FEEJEE EXPERIENCE

Saturday 29th November

Early on Saturday morning, after a disrupted night's sleep, I boarded the Feejee Experience bus to begin my second and final tour of Fiji. This was to be a 4 day trip that would take me the whole way around the mainland, Viti Levu (about 10,500 sq km). Viti Levu houses about 75% of Fiji's population (c.650,000 in total) and is the central location for the country's business and government. Our tour guide for the trip was Reuben, a young local Fijian, and our driver was called Willie, who turned out to be quite a character as the trip unfolded. After a brief introduction and a not-so-technical map-drawing class on the local beach, we headed into Nadi (pronounced Nandi) town to do some shopping before we began our journey. Shopping here, as I have mentioned before, is a lot more hassle than it's worth so I wasn't disappointed to discover that this was only a brief stop. Our first proper stop of the day was Natadola Beach where we were going to have some lunch. This is ranked 7th out of the top 25 beaches in the world and is a huge stretch of white sand and rolling waves. The Fijian schoolchildren had just broken up for the christmas holidays and Natadola seemed to be the popular holiday destination. I spent hours playing touch rugby and footbal with them in the waves and had probably the most fun I had throughout my whole time in Fiji. It was great just to interact with these kids for whom nothing else matters, whether it be race or age, apart from having a great time. After a picnic lunch we headed on our way to our next stop, Malo-Malo village. Outside of Nadi the perception of Fiji is very different, consisting mainly of self-sufficient tribal villages. In the West, where it is drier, the countryside is mainly made up of sugar cane plantations, grown in Fiji since the 1870s. Random livestock are also scattered around the land, not kept in by any fences, such as "bulamacows" (cows - the native Fijians originally couldn't tell the difference between a bull and a cow and so just joined the words together), "osys" (horses) and "mehs" (goats not sheep). Malo-Malo village is a coastal settlement accessed by what was once the main highway in Fiji. This was in reality a gravel path and it would have originally taken over 1 1/2 days to get between Nadi and Suva (now a mere 4 hours). Dressed up in our sarongs (compulsory village costume) and with a flower behind an ear (left if you're single and right if you're taken), we made our way arounf the village, followed closely by a group of excited schoolchildren. In the village there is a church (Fiji is a predominantly Christian nartion), a village green (traditionally sacred for human sacrifices) and numerous shacks. Up until the 1870s cannibalism was widely practised in Fiji, when, after slow progress, the nation converted to Christianity. The only European to be eaten was a missionary in the Nabutautau village, a Reverend Thomas Baker. This man made the mistake of offending the village's chief by touching his head, a sacred body part, and he was duly killed and eaten (whole, including his shoes!) by the local villagers. We got to enter the chief's house where some of the local kids were selling postcards they had drawn and Reuben talked to us about the traditions associated with Kava. After this slice of local culture we moved on towards the Coral Coast, the most scenic area of Viti Levu, along which was our overnight stop. Before going to our resort though we made out last stop at the Sigatoka sand dunes. These mounds are a protected site and are supposedly cursed if you take anything from them. Our activity here was sand-boardinf. The idea behind this is climbing, with body-board in tow, up the side of a dune, before lying flat on the board and pushing yourself off the top. This was great fun and I went up several times, although I couldn't quite master the art of avoiding a fantastic head dunk at the finish. I stood up, sand everywhere, looking, as Reuben put it, "a bit like a native", and Willie refused to allow me onto the bus until he had poured a whole tub of water over my head. We stayed at the Mango Bay Resort, a "flashpacker" hostel with a beautiful view over the Coral Coast. After a sunset kava ceremony, a game of pool volleyball and some dinner, a local entertainment group did some traditional dances before Ali, Pete, some Irish girls and I hit the very deserted nightclub with our cheesy dance moves. It had been a fantastic day!

Sunday 30th November

Today was going to be a very energetic day! After stocking up on breakfast, we headed into Navau where some of us were to do the 3-hour Matakimbal trek through the Namosi Highlands. This track was cut out by a Mr Matakibau and some local lads with machetes just for Feejee Experience. After a very bumpy ride in the back of a pick-up to the start of the track, we headed towards the rainforest with the sun beating down. The first part of the trek was a fairly steep hike up and down in pure sunlight...needless to say it was more than a little hot. The track was mainly made out of clay-like rock and would have been treacherous with rainfall. After about 2 hours, we reached the rainforest proper and began to wade like ducks through the streams. This was very refreshing though after the heat of the previous part. We eventually reached our lunch stop on the banks of the Navau River where we joined up with the others who had taken the longboat down the river. The next form of transportation was tubing over the river's rapids, which were actually fairly strong, to the waterfalls. Here we climbed up the side and dived off into the water below which was great fun. I had several gos at bombing into the normally tranquil water. We then all jumped into a longboat, the main local form of transport, for a spectacular ride down the river, with waterfalls on either side, back to our green bus. Our overnight stop was at Uprising Resort, another stylish backpacker hotel with treehouses as the dormitories. After chilling out on the balcony and eating some dinner, we gathered around to listen to Willie play the guitar before heading off to bed and a much-needed rest.

Monday 1st December

Today we eould be returning to the north of the island via the east coast and therefore it was a long driving day. We made a brief stop in the morning at Suva, the capital of Fiji. It is the political and administrative centre and house 1/2 of the nation's population. It was hence the sight for the 3 major coups of Fiji's history (1970, 2000 and 2006). The 2000 coup was mainly due to bad relations between the indigenous Fijian and the Indo-Fijians. In May 1999 Mahendra Chaudhry became the first Indo-Fijian prime minister and, thinking that their rights were under threat, a group of indigenous Fijians, led by Speight, stormed the parliamentary compound and took the ministers as hostages. Fiji is made up of 52% indigenous Fijians and 48% Indo-Fijians and relations are now for the most part smooth with many aspects of the two cultures merging successfully. This is especially evident in the food which contains a heavy Indian influence. Reuben showed us the changing guard at the presidential palace, the court house and several houses of foregin ambassadors before we headed on our way to Wailotua village along the "Banana Highway". At the village we were welcomed into the chief's home with a traditional "sevu-sevu" (kava) ceremony. At one of these rituals everyone has to wear sarongs while a chief and a spokesman (both men) are chosen from the group. Everyone sits around the kava bowl, the men cross-legged and the women with their legs to one side, while the village's chief makes a speech and accepts the gift of kava root. Then the group's chief is invited to drink some kava. He receives a bowl with a clap and a "bula", downs it in one, and returns it with 3 claps and a "mala" in thanks. The same happens for the spokesman, before some more ritual clapping, and then the bowl is passed around the whole group. After the initial round, the females were allowed to leave for a bracelet weaving class while the men finished off the kava. After it had all been consumed and some groogy-looking boys appeared, we all participated in a cocunut-shaving race. This was a replacement activity for the billibilli rafting because the river's currents were too storng due to heavy rainfall. Unfortunately we were all pretty pathetic at this particular skill and eventually some rather amused locals stepped in to lend a hand. We continued on to our overnight stop at Volivoli Beach and spent the afternoon relaxing on the sandy peninsula. I though had the misfortune to be accosted by a native religious fanatic who more or less tell me I was doomed if I didn't believe in Christ...I don't know how I get myself into these situations sometimes. As it was our last evening we ate dinner altogether before the night's entertainments began. I finally had some luck with the international crab racing, winning a free drink, while my team avoided defeat and the forfeit of skinny-dipping in the drinking games. We then had the pleasure of some belly-dancing by Sasha (our entertainment co-ordinator and a bloke!) before heading down to the beach for a late night bonfire.

Tuesday 2nd December

After the revelry of the night before we all had a lie on and a relax on the beach before our midday pick-up. Due to the main bus having broken down we all had to squeeze into a smaller mini van (not the most comfortable of vehicles) before Willie set us on our way to Ba town, our lunch stop. We went to an Indian restaurant for curry, which, although good, was a little unsuitable for the weather outside. After lunch we headed up to a local orphanage which was run by an Indian reverend. Unfortunately, due to it being the school holidays, most of the boys, apart from 3, and the reverend himself were out for the day, but it was still interesting to hear about the work achieved there. After leaving some gifts for the boys in the main house, we were invited to go and listen to a local boy band, who were rehearsing for a fundraiser for the orphanage. They were indeed very good, despite having no musical teaching and learning everything by ear. After we had left the orphanage we began the final run home with a short stop at the Sabeto hot mud pools on the way. I left everyone here, having opted to stay at Stoney Creek in the Sabeto Mountains for the last 2 days of my trip. This was a beautiful little hotel set in the heart of the mountains and I was upgraded to a private room for being a single traveller. After enjoying the sunset and eating a delicious dinner, I retired to bed worn out by the last few days activities.