The term ‘South Pacific’ conjures up many images, most of them exotic and alluring, evoking images of booty-twitching girls, deep-sea diving, and exotic rituals, snapshots gleaned from the S. Pac mega-malls of Hawaii and Tahiti. What it does NOT usually evoke are images of incredible vastness and diversity. We’re talking about a third of the planet here, remember? You don’t usually think of New Zealand in the same region, but there it is, complete with Polynesian Maoris. You DO think of Fiji, almost in the breath, but the reality is a bit different. Fiji occupies something of a unique position in the Pacific Ocean, in many ways. For one thing, it’s not Polynesian, like Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, and others. Nor is it Micronesian, probably the least known of the Austronesian groups. It’s Melanesian, like the Solomons, Vanuatu and, to a lesser extent, Papua NG. That means they have dark skin… and a unique culture.
I always assumed that Fiji was a tourism monster, but it’s not, not really, not with a mere half million arrivals a year. And if many of those arrivals are like me, mother-hubbers coming and going to visit the neighbors, then that’s an over-count. Considering some of the political problems they’ve had over the last decade, they may be in a post-peak lull, though it still counts as the nambawan industry in the country. It’s maybe even at its best being used exactly the way I’m using it- as a hub from which to access the other nearby islands. You can do that for a reasonable price with Air Pacific’s ‘Bula Pass’, which allows trips to neighboring island countries for up to thirty days. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Some of those places they fly to only once a week. Others have little or nothing once you get there. What could an island nation of 10,000 souls have? (Answer: 10,000 islands) I know people with that many FaceBook friends.
On my first entry to Fiji I fly in straight from Auckland, NZ on New Year’s Day. After several days of some fairly intense tourism in NZ- about as intense as I get- I could use a day off. That’s a good thing, because Fiji is pretty much shut down for the holidays. After enduring baggage claim Hell- at least an hour, just coming and coming like the P.O. mail, Fijian baggage torture- I finally get the free ride out to my hotel. I’m staying out at Wailoaloa Beach right behind the airport, where there are some half dozen accommodations, mostly backpacker-oriented. That’s okay, but the bus into the town of Nadi isn’t running on the holiday. That’s okay, too, since I can catch it on the way back. There’s probably not much there anyway. Suva down the coast is the main city… maybe I’ll catch it on the rebound, too.
So I do something I haven’t done in a long time, read an entire book in one day. I also do something I’ve never done, read an Elmore Leonard book. That’s out of the way now. Aside from the pencil thin plot line, the only thing I remember is the phrase ‘sensible breasts.’ I’m still trying to figure that one out. Are they touchable, or are they merely reasonable? If novels are judged by the speed that they can be read, then Leonard’s got something there. Give him another decade and he’ll make it. It took me a month to read Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux, author of Old Patagonia Express and proud uncle to the travel genre, and months to read Michener’s Caribbean. Theroux is a good writer, though, if a bit flat for my poetic sensibilities. Michener was torture.
The beach at Wailoaloa is nothing special, so the kids with bucks all go out to ‘the Yasawas’ where life is even groovier, I guess. The ones who stay behind spend most of the day FaceBooking and sun-bathing, taking the occasional pizza break. The rumor is that there’s a Hard Rock Café over at the tourist enclave of Denarau, so conspiracies make the rounds over that. These are back-packers, mind you. Other than that entertainment is limited to the occasional fire show over at Smuggler’s Cove, and the live band next door. Mostly they’re pretty hokey, dancers who can’t decide whether they want to break-dance like yesterday’s hip-hop or get all achy-breaky like Miley’s dad… all the while twirling fire like majorettes in the marching band. And the music is mostly limp renditions of 70’s folk rock, but still not bad for the price… free. But the food is not free, many times the prices available in town.
The poor Chinese guy ten minutes walk down the street has decent Chinese chow for less than $3 and can’t buy a customer, except me. You’ve got to give the Chinese a lot of credit for helping develop much of the third world one shop at the time, one family at the time, selling goods and cooking meals for those with neither the skills nor the resources to do so themselves. Keep in mind that this is nothing new. They’ve been doing this in Asia for years, long before everything was ‘Made in China’. Now they’re exporting the revolution. Here in Fiji, though, they play second fiddle to the Indians, who almost equal the locals in numbers, DID in fact before an army coup by Fijian soldiers sent them scurrying. Ethnic Fijians run the military; Indians run the businesses. It’s called ‘power sharing’ I think.
Next day I kill time again, catching up on some Net, available at the inn… for a price. Mostly I’m making plans for the Solomons, though. It’s the only dicey country of the ones I’ve left to visit on this trip, so trying to do a little advance homework. It should be a piece of cake compared to PNG, though. So I store away my spare laptop, Levis and down jacket, etc. at the inn to lighten my load, since I’m a little unsure about my arrangements in the Solomons, maybe taking a boat ride or two, best to give myself some better odds. That’s prescience, since I didn’t take the boat, but I did need the odds. In general I’m glad I left half my bags in Fiji (one laptop bag, that is), since I ended up winging it a bit, and wasn’t sure of the local attitude. Unfortunately that means I also left my coffee filter-drip rig behind, so couldn’t avail myself fully of the opportunities available with a tea kettle… oh, the cruel irony of fate, there on Irony Bottom Sound.
After the Solomons I have another couple of days back in Fiji before continuing on to Samoa. This time is a bit better. Knowing that Wednesday is ‘kava night’ I forego the interminable wait at the airport for the free ride to the hostel. My time is worth something, right? It pays off. I manage to insinuate myself into a kava ceremony complete with soundtrack, a group called the ‘Kavaholics’ playing folksy Pacific island songs, punctuated by recurring rounds of kava drinking. The gunk itself is pretty tasteless and murky, but the effect is nice, for me at least, a mild stimulant that tingles your tongue and your insides, too. The band’s pretty good, too.
Next day I finally make it into the nearby town of Nadi, interesting enough but hardly ‘must-see’, and made somewhat unbearable by constant hawking and general solicitousness. I think they’re mostly just being nice, but it becomes too much. How many times can you answer the question, “Where are you from?” from complete and total strangers. I don’t mean to be rude, but give it a rest, guys. The Indian sweets seller asked me the same question AFTER the sale, so that’s a clue to its genuine nature. In Thailand a common greeting translates as “where are you going?” I guess this is Thailand’s ‘Bizarro world.’ That’s the nice thing about traveling in Australia and New Zealand. Aussies, Kiwis & tourists all look the same, so you can blend in unnoticeably… at least until you speak.
The best thing about Nadi is the food, plentiful and cheap, and of both types, Indian and Chinese. There’s no shortage of options for a vegetarian, either, so I get a HUGE plate of curried veggies for $4FJD. The only problem is that I’m covered with sweat by the end, the curse of tropical life, especially in the rainy season. Then I find what I’ve been wanting most for the last two weeks- free Wi-Fi, available at the more down-scale of the backpacker inns at the beach. And as fate would have it, the first time in months that I go more than 48 hours without checking my e-mail, of course an important business client contacts me, asking my turnaround time for an order out of Thailand. So my fate is sealed. My reverie is to be interrupted by business; it’s a disease. This would be another of Hardie K’s laws, but I think Murphy got there first…
Next day at breakfast I meet and befriend Jo, a lovely Chinese girl from Sydney, so we hang out together for the day, I showing her the town of Nadi and mostly watching her shop. It’s a never-ending revelation- and source of inspiration- for me to see how the other sex processes life… and merchandise. So when I check my e-mail late in the afternoon, my wife Tang wants me to call her urgently, some sort of emergency I can’t quite make out amidst the somewhat scrambled English (hold the salsa). If anybody knows a ‘smartphone’ with Thai language, please advise. So I Skype her, and it turns out she’s just lonely. It figures. I can’t get away with anything, no matter if it’s Platonic or Aristotelian, Nietzschean or Freudian. It’s my fate again. The minute I start hanging out with Chinese girls, time warps and space compresses, sending out mixed signals to anyone- including myself- who can crack the code. But I digress.
All in all, Fiji’s good, maybe the best of the immediate lot, something of a cultural mix, Melanesian but with Polynesian characteristics, traditional yet modern, all at reasonable prices. Hardie K heartily recommends. I might even go back if I don’t like Samoa… or miss my connection to Tonga, or…