Fiji: Just say "Bula"
 |
| Flag of Fiji, a member of the British Commonwealth but currently a pariah thanks to a military coup |
 | ||||||||||
| I visited the western part of the largest Fijian island, Viti Levu
Why Fiji?
I could have flown direct from Hawaii to New Zealand. However, in playing around with flight schedules on the internet, I found that Air Pacific, Fiji’s national airline, flies three times per week from Honolulu to Fiji and daily to Auckland. Why fly over the South Pacific without making a stop, I reasoned.
Thus, once I decided on a worldwide itinerary, the Hawaii-Fiji flight was one of the first I booked back in March. I made the reservation with sweaty palms knowing that not being able to get the date I wanted would really screw up my schedule. After all, there was no flight the day before or the day after my chosen date so I HAD to get the flight on Tuesday, 17 July. Turns out I need not have worried as the flight was only about ½ full.
As I only had three nights and two full days on Fiji, I decided to stick to the west coast of the largest Fijian island (Viti Levu) where the international airport is located. I skipped the capital city, Suva, located on the southeastern corner of the island.
Fijian Highway Adventures
My big expenditure on Viti Levu was a rental car. With such a limited time on the island, I wanted to maximize my flexibility. Monkeying around with local buses and sitting around waiting for them wasn’t going to do it for me. Other options were tours by boat to some of the smaller islands or 4WD tours into the mountainous interior. Not only were these options expensive but I didn’t want someone else schlepping me around.
I had reserved a small car through Europcar. They gave me a mid-sized Mitsubishi sedan – not ideal but better than my Hawaiian whale.
Viti Levu’s west coast has an assortment of accommodations ranging from multi-star destination resorts to youth hostels. I had reserved US$30/night private room in backpacker hotel/hostel near the airport as I knew my flight was arriving after dark.
Fiji is a former British colony (the Queen’s picture is on their money!), so they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right. This was my first attempt at driving on the “wrong side” of the road since 15 years ago in Scotland. After climbing into the Mitsubishi, I carefully studied the map to the hotel, pleaded with myself to get into left lane when making a right turn, and headed out into the dark tropical night. My first challenge was a multi-spoked traffic circle. Luckily I found the correct spoke and followed the bumpy road toward town of Nadi going too slow for the people behind me. After about 5km, I spotted the restaurant that was landmark for the road with a small sign which lead to the Sunview Motel. The proprietor offered me a cup of tea which I enjoyed while seated with two friendly local guests and their New Zealand Maori friend who offered to share their dinner with me. I politely declined telling them I’d had a big meal on the plane. Besides, they didn’t seem to have much food, but I was impressed with their kind offer.
The next morning, I headed north to the town of Lautoka where I had reserved another hotel. There is a road near coast around island. It’s mostly a relatively well-maintained 2-lane asphalt highway w/an extra passing lane on steep uphill sections. The speed limit is 80 clicks (kilometers per hour or 50 mph) which was plenty fast. However, the highway between Nadi and Lautoka has a number of rough sections and lots of little construction projects. I’d be cruising along at 80 when I’d come around a corner and have to slam on the breaks for a one-lane section under construction or a big truck lumbering along at 40 clicks.
I didn’t have a print out of the town map of Lautoka with my hotel location pinpointed. My little laptop on the seat next to me was open to a pdf of the map. However, I’d forgotten that the computer screen goes blank after a couple minutes of no activity. So I’d glance at the screen to find my next turn and the damn thing was blank and I’d have to tap the mouse pad which might or might not get me back to the map. After loudly accusing my computer several times of having carnal relations with its mother who was a female dog, I found the hotel tucked at back of a one-way ally. You had to ignore the sign with the “do not enter” symbol to get to it.
Ethnic Tensions?
The Sea Breeze Hotel proved to be modest but very clean and pleasant on the shore (only US$35/night) but there was no beach. The coastal view from my room which cost me an extra couple of bucks was over a mud flat at low tide. I wasn’t surprised as the Moon Guidebook for Fiji advised that the only good beaches on this part of Vivi Levu were on small islands a couple miles offshore which have fancy resorts.
After checking in at 10AM, I took a walk around the town. I had chosen Lautoka because the guidebook said it is not touristy. Instead, it is a center for the Fijian sugar cane industry and has a large Asian Indian population. The Indians were brought to the area by the British in the 19th Century to work in the sugar plantations. Thus, the country has a majority Polynesian and minority Indian population. As I learned later my new New Zealand friends, some of the Polynesians resent the Indians for their economic prosperity and cultural differences. The military which is dominated by Polynesians recently staged a coup after an election gave control of the parliament to a multi-ethnic party. As a result, Fiji has become a Polynesian pariah and many Australians and New Zealanders are spending their tourist dollars elsewhere.
You wouldn’t know any of this from walking the streets of Lautoka. I encountered no soldiers and very few police. People were very friendly, especially the Polynesians. There was no obvious tension and I felt very safe (or was I just very naïve?). Many people I encountered smiled and said “Bula”, the standard Fijian greeting. I smiled and Bula-ed them back. In general I found the Fijians very relaxed and patient. No one honked at me on a couple occasions when I later accidentally blocked a road momentarily while turning around.
The big attraction on my walk through town was a Hare Krishna temple where I was not accosted by shaved-head, twenty-somethings chanting Hare Krishna. My walk was followed by a delicious Indian veggie lunch for about US$4.00.
Photo Ops in Sugar Cane Country
I had planned to drive to a national park in the island’s interior a few miles east of Lautoka but the friendly Fijian lady at the hotel front desk told me that a 4WD drive vehicle was needed to get there. So, instead I drove more than 300km (186 miles) in two days following my usual methodology: driving to places that sounded interesting and keeping one eye open for photo opportunities along the way.
Looking for photo ops was a bit tricky for a couple reasons. Not only did the highway go from excellent to dismal in a few seconds. There were the local drivers who ranged from too slow to insane. There was the usual “Third World” habit of passing on blind curves (“Oh my Dog! Is that wildman who is passing me on this serpentine section of road going to get us both killed?”). I soon adapted to driving on the wrong side of the road and found the Mitsubishi had good pickup enabling me to get some cheap thrills passing huge buses and trucks loaded to the gills with sugar cane. No, I did not pass on blind curves like a local, preferring not to meet Jesus (or more likely Satan) for a few more years.
After lunch in Lautoka, I drove north to town of Ba (not a sheep ranching center, ha ha) in search of landscapes and other photo ops. I was rewarded with river scenes with distant mountains, sugar cane fields, a sugar cane factory with a line of at least 50 trucks waiting to be weighed, little narrow gauge sugar cane trains, and happy school kids. I drove inland on a side road for a few miles until the pavement ended. I wanted to continue toward the mountains but road started getting rough and I got nervous about the car breaking down kilometers from nowhere.
 Ba River Scene 
Sugar cane on rail cars
Back in Lautoka, I had a very good veggie chow mein for about US$7.00 at a Chinese restaurant but my Fiji Gold beer was too weak and boring.
South to Shangri La
Remember the friendly Fijian couple that offered to share their dinner with me? The man had told me of a beach resort south of Nadi with a long sandy beach. “Just tell them you want to look around,” he assured me. “They will let you in hoping you might come back to stay in the future.” Thus, after saying goodbye to the Sea Breeze Hotel, I headed south along the coastal highway back through Nadi and over forested mountains before the highway dropped down to the coast at Cuvu where I found the Shangri La Resort. A friendly young Fijian woman offered me a visitor’s badge in exchange for my passport and pointed me in the direction of the beach. It was a huge, self-contained resort including a crowded beach with a ½ mile-long deserted beach beyond, acres of two-story buildings with hotel rooms (each with their own patio or deck), luxury cabanas, several swimming pools, a dive shop/water sports center, several upscale restaurants, a convention center, large spa, golf course, wedding chapel, and even a tsunami assembly area on a low hill behind the restaurants.
The resort appeared to cater to Aussie and Kiwi (New Zealander) guests judging by the accents I heard while walking around the grounds past tropical drink-sipping white bodies on deck chairs, “posing” teenagers, and hordes of squealing children. Like me, they must not have heard about the tourist boycott of Fiji, had made their non-refundable deposits months in advance, or didn’t care about political boycott stuff. I must have been a strange sight in my long cargo pants, long-sleeved khaki shirt, hiking boots, and floppy brimmed hat. The temperature was pleasantly in the low 80s but I preferred covering up rather than taking the time to douse my lily white bod with sun screen.
Nobody messed with me. I received neither sales pitches nor instructions about areas being off-limits, etc. Instead, the staff “bula-sir’ed” me to death which was not at all annoying because I perceived their friendly politeness as genuine and not condescending like I often feel when I’m addressed by the phonies in the plastic American “hospitality” industry.
The crowded beach was too much of a “scene” for my taste but the nearly deserted, palm-lined beach beyond (deserted probably because of an abundance of abrasive coral rock outcrops) was lovely. Large waves were breaking several hundred meter from shore on a shallow reef. Between the beach and the reef were hundreds of acres (oh, I should say “hectares” since we’re trying to be metric, eh?) of inviting shallow, quiet, crystal-clear water.
 Deserted beach at the Shangri La You’re probably expecting a diatribe from me about resorts like the Shangri La. Sorry to disappoint you. Just because I’m trying to experience the places I’m visiting as a “traveler” rather than a “tourist” enjoying all the comforts of home doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the appeal of hanging out on a beach in Paradise. The way I travel takes lots of planning and energy and results in some frustrations and even disappointments. I don’t blame people who work 48 weeks a year and want to be pampered a little while avoiding the hassles I put up with. Still, I wouldn’t want to trade places with them if for no other reason than my dislike of being trapped for several days with a noisy crowd.
By the way, I should note that I saw a display near the employee entrance to the Shangri La that touted some of the environmental programs being encouraged by the management including protection of the reef, energy conservation, and recycling.
Side Road Encounters with Fijians
I started back toward Nadi on the same route but turned off some 20km up the highway on to a side road shown on my map as leading to beach that might not have a tourist resort. After about 8km on this road, an entrance road to a championship golf course appeared. Not exactly what I had in mind. But the main road continued in direction of the beach and quickly deteriorated to shit forcing me down to about 5-10kph of very careful driving. I finally arrived at a poor community with a nice school and parked just before arriving at the shore. I walked past some people who appeared to be digging for clams. A small boy (maybe 7) came up and asked, “Where you from?” We exchanged a few words and he let me take his photo. He said his name was Bill and wrote it in the sand. I wrote my name pointing out the one letter difference. The beach was not very nice but this was a local community, not a resort.
On the way back up to the highway I stopped to take photo of a rough section of road. A Polynesian man suddenly appeared from around a corner. He smiled, looked me in eye, and shook my hand. I detected his genuine warmth. He pointed out his modest house next to road and said he was getting water for his goats.
I decided I really like Fijians. They are genuine and friendly but not pushy like some of the Pakistanis I met in that country back in 1989 who just had to be your friend. All the Fijians want is to exchange “Bulas”. They don’t want your money or your time. The people in hotels and restaurants are sometimes a little slow but want to please and they apologize for being late. What more could you ask for in a people?
Don’t Feel Too Smug!
I had taken F$300 (about US$160 from the ATM at the airport when I arrived. I knew that my lodging was cash only and figured places where I would eat would be to. I had F$85 left after paying for another night at the Sunview. I stayed there again to be close to airport for my morning flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Petrol to fill the tank of the Mitsubishi was F$70 leaving me with F$15 for dinner. I found a cheap and tasty curry at a small shop next to petrol station. I still had plenty left over for beer and found a “sports” bar and small hotel down road. I thought it might be whorehouse but found only the proprietor there. This time I tried a Fiji Bitter. It was better than the Fiji Gold but couldn’t compare with US microbrews. The Fijian owner told me he had lived and worked (restaurants, etc.) in New York City (too expensive), Austin, Phoenix, Las Vegas (too hot), and Hollywood. He decided to return to Fiji after getting held up at gunpoint three times in L.A. I apologized and felt ashamed that our violent gun culture made such a bad impression on him. Then a couple days later in New Zealand, I heard the latest news from Aurora.
I had F$3.80 left in my pocket and felt very pleased with myself that my $300 estimate upon arrival had turned out so close. Then as I was about to do my nightly laundry back at the Sunview, I recognized my first screw up of the trip. I had left my backpackers clothesline in window at motel up in Lautoka. I hadn’t even seen it hanging there when I looked over the room before leaving. OK, it was no great loss – a piece of shit from REI which was badly designed with a slippery nylon cord and little clothes pins which didn’t clamp to the cord making it hard to keep clothes from folding in on themselves and separated from each other. Still, I was pissed off at myself for losing something after trying to be so careful.
 Rules at the Sunview Motel: Read carefully for some chuckles
Coming next: I may have liked Fiji but I LOVED New Zealand!
|
Comments
Post a Comment