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Published: March 5th 2007
Nadi
Rik plays the part of Chief at the Kava CeremonyWell Hello and for those of you who thought we had disappeared, 'tis not true, just couldn't find any cheap/free or any internet access etc yet again!! Anyway, we had a great 2 weeks in Fiji and are now in the great US of A, touring around a bit of California.
We arrived in Fiji during a thunderstorm - not good for the nerves, especially as the wing of the plane got hit by lightening, but the pilot did a sterling job and managed to get us on the ground safely. I do hate it though when the reassuring tones of the captains voice at the beginning of the flight state that the weather is clear "all the way to sunny Fiji" and then the heavens open. So, we hit the rainy season with a vengence the first 4 days and thought it was never going to stop raining - torrential was a bit of an understatement. It rained that much that the local town flooded and ended up 1metre under water and on our way back from our island trip, we had to come into another port and drive around the back roads.
We initially stayed at the Mercure
Mercure
Rik is just exhausted after all that travelling.... hotel in Nadi which was fairly close to the airport and only about 2 miles from the town on Nadi itself, which is the 3rd largest town in Fiji on the island of Vitu Levu. Fiji itself is like many other island nations and places around the world whereby outside of the hotels and resorts, the people themselves are pretty poor. We saw no sign of the "coup" apart from a couple of military checkpoints (they don't stop or bother taxis and tourist buses), although there was a lot of rhetoric in the local papers about the way things are being run. From reading the local press, it seems their problems are caused by the co-existence of two peoples, the indigenous Fijians and the Fijian Indians who were brought here about 180 years ago to work in the sugar cane fields. They arrived on 5 year contracts, and subsequently a lot of them decided to stay and make Fiji their home. Many generations on and the Fijian indians now account for about 46% of the population, so the population is now fairly evenly split. As we know, the indian people are extremely hard working and ambitious and consequently, they have
Sunset at Coral Coast
The sunset from the bar deck area now ended up with most of the money in the country, the businesses and the professional people ie. doctors, lawyers etc. The indigenous fijians are being left behind in social and economic terms and therein lies the problem; how they will solve it is anyones guess. History lesson over.........
On our fourth day, we decided to go on a day trip to South Sea Island. This is one of many tiny islands in the Manumuca group which lie off the coast of Vitu Levu and consist mainly of little coral atolls. This is the Fiji you see on the TV and in the travel brochures. Unfortunately for us, the weather was rubbish and we ended up on this tiny island (you could see all around you from the middle) sheltering under the huts while it bucketed it down with rain! Rik managed to get a bit of snorkelling in, but had to keep ducking down as the rain was hurting his back..... So, my dream was shattered. The sun did come out about 3 oclock, an hour before the boat arrived, so it did look pretty then, but the day was already spoilt. Another thing was that on the
New Friends
The Sellon family from Canada - just starting out on their 4 month round the world trip. other side of the island, where the boat did not land, they make no attempt to clear the beaches of rubbish etc so it spoils the picture somewhat when you're stepping over plastic bottles, lightbulbs and all sorts of other c@@p!!
Tuesday morning saw us setting off for our resort down on the Coral Coast, the Naviti Resort. A taxi arrived to drive us, complete with non-functioning seat belts and a very amiable taxi driver who kept veering all over the road for no apparent reason! As you can imagine, this did little for my frayed nerves..... It was nice to see a bit of the countryside though, especially as the sun was out. It also made us realise just how poor some of them are, sat at the roadsides trying to sell their 10 watermelons. We saw some lovely thatched huts in the villages, but also the corregated iron sheds that most of them live in and try to eke out a living. Makes you feel very guilty when staying at a resort!!
The Naviti Resort is lovely and had everything it said; gorgeous swimming pool etc etc. We had a few issues with the Kids club as
The Naviti Resort
And a swim up bar - sheer hell! it was really hit and miss (they didn't do half the things advertised) but Kiera enjoyed being with other children and made some good friends, so it was nice for her and the primary reason that we went to this resort. We hit the tides a bit wrong while we were there and when Rik wanted to do a bit of kayaking, the sea was out etc and there was no water but we could have done more stuff if we wanted. With hindsight, 9 nights was too long and by the end, Rik & I were thoroughly bored with lounging around the pool, eating and drinking. (I know, I can hear you all saying its a hard life!!!) We had been advised to go to one of the island resorts, but we couldn't afford it although if we ever came again, we would do so but for no longer than a week. Everyone talks about the Fijian people being lovely and we met a few who definately were; however we also met lots of the staff who you could tell were being nice because they had to, who were very ungenuine. A lot of tourists normally stay a maximum
Me and my baby....
Drinking tacky cocktails at sunset... of a week at these resorts, and perhaps because we were there longer we saw a real tailing off of any kind of politeness and it seemed a bit as if the masks had slipped. We also came to the conclusion that "Fiji time" was in fact a euphemism for laziness!! That said, we did enjoy our stay and met some really nice people from both Australia and Canada who we hope to stay in touch with.
Our last 3 days were spent back at the Mercure and a last minute decision to do another island trip turned out to be the best day of our Fiji trip. This time we went on a Clipper boat out to Mystery (Tavui) Island and had the most fantastic day. The water was crystal clear and so warm it was like a bath and we even managed to get Kiera snorkelling in the sea to see the fishes - this is the Fiji I wanted to see! It was stunning and I even had a back massage on the beach. The highlight for Kiera was steering the boat on the way home and we all had a fabulous time. Would we go again?
The Naviti Resort
On our way to dinner at the chinese restaurant Probably not as there are other places just as nice, but if you are in this area anyway, it would make a good beach break for a week.
We are now in Sunny California, struggling to get to grips with "the American way" and how built up everything is after the emptiness of Australia and New Zealand. I could not get over the sprawl and sheer size of Los Angeles from the air and was totally overwhelmed by the people, noise and the fast pace of everything. We realised a couple of things pretty quickly though and that is why Americans expect such high standards when they go away. Their customer service is superb and everyone is so polite - they must get a shock when they see our surly shop assistants!! We spent the first 3 days at Disneyland, which was really good, but I was disappointed to see how very similar it is to disneyland Paris - why would you come all this way? Apparently the Florida one is bigger, but as we haven't been to that one, I can't comment. Mind you, we were all exhausted after two days wandering around, so probably couldn't hack a
Polynesian Dancers
Rik was captivated....... bigger one!! We then hired a car and drove down the coast to La Jolla on the outskirts of San Diego to go to Sea World. Sea World was good and the shows were great, but we both realised that we are getting very jaded and nothing is inspiring us very much any more. The small part of the coast we have seen so far was lovely, but not a patch on Australia and we are starting to compare everything, which is not a good sign. La Jolla is a nice place, very upmarket and we saw the most fabulous sunsets - very famous apparently - but didn't go right into the heart of San Diego as the cities are freaking us out and the outskirts were good enough for us. After 3 days in La Jolla, we drove across the mountains to Palm Springs where we are right now and we really like. The landscape is very Wild West and the mountains are covered in huge boulders and rocks. The weather is glorious, about 28 degrees today and we intend to spend about 3 days here to go and see some of the local area and learn about the
indigenous indians.
Hope you are all well and enjoying the mild, albeit rainy, winter. Take good care and we would love to hear from you.
Lots of Love Nicchi, Rik & Kiera xxxxx
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Maria
non-member comment
at last
hello you three, i was getting concerned, great to hear from you. Howie says thanks for the birthday card he has now hit the big 50!! Piccies look great, I bet you are looking forward to coming home (not) see you soon love from the Warburton's xxxx