Pass The Dutchie

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As we left the world’s happiest nation, the sense of dread overcame our thoughts; the question was ‘How could we find another country that carries as much love for life?’ With heavy hearts we read our in flight magazine and collected last minute research on a nation that is regularly mentioned when people speak of paradise, but as both of us knew exactly what you see on a postcard we wanted to delve a bit deeper. Not that was going to come from the Air Pacific guide to garlands or the handy tips on how to drink Kava and see an image of the winning lottery numbers.

I can be an idiot, see, I said it. One example came from our plane trip. Em and I sat next to each other on a three seat layout with us nearest the window (Smith obviously in the middle, as he has been for fourteen flights - Dam the paper, scissor and stone). While waiting for all of the people to board I was joined by the third member of our row, a sceptic who was the father of a high pitched family. They must have been part of the 10% of them that have travelled outside of their state. The gentleman had just settled himself into his seat and was searching for his belt when Smith piped up “here is your belt,(pause) don’t worry I won’t touch you up!’ Why, why would you say that? The lead balloon that I had just dropped produced a particularly weird stare from the sceptic and as you can imagine we did not exchange much chit chat along the flight. The only reaction that I could fathom was to get a couple of beers in and forget my existence.

Once the rubber had touched the tarmac we heard the welcome greeting that would occur over the next month more times than Dunc has requested Robbie Williams’s song ‘Angels’ on the karaoke. Which I think is up to couple of thousand last counts and every time he clutches a hanky to throw to the crowd for the weepy moments. ‘Bula’ is the word and not only has the meaning of hello or welcome but also the acceptance of you into their tribe. In some cities this greeting can be followed up with the offer of looking at their traditional wooden carvings but not always and never invasively.

One thing that hit me early on was the door to the arrival gate when Emma forgot to hold it open, public school and no manners, what did they teach her in the convent? The people are massive , it is like the water has steroids, seriously the average person in the street is about eight foot four and fifteen stone. They have hands like Frank’s and look like their wrestle bison for a living. I think that they are the largest race on this earth and a few times early on in our trip, people would approach you and small splinter of fear would creep up my back. However we soon learnt that the welcome of these people would mimic their stature, large and never ending.

We had a little trouble getting through customs, it has never happened to me, I have never been stopped before. I usually think that the buzzing of flies around my general person puts them off searching me. As for a full body cavity search, that is simply out of the question. Funnily enough I think my friend Powell’s insists on one every time he travels, mentions that it is as effective as colonic irrigation or something. But this time the customs officials were very interested in a tin of surfboard wax that I was carrying, as with Australia and New Zealand they are paranoid about food substances.

After arriving late at night we opted for a pickup from the airport and it came in the form of Naseem. Did you know that over fifty percent of all Fijians are from Indian descent? It is a quite strange thing to get used to, but creates an interesting mix of culture.

We arrived at the ‘Travellers Beach’ our accommodation for the first couple of nights, it was a cross between hostel, hotel, motel and beachfront paradise. It was fine for a base to discover our travel itinerary, to look as bus times and have a few meals. It was the first night that we discovered the cheesy aspect of Fiji, as it was fire evening. Rather than the resorts setting everyone alight it was referring to a display of traditional dance. This immediately brought back memories of my brother when we were on a family holiday in Spain trying to win a talent contest, he actually wore a bikini stuffed full of cotton wool pretending to be a woman. He wouldn’t need the cotton wool now.

The reality was only slightly different; we sat at our table after eating an average meal and watched a dance group go through their weekly ritual of entertaining the tourists. Three guys dancing were followed by three girls and then after several performances they had the wonderful idea of crowd participation. As we had been plied with volumes of Fiji Gold by this stage both Em and I got up and followed suit. We didn’t know but this was to be more routine in Fiji than out of the ordinary.

With sun beaming in through the windows we rose to welcome a beautiful Fijian day, ‘Bula Vinaka’. We chose to go into Nadi town and took the local bus to get there. It was awesome, with no windows and a local crowd that wanted to get to know who you were it made for a easy route into the busy metropolis. Once in Nadi we walked around to get our bearings, had a spot of lunch and organised the bus to Sigatoka for the next day. Nadi is not a pretty town but has all that you want there and in time we would gain more affection to the place. We had been warned of things running slowly in Fiji, it is well known that in ‘Fiji time’ a minute takes 180 seconds. But the buses were prompt so far and we got back to our place with no major hiccups.

We packed to leave the next day and with no entertainment planned for that evening we were safe to watch the sunset go down on the beach and retire to bed after another poorly cooked meal. It was planned that we would get a taxi into town with all of our rucksacks, so Naseem was called and as he was from Sigatoka originally he provided some useful tips on the way to the bus stop. The bus was busy but comfortable, the company running the vehicle also thought that it would be a perfect time to run the latest Bollywood classic. I am sorry if I offend someone by slating the Eastern multi million dollar industry but what a load of rubbish this production was. The story actually followed a love interest between an Indian drug dealer and a Thai prostitute, I think they running out of true Hindu messages.

We reached our destination of Sigatoka and soon realised that it was a town that you pretty much just past through rather than stop and stay. We organised a cab pretty quickly and got ourselves to Kulu Kulu village. This was where Chong lived, Chong’s place had been described by very close friends of mine who had visited him when they were in Fiji on their RTW trip.

Kulu Kulu village is on the side of a national park with fantastic black sand dunes that meander to the ocean, split only by a river that follows a similar course. We awoke our host from his slumber and found out that the guy helping us settle in was Chong’s nephew Paul. I knew that this guy was the surfer amongst them but as he hobbled over to meet us it was obvious that he was not going to be in the water for some time. It turned out that he had dislocated his ankle a couple of days earlier and it had been realigned with only traditional medical advice, my guess that meant a few herbal cigarettes and a knowing smile of pending pain.

Paul cooked up a fish curry for lunch and informed us that Chong was visiting his daughters who had been taken into hospital. From my vague memory I thought that Chong was married to an older lady but as it turned out lot’s of things had changed. This really started with Chong and his wife divorcing, he running off with a 18yr old girl, getting her pregnant and then moving her into the hostel. Could remind you of a episode of the Enders? Now our accommodation was basic, but again you could see that it had been cared for more intensively when they had more guests staying with them. We were the only ones there and we thought that a couple of days would do us proud. Chong arrived later in the day and it was clear that his head was far from entertaining a couple of tourists but more on the health of his ‘little ones’. So Em and I had a sunset walk up the dunes and kidnapped a couple of local dogs for the journey. Dogs were aplenty around the camp, there were a litter of ten puppies just been born.

We had a spicy rice tuna concoction for the evening meal and chilled out in the lounge. This was a massive improvement over the fish curry, after the lunch meal I had a bit of a panic that I would struggle with the food. The fish I the curry was not large chunks of diced fillet but bones, heads, scales and all. It was very much a homestay experience, with a large male dominance just sitting watching the TV. A little strange at first so we popped off to bed and chilled out reading. Both Ema dn I were up for a surf the next morning, the break was a river mouth with a 3-4ft swell running. Paul had informed us the evening earlier that he had been bitten by a reef shark only a few months ago, suffering 35 stitches, so the adrenaline was high with one guy just getting out.

After surviving the morning we chilled over breakfast with Chong and it seemed that the night sleep had given him a bit of time to realise that he had some guests and we had a good chat, really to get know each other. We got the local bus into Sigatoka in the afternoon, picking up some supplies and a couple of beers for the evening. The bus back was one highlight as we caught the school bus, so picture two six foot ish travellers surrounded by over 100 little school kids, all piled on this rickety old bus, trundling along the pot holed roads. As we got back to the homestay the place was full of people, just hanging around, a little bit like a youth club but for adults and all of them on Fiji time.

We opted for another relaxing evening on the dunes just chilling out, a bite to eat and into bed early doors. The surf was blown out the next day, so we packed up after breakfast looking to head down the coast. Leaving Chongs place was sad, not for the experience but for what had happened to him and his family.

So we got a taxi into town and headed East towards the Beachhouse. According to the LP it was setup for lots of entertainment with good food, so the fingers were crossed and we were looking forward to the change.

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