Hot! 32 degrees plus.
The thing about flying business class is it’s just like checking in to a 5 star hotel. Nice wine and nibbles in the lounge, after which you are led to your room, given room service: normally champagne (in this case, a rum cocktail) and more food and wine, and after a good night’s sleep, woken with hot tea, fruit and croissants. Superb! Or in Carol’s case get to listen to several back to back Desert Island discs podcasts watching someone beside her in the land of nod... and then being refreshed with coffee, fruit etc..
Anyway, Bula! - Welcome to Fiji.
In Fiji it is the Wet season - hot, humid and prone to cyclones. We just missed cyclone Mona by a day! Where we have 4 seasons, Fiji has just two: dry season and wet season, and the temperature varies from 25deg to 32deg. Apparantly if it dips below 20deg it makes the national papers.
So today is Monday and we left SF at 4pm Saturday. We flew for 10 hours and arrived at 5am Monday. Somehow we missed Sunday due to crossing the international date-line. Gone!
Even at 6am it is hot, you can feel the heat as soon as you leave the airport. As we can see the hotel from the airport entrance we decide to walk and 10 mins later we are installed in a noisy, budget, cramped room at the front of the hotel. After not sleeping we take a late breakfast and Graham hits the pool while Carol upgrades the room. After initially being told there are no better rooms available, success and we get a nice suite at the back of the hotel with views of the countryside.
We have 2 tours booked during our stay, a trip locally to scenic areas and a tropical garden, and tomorrow a boat trip to Monuriki for lunch and reef snorkeling where the film Castaway was filmed with Tom Hanks.
The afternoon tour was very enlightening. We were treated to a lunch of local fruits and fruit juice. The owner of the garden is Rosie who set up a local tour company - the one we were using and is a major employer of local people.She is now 86 yrs old and the company is now run by her children. Only persons using her tours are allowed to visit the viewpoint in her garden.
We continued to a Fiji village to learn a little history. The Fiji population is made up of Fijians, immigrants who are mostly Indian, and holiday home owners. Holiday home owners live in secured gated beachfront villas, Indians live in individual houses (some which look like shacks) surrounded by chicken wire fences and flying a flag, and Fijians live in villages. We visited the VeeSeeSee village of around 1000 people of which 200+ are children.
It’s a feudal system where the chief is not elected but descended from birth. Village life centres round the church, which they attend every day, and in which they are segregated into male, female, important, and not so important.They mainly follow a Methodist doctrine presumably from the missionaries who discovered the Fijians originally. Rules are quite strict with a dress code and no hats allowed in the village as it is an insult to the chief , women are not allowed to wear hairbands and hair should be natural and not tampered with - no-one should appear taller than the chief!
Our volunteer guide to the village told us a story about a missionary Reverend (forget his name), who visited a village and facinated by the chief”s hairstyle touched his hair - a big no no .... he was promptly attacked and eaten alive - they even tried to eat his leather boots but this proved futile. Apparently the boots are now an exhibit in a museum! We were assured that the Fijians have no longer practiced canabalism for many years!
A local politician, Diane Abbot leads Carol around the village. ( Ha Ha Graham - actually this lady was a local volunteer guide and full of useful information unlike a politician! - C)
The house with the green roof belongs to the chief.
In the centre is the big cauldron where they used to cook the communal meals. Not used anymore now that Christianity has replaced Cannibalism.
The houses in the village have no gardens but are open to all neighbours to mingle and it is a quite communal life, sharing meals and possessions. We should note that these are modern day Fijians who live like this: receptionists, airport staff, taxi drivers etc., not just some model village put up for tourists.
However some of the villagers supplement their living (minimum wage in Fiji is $2.80/hr - a bottle of beer or about £1) by selling goods such as jewellery and other crafts - there were several stalls of goods scattered around the village as we toured around and we bought a jade necklace (Carol) and a carved wooden turtle fridge magnet (Graham) as our willing contribution to the village coffers.
We then headed off to a garden created by Raymond Burr of Ironside fame -a long time ago ...
He created an orchid garden and a sensational tropical garden. There were also views over the famed Sleeping Giant hill.
Evidently pineapples don't grow on trees, as we thought, but from the ground, as shown. One fruit per plant.
A few pictures from the garden...
A bit of the sleeping giant .... we think....
Tuesday 8th January
Hot! 32 degrees plus.
Graham is REALLY looking foward to today: coral reef snorkeling!
Waiting for the boat.
We’re booking with Cruisin Fiji. A family firm running all day trips to the island of Monuriki. While we wait for other passengers to arrive we wander the pontoons admiring all the super cruisers and yachts. We strike up a conversaton with a local, who points out the Cruisin Fiji boat, one of the scruffiest in the marina. He is moored next to it in a humungous catamaran. It’s not his, he is quick to add. He just works (and sleeps) on it.
Our boat.
Everyone arrives and Captain Paul gives us a safety briefing and introduces the crew who are handing out drinks. 5 mins later we’re off into the blue sea towards our first rendez-vous: a sandy mound in the middle of the sea. I don’t think this qualifies as one of the 300 or so islands which make up Fiji. Paul and the crew hand out snorkeling gear and flippers and anchor off, helping those who want to swim or snorkel off the boat. The crew are very good. Taking children who daren’t swim on an inflatable raft to and from the sandy mound.
The snorkeling is amazing!
There’s a bit of a swell with a mix of sand and coral bottom. The fish are mainly in the rocky bits. There are all sorts of tropical fish; silver and black vertical stripes, yellow and blue horizontal stripes, grey with yellow collars, blue with yellow tails, and tiny royal blue fish. It is fascinating. We see these fish in the garden centres in France, but here they are, free, right in front of your eyes. They seem to come in shoals. You swim along in nothing and then suddenly there they all are ( Graham)
For the children who didn’t make it in ( and nervous adults inc Carol) the crew gave them bread to feed to the fish (just the children - Carol was allowed to watch) and on throwing pieces overboard they were presented with an enormous fish fest of colourful fish fighting to get to the grub! Nice touch.
We then travelled on to another island with much calmer waters for more snorkelling and swimming. Carol even had a go at snorkelling and managed without sinking or filling the mask with water, The water was so lovely and warm. No photos as we were both in the water.
Our final stop was on to the island where the film Castaway was filmed. It was beautiful.
There was a thatched shelter where we all gathered and ate a lovely lunch of chicken and fish traditionally baked in the ground, with salad, spinach cooked with coconut milk and fresh fruits. We were serenaded by Capt Paul on guitar as we ate - idyllic. He was a great singer too.
We then spend a while swimming, snorkelling or walking around the island until we were summoned back to the boat to depart for the mainland. It was bliss. A tropical island all to yourself, rolling in the waves or strolling on the beach.
Sadly the return journey was quite long - about 2 hrs in rather rough seas - but well worth the inconvenience for the fantastic day we had. Just amazing to think: 8th January, 7 deg C at home and there we were on a tropical island with turquoise seas in 30+ degrees. A memory that will last.
Paul and all his crew were so hospitable - constantly offering drinks - beer, wine, soft drinks and pointing out landmarks. The care they took to ensure we all had a good time was second to none. So you must seek them out if ever in Fiji - a big shout out for Cruisinfiji!
Fijians pride themselves as being one the friendliest counties on Earth, and in our experience this is true. Everyone greets you with a big smile and a loud “BULA”, and you really do get the feeling that they are all ready to help, not in a pestering begging way but in an honest friendly way, for nothing in return. Even the arrival at the airport there was a local with a guitar singing some local song - that’s the other thing - they love to sing and play guitar.
Sadly once we returned to the hotel it was evident that Carol despite applying sunscreen had sustained some serious sunburn... ouch!
She bravely managed dinner ...
We later had a glass of wine sitting on our balcony watching the sun go down. Magical.
Vinaka Fiji - Thank you Fiji for an out of this world two days.
The view from our balcony
The next day Carol resembled someone who had gone several rounds with Mike Tyson and lost - a hydrating facemask ( thanks Fay!) made her feel a little better but we left for the airport with her wearing a hat and sunglasses to hide the damage. Lesson learned.. factor 50+ , and massive cover ups from now on!
Weds 9th Jan
Today we head to Auckland, New Zealand.
We took an Air New Zealand flight from Nadi to Auckland - very civilised, as we are now accustomed and only 2 1/2 hours. Hardly enough time to scoff down the requisite wine and food!
No comments:
Post a Comment