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May 8th - 17th. Fiji Islands
- This Australia lark is clearly getting old, time for a holiday
Rewind a couple of months to the grape-juice drenched B-word days, there was a moment when it looked like the six working days a week trend was set to become the norm and in a blind fit of wealth I booked myself plane tickets to the Fiji islands. As you do. OK, I had a slight ulterior motive, having made her way full circle around New Zealand (which you can read about at blogabond/Lizishere.com) Liz would also be in Fiji at this time, as it happens arriving two hours after I touched down myself. Having not seen her for three and a half months by this point I felt no remorse in reflecting that the grape harvest hadn't paned out as planned and that finances were becoming a bit stretched, it seemed a trivial concern compared to shaveing off a week and a half untill we met up again. And if that wasn't enough reason for the 27 hours of travelling I'd just more or less survived intact through then the massively cheap 47% overproof rum I picked up in duty free could be held up as additional evidence.
The people in Nadi airport seem very friendly. This could partly be because they were trying to sell me things. I passed through the lines of people pushing various resorts and settled on a seat what I thought was an inconspicuous distance away from the nearest taxi rank...this proved to be pure delusion as over the next hour and a bit I was approached by, oh, 900 million taxi drivers asking me where I was going. Making this situation even worse was that I didn't have the fainest idea what the answer to this was, the entire organising of our Fiji mission had been left it Liz's hands, partly because she had done a lot more research than me, for example she didn't have to refer to google maps to find out where the islands are a few weeks before heading there, and partly because I was just being lazy...with the additional benefit of if it turned out to be awful then I would be free of blame and able to hold it against her forever. Repeating this story over and over (and over and over) I was struck by a sudden revelation - what on earth would I do if for some reason she didn't show up? I'd be stuck standing around Nadi airport with no accomodation, no ideas, no clue as to where I was...nothing! It was reassuring to see her come wandering through arrivals not long after then, if simply being happy to see her wasn't enough justification for the journey then the duty free rum she had with her could be held up as additional evidence.
We jumped in a taxi, ironically enough at a different rank from the one I'd been waiting near, and twenty minutes later found ourselves at the Blue Water Lodge, where we'd be staying but a single night before heading off to another island in the morning. The place was some contrast to the past months hostel-land fare, it felt more like a small family owned b&b, such was the small number of people there and the laid back vibe of it all, it was good to arrive at a place and not be handed a rule list or have to coast though a stern 'dont do this, don't do that, definatly don't do that' lecture. Plus there was a pool. And despite Liz's less than optimistic preditions of doom it wasn't raining. The place also served food and so we settled into a seriously tastey evening meal, my initial poping eyes at the prices lasting only untill I remembered I was now operating in Fijian dollars, the act of converting my Aussie dollars into earlier had left me smiling at the bulging size of my wallet. I know that logically I still had the same ammount of cash, actually a little less taking into account the fee, but in the moment I felt almost rich...which as I'm sure you can appreciate is a rare feeling for me!
It was an annoyingly early 6AM alarm call the following morning to give us time to get to a bus pickup point up the road, which took us to the port where we hopped onboard a boat taking us out to Waya LaiLai, the island where we were scheduled to be spending the next five nights. It was a two hour journey, so plenty of time for me to drift off back to sleep then. I was pretty tired so probably could have soundly slept the whole way were it not for Liz waking me up twice, once to point out schools of flying fish next to the boat and then again for the frivolous reason that we'd reached our destination. I don't know why I put up with this kind of behaviour some times. To complete the final stretch to the island a small motorboat came out and we all carefully lowered ourselves into it (well, Liz looked around confused and then jumped in, rocking the boat violently much to the concern/horror of the staff...but I'd decided to be kind and not mention that) and finished the journey in considerably more turbulant style, slightly concerned that our luggage, which was stacked high at the front in a dangerously unstable manner, would meet a watery grave.
Thankfully this didn't come to pass and before long we were happily installed in our bure, a kind of thatched hut on the beachfront where under a large elaborate series of decorated beams lay such previously unimaginable luxurys as a private toilet, shower (although hot water was non-existant and would quickly become something to be dreamt about), table, chairs, tonees of space....closet, sink and, far from least, REAL towels! Don't get me wrong, the travel towel I have is great for its purpose, folding up tiny and drying in minutes, but it doesn't exactly feel warm. At all. Ha, communal living has lowered my standards of what I find luxury so much that upon my return to the Uk I'll probably be stuck awe struck in my room (MY room...the hedonism) for a month. Needless to say this will likely leave me unable to look for a job for said time...but you've got to factor in reaclimitisation, I hear if you don't leave enough time for that there can be serious health defecits...yeah thats right, I think it was a month...or was it two?...maybe three...you know, better to air on the side of caution after all...
The island was relativly small, not as miniture as the several single palm tree walk around in thirty second fare we'd passed on route but still much smaller tha other islands, such as the isle of wight or mann, that may (or not) spring to mind. Were it not for the cliffs you could leisurly walk around it in a day. In addition to our resort there were three villages on the island, which along with some more on the mainland collectively own the resort, the only relationship of this kind throughout Fiji. It was good to know that rather than to some annonoymous figure back in Aus/NZ our cash was being pumped back into the community that surrounded us. While there were obviously some divisions villagers would wander along the beautiful beachfront and through the bures of the resort at all times, giving it a more intergrated feel, not like we were off in a self-contained enclosure by ourselves.
Food- Mum you keep asking so I'm going to give you a whole paragraph of infromation to mull over! Meals were included in our price of staying and three times a day the sound of beating drums ushered us to the dining terrace to challeneg our shrunken stomachs. With the exception of one night (which you'll have to hold on a little while longer before hearing about) the food was a large mishmax of various western fare, chicken, fish, pasta, noodles, potatoes, vegetables...piled high up on the plate. Finishing was a challenge I never quite pulled off, though I always found room for the pineapple. Another challenge was breakfast, though I'm distainful of missing a free meal the fact that the drums beckoned us at the ungodly hour of 7AM meant it was a tough fight between such a principle and utter laziness...with the later claiming the title more often than not. There was also a 4th drumming in the mid-afternoon for tea and biscuits...a call I responded to less frequently than you might expect.
During the day there were numerous activities on offer, several of which we even did. Snorkelling. Is something I've never done before. It's got to be easy enough right? Well, actually yes...but perhaps the best place to learn was not at a reef twenty minutes motorboat ride away from the island, whilst I did see a fair bit of fishy activity the impact was dulled somewhat by spending most of the time drinking water and coughing it up. The following day I borrowed some gear and took the much more sensible option of learning on the shorefront, just for the sake of irony it now clicked almost instantly and it was cool to see all the different types of fish that reside only ten metres from the beach. Of course it would be even better to be out at the reef...so on our final morning there we headed out once more. It was much better second time around, even if I was a bit our of breathe at the end, and I saw a whole spectrum of multicoloured armys of fish, most memorably massive shoals of thousands upon thousands of fish forming a nearly incomprehensible wave, such repetition upon repetition upon repetition seeming like it must be a trick somehow, as if somebody had placed two giant mirrors either side. And of course there were the sharks as well. I miss my leg (actually it would turn out mosquittos would pose more of a threat to that...but thats something for a future blog...) Actually, of course, they were harmless...but it still occasionally caught you off guard when one swam right past you! If they even noticed our intrusion into their world they didn't show it, going about their business as if they couldn't care lkess. On reflection I'm glad I learnt how to snorkel!
There were two options for hikes to the top of the island, a sunrise hike at 5AM and a sunset one at 3.30PM. Any bets on which one we opted for? It was tougher then we expected, before long sweat was dripping and appreciation of the water bottles at a fever pitch, but thankfully we stopped fairly regularly so didn't veer too close to coronorys as we might. Eventually we neared the top, only a narrow rock face with back-to-the-bottom vertical drops on either side to go...I clambered up onto it, raised myself up, took a look down, reflected that I occasionally fall over between bed and toilet and came to the decision that this was far enough for me thank you very much. Thankfully Liz shares such sentiments, so I'm not alone in my wimpyness...pity about the three other people with us really! Still, the view was spectacular even if we did fall a few metres short of the top! Around the top we could also see fruit bats flying about, which I found pretty cool. Our guide had a different outlook and took to trying to knock them out of the sky with rocks. He never did quite manage it, somehow. The walk down was considerably easier, though you had to be careful not to slip and fool, and we got back minutes before dinner, which for once I felt we'd earnt!
There was also the possibility of weaving in the afternoon. Being a woman Liz jumped at the chance. I did not. And so steretypes are preserved.
Things also happened once dinner was finished, usually involving the resort staff plus more local villagers putting on traditional dances, which were interesting to watch and had a sense of fun, reflected on the dancers faces, that more than made up for the occasional mistakes and confusion. Culture/tradtion should not be held as a strict/solemn concept but instead be allowed to evolve and change in ways like this, dicsuss (2000 word minimum, not including references.) At one point fire staffs were brought into play, its odd to reflect upon the differences in putting on something like this in the UK (which would involve not an inconsiderablely heavy ammount of health and safety/insurance headaches) and the much more 'why not, here we go' attitude on the island. Such added scrutiny does mean you tend to get less errors and less darts backwards as the burning staff slips from the dancers hand and crashes your way however! Still, nobody died...much. Less fun was a guest group dance that just about slid on the tolerable side of embaressment...that is untill they had us stand in a big circle and then take turns to have pairs dance in the middle. At least it was brief, thats all I'm saying.
There was also a short drama about one of the early Christian missionarys to the islands. Again it was ill-rehearsed and seemed for the most part to be irrelivant, all about tooth paste and toilet paper, which I guess provided for a shcoking contrast to the conclusion...where they killed and ate him. Pleasant.
Wednesday night was 'Fiji night'...which did give me pause to wonder where exactly I'd been all week. We took part in a Kava ceremony with the villagers, which is traditionally what you formally do when you meet them. I tryed some kava, which was better than the bad press had made me think it would be, though very, very sour. We then for dinner ate some more Fijian fare than we had been up to this point, I'm afraid I've forgotten what everything was called but do know it involved some root vegetables that they grew further up the island...it all tasted great either way.
In addition to all the put-on activities there was also the simple fact that we were one an island, right by the beach, to enjoy. It apparently wasn't as hot as it could be but to my English self it was never not short and optional t-shirt weather and seeing the imprints on hammock strings on my back became an everyday fact of life. While laying in one I also answered the question of where all the food comes from, quite obviously its boated in...however the sight of a live pig being encouraged off the motorboat was less predicatble!
One final tale of dark intrigue...involving...coconuts! Liz voiced the idea that having the hammocks strung directly underneath the palm trees may not have been the wisest of ideas but the hammocks were just do darm hammock-like that we put such concerns as beyond the extreems of unliklyness...but it turns out the coconuts were just bideing their time. In our final hour on the island, as our possesions sat in a pile and we awaited our boat to arrive, one took aim and plunged towards the earth. It's a good thing coconut eyes are so poor really, it landed harmlessly a metre to the left of the hammock. The noise still made us jump though, plus gave Liz cause to brage about her earlier observation.
However perhaps the nightmare had not yet ended...in a final destination rip off perhaps death, in the evil form of things falling out of trees, will hunt us down to the ends of the world...so far we were meer metres from a huge tonne of leaves,braches etc...that fell from a tree in Cairns a week later...who can say what horrors the future might hold...
Putting such dark thought to the back of my mind we left Waya LaiLai behind us and, after a shakey boat journey stood in the front of the motor boat, I tackled the return journey to the mainland in my favoured style: asleep. Our next destination was a village two and a half hours south of Nadi where we were arranged to stay two nights with a local family. There was some concern of how we were going to get there, Liz had emailed them about the option of being picked up in Nadi but hadn't been able to get online to check out any reply, but thankfully no last minute bus searchs were called for as there was a person waiting in the port with her name scrawled on a piece of cardboard in black marker pen and before long we were driving south. It was a longish journey but, between more sleep, we got to see a lot of the more rural side of the country out of the taxi window, it looked very different from anywhere I'd ever been, people sprawling down the night roads, fruit stalls by the roadside, many buildings I'd be afraid to breathe on too heavily...I really can't do the scene justice, nor should you be able to sum up a whole country in a couple of sentances, but it should have tiped us off that we were heading someplace more supreemly 'other' than anywhere we'd been before...alas such foreshadowing was lost on us as we dozed, worn out from a day steneuosly spent waiting both for and on a boat...
I have to be honest at this point and say I didn't enjoy the villagestay. This was no fauly of our hosts, who were both incredibly friendly and open with us, keeping us fed with an endless stream of food and constantly good-naturedly teasing us to 'eat just a little bit more.' I just couldn't seem to get settled with the whole thing, there seemed to be a constant uncomforable air that made me happy we only had one full day there. I've done a fair bit of thinking about why this was since and haven't really settled on a satisfactory answer, with such things as the liberal guilt of the comparison between the ammount we paid to stay and the ridiculously low wages recieved by those lucky few to have work and the uncomforable traditional male/female concepts being frequent contenders but nothing really explaining the whole thing. It's probably bext to ask me when I get back than for me to write pages of speculation here...at least I'll be able to bring something you haven't read about to the conversation upon my return
After a crazily crammed bus journey back up to Nadi, at one point I was wedged around my bag (which the driver stupidly insisted I take on with me instead of putting in the luggage hold) while on the other half of the seat balaced a woman and two small children, one of them wrapped around my leg. We came full circle and arrived back the the Blue Water Lodge for my final night in the country. It was much the same as the first time around, with added cocktails.
Fiji time - the reason the 8AM bus occasionally shows up at 9. Its a relaxing attitude to life for sure...but one not best suited to international flights. Reception rang me a cab...it'll be two minutes. A much longer period of time passed. It's rung again...it'll still be two minutes. An even longer period of time passes. The first cab is cancelled and another one rang. This one actually has the decency to turn up...only to take me five minutes up the road and chuck me out to wait for another cab as he needs to do another job. Thankfully this showed up seconds later so not much time was lost...not good for my nerves though! I did arrive in the airport on time, just about, and after the slowest check-in ever (involving a call to technical assistance) I was on my way back to Australia, holiday over, back to the real world....
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