Fiji First Night Nadi Adventures!

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I am in Fiji. Last night was pretty incredible. Blame it on the 3-250ml bottles of NZ wine I had on the plane (I love Air NZ), but I make friends very quickly and easily. As soon as I got off the plane I sat on a bench by the door, waiting for the shuttle to the hostel. A large black woman sitting next to me asked me what was in my travel trunk (I've been dragging around a large plastic "tough box" as my luggage). So, I told her. Clothes, Johnny Walker, etc... She asked how much I wanted for the bottle of Johnny Walker (black label). Having absolutely no idea what the going rate is for JW Black in Fiji, and figuring that I wasn’t going to be able to drink the 2 bottles I brought with me, I told her she could have a bottle for free if she could tell me where to get some ‘kava’ (local drink). And I gave it to her. She was so moved by this, that she became quite excited and invited me to drink kava with her family tonight. I told her great! Though really I thought that was the last I was going to see of her. She asked me where I was staying (and keep in mind I'm a little drunk) and I told her. Apparently her sister or cousin or friend or someone was the driver for the shuttle I was waiting on, and bid her goodbye and went to the hostel. As usual, I rented a room for myself. However, as I was standing there two things happened. First, I met Michael, an Israeli on holiday. Second, I met Rebecca. She had just arrived from Dubai (though she was German), and she was wrecked. She had the look of someone that has been traveling for the last 48 hours and hadn’t gotten much sleep. I recognized that look. Funny thing, the lady at the front desk offered her a bed in MY private room. Since there were two beds, and Rebecca seemed to really need it we all agreed on it. All three of us standing there became immediate friends. After freshening up, the three of us met in the bar and had a few drinks. And, later, stumbled or walked along the beach to the closest beach resort. The resort was putting on a traditional ‘Maori’ fire show and we shared a pitcher and enjoyed watching it. Later, while walking along the beach again, this time only sort of stumbling in the direction of our hostel, but more playing in the water, someone we didn’t know came up and started calling for “Tony”. As it turned out, it was the woman from the airport and she was looking for me. I asked her if my friends could come and she said it was no problem. So, the four of us got into a random car or cab and drove to a little house in the residential area of the town. The area looked kind of poor, but they welcomed us into the house. Sitting on straw mats in the main room, was what appeared to be the whole family and some friends or neighbors or something. We sat down with them and the man of the house (the husband of the woman from the airport) started mixing Kava in a large bowl. He did this by filling a cloth with kava powder, and then dipping it and squeezing it in the water. The resulting mixture was grey like dish water, and basically tasted like dirt flavored water except that it made your tongue go numb when you drank it. The man would give you a bowl, and everyone would clap at the same time, and then you drank the whole bowl and gave it back. The man repeated this for everyone sitting in the circle. When we finished the kava, the woman from the airport pulled out the bottle of Johnny Walker I had given her and said something like “And Tony bring us Johnny Walker!” and everyone cheered. The man mixed the JW with coke, and we repeated the whole circle and clapping process with JW and coke. At this point, it was decided that we should go dancing at ‘Steps’ the locals only club. So again, we piled into cabs or vehicles of some sort, with the whole family this time, and found ourselves at a dance club. I remember very specifically the nice woman from the airport told me that if I had to go to the rest room, to let her husband know and he would go with me because this was a dangerous kind of place. Wow. Haha! After an hour or so of dancing the three of us called it quits and took a cab back to the hostel and crashed. What a night!

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Photos

Photo 9
Rebecca