Name: Sunrise Bungalows
Address: Manuapen, Tafea Province ,Tanna Island, Tanna Island, Tanna Island, Tanna Island, 4, Vanuatu
Rating: 6.4

Location

Tanna Airport

Sunrise Bungalows

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Sunrise Bungalows. Isaac's nephew picked us up from Tanna Airport. Unfortunately the road to the other side of the island was under repair and the previous rains had made it unsafe to get there our first day. So Isaac helped us find a place to stay on the airport side of the island and kept us updated on whether or not we would make it to Sunrise, which we did the following day. He arranged all the transport for us and our email communication was excellent before we had arrived as well. The accommodation was clean and comfortable and spacious. Views are beautiful and the breeze is nice and cooling. If you've done your research, you'll know that Tanna is a bit of a rough destination, so don't expect a posh resort. Electricity is by generator and goes out at a certain time, and meals are preplanned. The drive was more than 2 hours in the back of a pick-up truck each way. We enjoyed our room and the tour arranged to the volcano. We felt safe and welcome and would definitely recommend Sunrise Bungalows. The location is ideal for viewing the volcano - you would want at least one night there rather than trying to make the drive back and forth from a farther location. Definitely book ahead when going to Tanna. Gardens are lush and beautiful, very well taken care of.

If your thinking of visiting Mt.Yasur make sure you stay on the east coast. Get away from  the "tourist' Coast of west Tanna and stay in a coastal/ jungle paradise like Sunrise bungalows you are so much closer to the action of the volcano.We visited for 5 nights during the wet season and it rained (a lot) but it didnt spoil our stay at sunrise.The thatched bungalows are reasonably comfortable and waterproof, the mattress on the bed a little thin but sufficient, a flush toilet  and cold water shower ensuite  kept the wife happy,however there are nocturnal furry criters that scurry around the rafters the minute the lights go out, they were also in the dining room,you are in the tropics so its to be expected and a much more up market hotel we stayed at near Tanna airport had the same rodents doing the same thing. the staff were extremely helpful and a lovely bunch. If your lucky enough to  have Peterson guide you to the Volcano or any of the other trips, you have done well, he is a wonderfully knowledgable caring and proud man who made our visits to Yasur all the more exceptional. The meals were good with the exception of the "tropical" breakfast which consisted of coffee,bread and jam every day,I dont know where all the beautiful tropical fruit was that I craved were. Overall a top location with a nice group of staff and I would go back tommorow given the chance, Yasur is Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!

Tanna Island

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Tanna Magic

The other reviews have covered most things. Beds are thin mattresses and a bit short. bungalows are quite nice in a rustic way. Breakfast is jam peanut butter and bread and a cup of tea. Dinner is rice meat and veg, pretty ordinary. Best thing was our guide Peterson who was very helpful. We did a walk to Port Resolution on the first day, swam and had lunch at the beach (chicken rice and vegetables, 750 vt, same as at the market in Dili where is it is 350 vt!) The Volcano was excellent and Yasur put on some great fireworks for us. (Tip- it can be cool at the top, take some walk clothes). 
our only disappointment was being ripped of for dinner at 1500 Vt each which is 4 times what it should be. when we questioned it we were pointed to a brochure pinned up at the entry where they quoted this amount for their "a la carte" menu plus a few other taxes and charges that we thought should have been included in the package. A bit of a disappointing end to what was otherwise a good experience.

Clean, basic, dinner a rip off

This has to be the most remote place that I have ever stayed in, which can be a good and a bad feeling.

The bungalows are about an 1.5 hour drive from the airport. Part of the road is smooth which AusAid has built, and the last part is rough. The bungalows are set back from the main road about 100-200 metres. They are atop a cliff, and you look across the ocean and the coastline. It is beautiful at night to sit and watch the glow of the moon over the water.

The rooms are very, very basic. Some would say chic, others would say shabby. The mattress is quite thin. There were 2 beds but only 1 had a mosquito net, and the beds are short. I'm 5'6" so I didn't have a problem but my partner at 6' said that they felt cramped.
Basic toilet and shower facilities, and as expected the showers are cold. Even though no one would care, going outside with bed hair was a real possibility as there was no mirror in the room. A good idea would be to take insect repellent as the mosquitoes will pick you up and cart you away if you don't have any. 

The meals seem overpriced (1500vt each for dinner) and you don't have an option at all what you want. It is a surprise right up until the meal is put in front of you. It is usually a meat, vegetables and rice. Breakfast is included and because of that it is extremely poor, a huge amount of bread with an assortment of jams and chocolate spread, with tea and coffee. Sunday morning we had a surprise of pancakes.
Breakfast is at 7:30am, lunch at 12:30pm and dinner at 7:30pm.

Upon arrival we were told that the power would be turned on at 5:30pm and turn off at 9pm. All the time we spent there that never happened. The power would come on around 7-7:30 so for about an hour we would sit around in the dark. The rooms don't have lanterns so basically you don't have any other option other than to go to sleep at 9. I had a hard time dealing with basically being told I need to go to sleep at 9. The first night we asked for candles which we were given. All other nights when we asked for candles we were told they had run out, even though every night there was a candle on the table for dinner! Advice: if you don't like sitting in the dark like a fool, bring a torch. Service didn't seem up to scratch. Towards the end of the 5 days we hadn't had any change in towels and they started to smell like, well, old towels really and running out of toilet paper was less than delightful.

Walking to Port Resolution along the coast takes 2 hours. It's best to time your walk back at low tide. We learnt the hard way and got stuck walking back and having to scale a cliff and walk an hour in thick jungle for an hour as the headland had been covered by water with the high tide. We would then walk the 2 hours to Port Resolution and then ask for transport in the town for the journey back.

Our guide Peterson took us to Mt Yasur, Yakel Custom Village and Port Resolution. He has a laid back attitude but he was a good guide, with good English.

At the end of the day, the scenery is beautiful and it is close to Mt Yasur, but 5 days was just way too long. My recommendation would be to stay maybe 1-2 nights here to see the volcano. Any longer than that it starts to feel like a minimum security prison camp. Also think about the option of a fly in-fly out tour from Port Vila if you want to see the volcano, as the money you pay on this would probably work out the same if you stayed here and paid for accommodation, food and transport costs.

Extremely Remote

The short review:everything that has been said so far is true: nice bungalows, lovely beach, terrible breakfast, overpriced dinner, non welcoming staff and so on. The reason I wanted to write this was to warn people about their tour guide, who put our lives at risk and the owner, Isaak nauka who really does not know what is going on in his own business.
If you do not feel like reading the full story, I don't blame you! To cut it short, we were left at the top of the volcano Yasur with our 3 children aged 5, 2 and 1 with no guide, no light, no transport and on the 3rd of June when yasur was very active and reached level 3. We were not stupid tourists, we believed and followed the advice of what we thought was a good tour guide! We are luckly to be in one piece.

We were staying at Sunrise Bungalow on Tanna last week. We were told by the managers (Willy and his wife Mary) that the tour guide (Peterson Richards) will take us to see Yasur sometime in the week. 
We met Peterson on our second day at sunrise. He told us (and the other guests) that the truck for the tour to see the volcano normally leaves sunrise at 4.30pm to come back at 7.30pm for dinner. 
We asked Peterson if it was possible to walk to the volcano in order to see some custom villages on the way in. His answer was positive then we talked about taking the pushchair and he said probably not but he will help to carry our 2 years old daughter and we should leave the baby with Mary. He said he would organise the transport for us but could not tell us the price of a one way journey.
On Thursday 2nd June during breakfast he organised a tour to the volcano with us and the other guests: we would be leaving at 2pm (as we were walking), the others guests 3.30pm (as the go by truck), everybody return for dinner 7.30pm by truck. Unfortunately our baby had a high fever so we agreed to go the next day.
On Friday 3rd June, we confirmed with Peterson at breakfast time (8.30am) we would go today to Yasur volcano as it was organised yesterday. When we saw him at 11AM in the truck for Lenakel we asked him where he was going he answer he was just going to the shop in the next village and he would be here at 2pm as planned.
I should point out that we did not have radio or TV at the bungalow and nobody at sunrise nor the guide told us Yasur was moved yo level 3 on June 1st.
We saw him again at 11am and he confirmed we were going to the volcano with him at 2pm.
However, at 11.30 am we say him at the back of a truck going to Lenakel’s airport, he told us he was just going to the next village and coming back for us in the afternoon.
At 2pm we left our bungalow, with our baby in the pushchair and our 2 daughters aged 2 years and 5 years. Delphine and Mary who were supposed to look after the baby were nowhere to be seen. We decided to walk to the end of the road to see if the guide was coming.
A girl stopped us and told us she was asked by Peterson to take us to the volcano, her name was Dora. She explained that Peterson was supposed to join us there later and that a truck would take us back. We asked her 3 times if she was sure a truck would come, she said yes. 
Peterson had promised he would help our 2 years old to walk, as he was not there we decided to keep our double pushchair with our baby and our 2 year old daughter, our 5 yrs.’ old was walking. We walked for 2 hours to the gate of Yasur. 
The employee at the gate, Michel, asked us why we were not with a transport and we explained we were going by foot and coming back by truck. 
We walked to the car park, on that day Yasur had been very active, it was moved from level 2 to level 3 and we could see that it was very dangerous. We were very annoyed that our guide was not up there as promised as we needed guidance. Dora was very nice but not very experienced and she could not tell us where the safe places were. It was quite scary to be left there with no tour guide.
We arrived at the volcano at 4PM.
At 6pm, Dora phoned Peterson to check when the truck would come; he did not answer his mobile phone.
She tried several times with no success.
For an hour, we were hoping that the truck would come from lenakel after the last plane had arrived. But at 7pm, still no transport.
Dora asked the last car in the car park to take us down but it was full. She asked if the car could take her to the gate so that she could try to ask the gatekeeper for help.
At 7.30pm Dora left us to try to get some help.
We were left with our 3 children including our one year old baby opposite Yasur which was very very active, with no lights, no guide, and no knowledge of where to go and what to do if anything was to happen! We were looking at where we could put the children to sleep safely on top of a volcano!
Yasur was getting too active for us to assume it was safe to stay. We decided to go down at 8pm and walk back. The walk back was very dangerous in the night. My husband let go of the pushchair several times and we ended up losing a bag with some valuables. My 5 year old daughter hurt a leg very badly falling down and I broke one tooth falling face down trying to catch her.
We finally met Dora at 8.40pm near the gate, she had gone to fetch a light and some help. 
Michel, the gatekeeper called a truck.
Fred, the truck driver arrived at 8.45pm and took us back to sunrise bungalow.
My husband was grateful to Fred and paid him 2000 vat for taking us back safely.
Willy, sunrise manager, told us he didn’t know anything and that was it, we went to bed.

That following morning, we realised what happened the night before, we were very angry and were hoping for some apologies.
The guide Peterson was nowhere to be seen. His wife Delphine would not tell us where he was. The manager, Willy, pretended he did not know where he was. We asked if someone would take responsibility for what happened and what we got was: you got a truck back so that’s ok.

We decided that we would not let go without at least an explanation of why nobody picked us up from the volcano and at least some apologies but nothing happened.

On Sunday night, Willy came to see my husband to give him the bill.
Mu husband explained that as we had a terrible experience with the volcano problem we wanted to talk to the boss, Isaac Nauka, about the tour guide who is working for him. Willy did not want to do anything with us so my husband said he would pay half the accommodation now and half when he has the opportunity to talk to Isaac.
On Monday morning we were supposed to have a transport at 8am.
We went for breakfast at 7.30am and Mary and Willy said: we are not calling the report if you do not pay all the money now. I should point out as well that the cost of transport which was initially 10000 changed to 12000 and we were expected to pay or be left there. 
My husband gave more money to Willy so that he would call the truck but still kept 5000 to be given to Isaac after he would apologise.
The truck arrived at 9am. I should also say that on that morning we were not given breakfast and had 3 hungry kids.
The truck driver was Fred, the same that took us back on that evening. H asked if we managed to have some explanation and was shocked that none from sunrise apologised to us.
We went to see Isaac as we demanded in the morning. Isaac di not apologise, he did not mention anything about the volcano problem; instead he asked us to pay 12000 for transport and as I said no he phoned Lydia from the Entani office.
At that point he passed the phone over to me, I told my story to Lydia and when he finished speaking with her he turned to my husband and said, OK we are all good, we forget about everything.

Now, how can we forget that Isaac is employing a tour guide who left a family with 3 children under 5 on top of a volcano getting very active in the night with no transport back, no guide, no light???

We are hoping that our concerns and our experience will prevent any serious problem happening to other tourists in the future.

Sunrise Bungalows

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