I booked for the 3 following days, a hotel in the city centre. The people were a mix of Melanesian, Vietnamese, and Europeans (French). Many differences can be clearly seen when it comes to the neighborhoods dominated by Europeans and neighborhoods with prominently native communities. The city centre, a little rundown, abandoned looking buildings with homeless faces at every corner was a much different story than Anse Vata. In Anse Vata, gated houses and communities with houses on the hill facing the ocean. The gentrification is, unfortunately, fairly inconspicuous.

Huge snake spotted

Crazy price structure – Missing competition

However, this wasn’t the topic that baffled us most. It was the fact that everything, from a burger to a night in a basic, 2-star, hotel cost us an unfairly high amount. This wasn’t true just for the tourist areas but throughout New Caledonia. To give our readers an idea, a night in a 2-star hotel was a minimum of USD 100 and a burger was USD 20. A sim card alone, without any data or call packages was alone USD 60. So, we opted not to have a sim card which was great in one hotel since wifi was provided. When we decided to move again to Anse Vata, the hotel, for which we paid USD 130 provided with 250MB free data after which you could purchase 10GB for USD 25. The only condition, it expires in 24 hours. So, how do we use 10GB of data in 24 hours. We connect all our devices, update all our apps, download movies etc. with still more than half left to go at expiration. What a rip off!!

Road trip – Nothing else than red soil & mines

For one day, we rented a car to drive to the south and explore an ancient village. To our surprise, the country is mostly underdeveloped as soon as you step out of Noumea. Nothing but mountains made of red soil. And eerily quiet. Not even the sound of birds. As we drove 1.5 hours south east, we came across a few mines. Apparently, New Caledonia is a prominent source of nickel and many European mines have well established themselves on the outskirts of this country. Overall, Ueli and I have decided that New Caledonia is, for us, not a holiday destination and we wouldn’t come back.