Teach a man to fish and he'll pay you €2,900 on a twin-share basis

Yours truly at the entrance to the old Niua'Kalo Hotel in 2006

 

When I travelled through the tiny Kingdom of Tonga in 2006, I befriended the resident expat Horst Berger on the island of Lifuka. As we cycled the length of the island, he took me to the former Niua'Kalo Beach Hotel where he bemoaned his lack of money to bring this place, slowly decaying under the hot tropical sun, back to life.

Well, somebody else has done so since: in a Hibernian-Teutonic joint venture, Brian and Sabine of Fins'n'Flukes have done a great job in restoring the place and now offer tourist accommodation in four double and twelve single rooms at very reasonable rates.

I mean, why stay at the vastly overpriced Sandy Beach Resort when you can live it up for a fraction of the price on Coco Beach?

While browsing Sandy Beach's website, I found this little rip-off:

Click to open pdf file in separate window

For a trifling €2,900 they'll teach you how to make a fire, open a coconut, and catch a fish, after which they dump you on tiny Luahoko Island so you can turn yourself into a latter-day Robinson Crusoe.

Ah, and yes, they also give you a mobile phone so you can call them back next morning after you've scratched yourself into a bloody mess during the first night under the stars with millions of mosquitoes and sandflies for company.

Joe and Villa Mamana on Teleki'vavau

From this                Villa Mamana on Teleki'vavau Island in Tonga ...... Hotel Pension Senta in Berlin                             to this!

In February 2012 I received this email from Joe (Jörg) in Berlin:

Hi Peter, I lost Horst's email address - horstberger??@??. Do you have it? Do you know if he sometimes checks it? Regards from a very chilly Berlin, Joe & Lola (formerly residents of Teleki'vavau Island, Ha'apai) Hotel Pension Senta Bundesallee 137, 12161 Berlin Telefon: +49 (0)30 - 850 73 73 Fax: +49 (0)30 - 852 11 66 Email: info@hotel-senta.de www.hotel-senta.de

I first heard about Joe when I visited Tonga in 2006 and quite by chance met Horst Berger who had at one time been caretaker on Joe's property, Villa Mamana, on tiny Teleki'vavau Island.

Joe had come to Tonga in 1994 following a royal visit to Germany by the late King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV. during which the king had invited German citizens to come and live and invest in his tiny kingdom. Joe, a pilot, had been looking for the right place to start his seaplane business in an island country with many islands and sandy beaches with shallow lagoons. He thought the Maldives were too Islamic, the Bahamas too screwed up, Fiji too Indian, but Tonga just right: very authentic, relatively untouched, with nice people and beautiful weather, and foreign investment officially welcomed.

Teleki'vavau, second from left, from the air

However, with the Government delaying the issuing of an operating license for his seaplane, he and his by now Tongan wife Lola decided to wait and in the meantime build, as a support business to their original plans, Villa Mamana on Teleki'vavau. For more than six years he created, single-handedly with just the occasional help from some local fishermen, this most exquisite resort. It must've been a labour of love because the logistics and the costs to transport material and build on this tiny and remote island must have been quite daunting. Finally, he was able to welcome his first $500-a-day paying guests as well as Astrid and Martin, two non-paying "Weltenbummler", from whom he hoped to receive some much-needed publicity.

Eventually, with their two children needing schooling, Joe and Lola put Villa Mamana up for sale and moved to the main island Tongatapu, where there was little else to do but grow some vanilla and look after some cows and papaya plants.

FOR SALEThe Villa Mamana is situated on deserted Telekivava'u Island in the South Seas last kingdom, the Kingdom of Tonga, 37 nautical miles south of Pangai with its regional airport. This almost untouched part of Polynesia offers all the lonely island cliche could suggest: crystal clear waters, rich marine life, lush tropical vegetation, an authentic culture, and absolute peace of mind. The Villa (built in 1999)is right at the white beach and the shallow lagoon which surrounds the island. 3000 sq/ft of villa hold 2 1/2 bedrooms with ensuite marble bathrooms, the great room, two huge decks (which become part of the great room with the french doors opened), and a porch. All facing west to ensure beautiful sunsets over the warm South Pacific Ocean. High ceilings, wooden floors, teak furniture, and the light reflecting from the lagoon give the colonial style building its special charm. Amenities include: TV, VCD, Stereo, Satellite Phone, Fans, Washer, Workshop, Fishing Gear, etc Further down the beach you will find the kitchen house of 700 sq/ft(fully equipped)with a studio, and a smaller house (500sq/ft)which is ideal as caretaker quarter. Included in sale are also a 40ft motor yacht, a 27ft gamefishing power boat, a runabout, and utilities like: Two diesel gensets. Two inverters Two battery banks Solar pannels Desalination system Watertank and much more.

A couple of Americans from Hawai'i bought Villa Mamana, one of whom is Matt Muirhead. They continued to advertise the resort via their website www.villamamana.com which has since gone 'off the air'.

From Villa Mamana's original website

This travel blog, written (in German) in April 2008 by Sandra and Thomas, two Swiss visitors to Ha'apai, mentions Loli (or Lolani, Roland Schwara) , a German who'd come out to Tonga in the mid-1990s, operated a diving school in Ha'apai and was then employed as caretaker at US$3,000 a month by Villa Mamana's new American owners who visited no more than two or three times a year for just a few days. Loli was making his once-a-month three-hour round-trip to Pangai, the administrative centre of Ha'apai, which, at 30 knots, cost 100 litres/hour of fuel, or US$600. At $1,500 a night, he only had three paying guests at Villa Mamana in the last 1-1/2 years and perhaps felt a bit lonely because he invited our Swiss travellers to stay on the island for a month for free and even offered them a few months' paid work as relieving caretakers!

According to a passing yachtie's blog dated 24 July 2010, "Telekivavau used to have a one guest house resort on it but the people have left and everything is boarded up, but we managed to tap into one of the water tanks and catch up on washing again. The front of the guest house looked lovely with all our washing strung between the coconut trees out front. There were green bananas and papayas, beans growing along the ground but nothing ripe yet."

And now Joe and Lola have returned to Germany and operate a 'Hotel-Pension' in the centre of Berlin! What I like to know is how somebody who's lived for over a decade in the South Seas can put up with the cold and crammed lifestyle in Germany? As he writes, "We all had the best time of our lives on the island, and will always miss it - unless we find another island and build a 'Villa Mamana Lite' just for us."

If home is where the heart is, where is Joe's heart and where is his home? The South Sea Islands are great cannibals; they have eaten the hearts of many of their visitors, who will never be wholly at home anywhere else again.

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Steve, with whom Joe is still in contact and whom he describes as "a nice man, doing what I wish I could do", arrived on Telekivava'u in November 2003 and was the island's longest-serving caretaker, staying there for three to four years. Afterwards he lived for some more years in Vava'u which he has left only recently by boat. He called in at Telekivava'u again and is now somewhere in Melanesia.

 

P.S. The current owner of Villa Mamana, Matt Muirhead, asked me to resurrect the old website www.villamamana.com which I have done although I was not able to secure the old domain name.

P.P.S. Since then Matt's dream of paradise in the South Seas has turned to ashes - see here.

Vale Banjar Hills Retreat!

Klicke auf das Foto um es zu vergrössern

 

"Wir möchten uns kurz vorstellen und erzählen, wie wir unseren Weg nach Bali gefunden haben.

Wir sind Anke und Erik, um die 50 Jahre alt, kommen aus Deutschland und leben seit Mitte 2014 auf Bali, Indonesien. Unser Wunsch zum geeigneten Zeitpunkt Deutschland den Rücken zu kehren stand schon lange fest bevor wir im Januar 2014 Urlaub auf Bali machten. Wie die meisten Besucher haben auch wir uns gleich in diese zauberhafte Insel verliebt und nach einer Woche schon stand fest: Hier wollen wir bleiben.

Der „Zufall“ hat uns ungeplant zu diesem kleinen Stückchen Paradies namens Banjar Hills Retreat im ursprünglichen Norden Balis geführt, in welchem wir nur eine Nacht verweilten. Doch in dieser kurzen Zeit fanden wir heraus, dass die Eigentümer es weitergeben wollten und wir entschlossen uns spontan, zuzugreifen. Eine Entscheidung, die wir bis heute nicht bereuen. Drei kleine, zu vermietende Villen, ein großer erfrischender Pool als Herzstück des Retreats und als Highlight ein Terrassenrestaurant mit atemberaubender Aussicht: Panorama-Blick über den gesamten grünen Küstenstreifen, dahinter in ca. 3 Kilometern Luftlinie Frontal-Ansicht auf die scheinbar unendliche Weite der Java-See. Ein Traum.

Da wir hier ein kleines, intimes Anwesen mit wirklich liebevollem Personal übernahmen, stand fest, dem Ganzen einen persönlichen, familiären Charakter zu verleihen, fern von jedem Massentourismus.

Unsere direkte Nachbarschaft zum einzigen buddhistischen Kloster Balis, dem Brahma Vihara, und den Heiligen Quellen, Air Panas Banjar, gibt auch unserem neuen Zuhause eine ganz einzigartige Note, ein Platz an dem man wirklich „runter kommen“ kann vom stressigen Leben in der westlichen Welt. Hier hat man sowohl die Gelegenheit sich wieder auf sich selbst zu besinnen, sich zu entspannen, sich verwöhnen zu lassen, und/oder diesen Ort als Ausgangspunkt für die Erkundung der Insel zu nutzen.

In den ersten Monaten, in denen uns überwiegend Familie und Freunde besuchten, haben wir die Räumlichkeiten mit viel Liebe zum Detail verschönert und jedem Ort in unserem Hotel eine herzliche und individuelle Note verliehen. Nun sind wir bereit, mit allen Bali-Interessierten unsere neue Heimat zu teilen. Unser Ziel ist es, jedem Gast nicht nur das Gefühl zu geben, herzlich willkommen zu sein, sondern ihm seinen Aufenthalt bei uns zu einem unvergesslichen Erlebnis werden zu lassen. Wir organisieren vorgeplant oder auch spontan vor Ort alles was das Herz begehrt und machbar ist: Trekking-Touren durch atemberaubende Wasserfälle und Reisterrassen, Delfin-Touren mit Sonnenaufgang auf dem Meer, Tauch- und Schnorchel-Ausflüge zu den buntesten Korallenriffen Südostasiens, Dorfleben und Tempel-Kultur des ursprünglichen Balis oder sich zwischen Massagen, Mani-und Pediküre einfach an unserem herrlichen Pool die kulinarische Vielfalt der indonesischen Küche genießen…Auch Kurztrips zu den Nachbarinseln sind problemlos machbar: Schnorcheln und Chillen auf den berühmten Gili-Inseln von Lombok, Komodo-Warane auf der Jagd erleben auf Komodo, oder die Tempelanlage von Bodobudur auf Java zu bestaunen! Alles ist bei uns möglich.

Unser Konzept sieht vor, euch – basierend auf den individuellen Interessen, der verfügbaren Zeit und des Budgets – den Traumurlaub zu ermöglichen, von dem ihr schon immer geträumt habt. Wir werden unser Bestes dafür geben."

 

So schrieben Anke und Erik (Ralf) auf ihrer Webseite banjarhills.com.

Vielleicht war ihr Bestes nicht gut genug oder sie konnten damit kein Geld machen denn die Webseite wie auch sie sind inzwischen wieder weg. Wieder hat sich ein Inseltraum ausgeträumt! Hier ist noch einer dem es so ging: klicke hier.

Ich "entdeckte" Banjar Hills in 2006 - siehe hier - und verbrachte mehrere Wochen über mehrere Jahre in diesem Stückchen Paradies - meistens als einziger Gast denn für die meisten Touristen war es zu abgelegen. Für mich war es perfekt: völlige Ruhe in der ich endlos meine Bücher las und mitternachts im Pool planschte.

Jetzt wollen es die australischen Besitzer zumachen und verkaufen.

Vale Banjar Hills Retreat!

 

 

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