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Published: December 23rd 2006
Pacific
Flying over New CaladoniaWhen we were planning this Australia/NZ trip Marijke had one specific wish: spend some time on the beaches in Fiji. So we booked some tickets to fly over there from Australia.
However on our first day in NZ I had a look in the newspaper and one of the headlines was 'Fiji coup threats'. Great! We kept checking the news as we travelled through NZ and it seemed that the coup was going to take place in the first week of December when the military's ultimatum ran out. We were to fly over on 6th December...Perfect timing.
On 2nd December the ultimatum was not reached and everyone expected the coup to happen. However that day there was the yearly big rugby game between the military and the police so they decided to postpone the coup for the moment. These countries are so great...In the 80's Honduras and El Salvador went to war over a soccer game. In Fiji they postpone the coup for a rugby game... life is all about priorities. Anyway the police won the game. Two days later the military had its revenge as they disarmed the police force and took over the country. On 5th December
Fiji Yasawa
Paradise island the country was under military control. The next day we had our flight over there.
We checked the Australian and NZ travel advisory site (Belgium did not have any advise on offer) and they both said 'Reconsider your travel'. We did for a while... then checked with the places we were staying and finally decided to give it a try anyway. I got in contact with the Belgian embassy in Canberra and gave them all our details in case of emergencies.
This was not the first coup in Fiji. There have been a couple the last 20 years. It al has to do with the racial issues they have in Fiji. A lot of Indian labourers were brought over for indentured work. After their work was finished a lot of them decided to stay and started small businesses. Even though they have never been allowed to own land, a lot of them did very good and took over a big part of the business. This scared the indigenous Fiji people and caused the racial and political tensions.
All the coups were a result of these tensions. This last one is no exception. The 2000 coup was done by
some Indigenous Fijian extremist that wanted to curtail the political rights of the Indo Fijians. The military stepped in, the coup was stopped and new elections were organised.
However the last government had introduced some policies that would let the guilty of the 2000 coup off the hook. This was not appreciated by some fractions in Fiji such as the army. The army commander posed the ultimatum to stop this policy or face a military coup.
So in fact this new coup was done to avoid that the guilty of the previous coup went free...
Nadi
The flight from Brisbane to Nadi was very nice; flying over those picture perfect Pacific Islands.
When we arrived in Nadi I was searching the airport for military. I couldn't spot any.... Unless the army outfit in Fiji consists of colourful flower print shirts and the army was patrolling the airport with guitars singing Fijian welcome songs...
We would be heading to one of the outer islands of Fiji the next day but spent the first day and night in Nadi. Marijke was in charge of the organisation of the Fiji part of our travels and she found a great 'budget
resort' where we spent the afternoon by/in the pool. While we sat there, delicious mango fruit almost literally fell in our lap (or in the pool).
That night we got treated to some great Fijian dancing when we witnessed a local Meke (dance) competition. Something we would see a couple time more but this one was surely the best.
Yasawa island
On our way to the boat jetty we first saw some signs of the coup: a checkpoint with some smiling and waving army guys.
And then there was another paradise island. I've seen a couple the last year but it keeps amazing me how white sand a blue sea and a couple of palm trees can be so beautiful...
The next 3 days we spent lazing on the beach, lounging by the pool, snorkel with lots of fish on the reef just in front of the resort, reading our books, eating a lot of delicious food... you know those simple things in life :-)
It was supposed to be a 'relax only' stay but when they offered the possibility to go for a hike I was in. It was a nice hike
out to one of the villages on the other side of the island with some great views. Highlight was probably when one of the very loud Americans fell into a small pool full of rotten mangoes and couldn't get out anymore.
We were pretty sad hearing the 'Fiji farewell' song while we were leaving the island.
Coral Coast
After our time on the outer islands we were going to spend some time on the 'coral coast' of the main island where Marijke's parents had given us a nice xmas present in the form of a week resort accommodation. It was time for some more relaxing and visiting some of the attractions around.
Suva
The capital of Suva is supposed to be the epic centre of the coup and the advice was not to go there. However Marijke really wanted to go have a look there (and I kind of wanted to check out the museum). More over all the locals told us nothing was happening there. So we jumped on a local bus and had a look. We didn't see much action... a couple of check points and a lot of friendly people. The museum
was closed however and so was the government craft centre. We went to a small market and ended up buying some cheap souvenirs. Everyone was very friendly but complained how their business was so bad while it's supposed to be the peak season now...
Namosi Highlands
We also wanted to see a bit of the inland of the main island and took a boat up the Navua river to the Namosi highlands. We hopped off the boat for a visit to a 'traditional' village. Even though it felt a bit awkward to be a 'tourist' in this village, it was cool to hang out and see the whole welcoming and Kava ceremony. We had drunk Kava before. It looks like water with mud in it. It's a traditional non alcoholic drink that makes your tongue and lips feel a bit funny. Doesn't taste too bad though. There also was a mini 'lovo' meal, cooked in a ground oven.
After all that we took the long boat up (!) the rapids to a nice waterfall for some swimming and cliff diving. Before giving the local Billibilli (bamboo) raft a try.
Beqa Lagoon Shark dive
The Beqa
Lagoon was basically just in front of our resort and according to the guidebooks the reef is the best place in the world to see sharks. Up to 9 species on 1 dive can be seen. Two of them ( Tiger and Bull Shark) are regarded to be the number 2 and 3 world most dangerous (man eating) sharks and there are no cages involved. The water is a bit too warm for No 1 the 'Great White' (Jaws) but according to some people the Tiger shark is more aggressive than his Great White brother. Actually nearly every time the media does not specify which Shark was involved in an attack it's a Tiger or a Bull shark.
Now I have seen some sharks before while diving or snorkelling but with these two big boys involved, I had to think about this dive for a while before signing up. I have only 17 dives logged and I'm pretty bad with air (meaning I run out of air fast and have to surface before the rest) so I'm not too comfortable under water. Even though the dive centre guaranteed it was safe ( 20 years and not a single injury)
Yasawa
off snorkelling (underwater pictures still need to be scanned) and air wouldn't be a problem, it was Marijke who convinced me to go for it because it was 'a once in a life time' chance. I still had a hard time going to sleep the night before.
I was blood nervous until I started going down. I had a look under water before descending and there were already several (smaller) sharks circling down there. Once we got to 25m, we basically sat down and watched the show. Two dive masters started to feed the fish (a whole garbage container full of fish scraps) and quickly disappeared in a cloud of huge fish (giant trivially, groupers) and some sharks. We all looked at the spectacle from a couple of meters distance. Just before we had to go up a big (3 m) nurse shark swam by and grabbed some food. None of the big boys showed up...or so we thought.
On the surface the two feeders said they saw some bull sharks in the distance but they didn't come close enough for us too see them. They would probably stick around for the 2nd dive though. While we waited for the nitrogen levels in our blood to drop,
the guys from the company gave us a really interesting shark talk. It seems a lot of them will soon be threatened with extinction and no government seems to be willing to do much about because of the shark's bad reputation (Thank you Mr Spielberg).
The second dive was to be 'the big one'. The sharks in the neighbourhood had been alerted by the trail of blood under water and would now have had the time to travel over here. And oh yes when we got down to 17m there was plenty of them there. We sat down again and the feeding began. It only took 5 minutes before the 1st massive (4 m+) Bull shark came swimming in. After a while the dive master signalled me and my buddy to get a bit closer for better views. I was now sitting right next to the feeders with great views of the massive sharks. It's amazing how orderly they all came in took some food and swum away again. A bit later as I was scanning the scenery around I noticed all of a sudden a massive Bull shark had secretly approached me from the side. This shark was
FIJI
Yummie mango now within touching distance and I was about to wet my 'wet suit' when he took a sharp turn and swum towards the food...pffff
Good thing he wasn't too hungry because he could have taken off my leg with one quick bite.
The 20 minutes were over in no time and we were preparing to start our ascent when all of a sudden there was a lot of 'tank banging'. We looked back and saw that the whole feeding arena was emptying...that could mean only one thing...'The big boy' was coming!!! And yes a big Tiger shark came swimming in, took a bite to eat, had a look at the crowd and swum away again. Just as the real tigers, the tiger shark is a dangerous but beautiful and elegant animal. Everybody went up very happy after that one. Of the 9 species present we had seen 8: white and black tip reef shark, silvertip and grey reef shark, lemon shark (beautiful!), nurse shark and the bull and tiger shark!
The crazy thing is that after we all got out of our wet suits, most of us jumped back in the water for a 'toilet break' (no toilets
Meke
Female dance (4 the guys) on board), knowing that all these sharks were right below us and that you have the biggest chance to be attacked while at the surface...
Unfortunately I don't have a digital underwater camera so for 'shark pictures' you'll have to wait till I can get them scanned somewhere.
After the adrenaline rush I needed some time to relax before heading over to Oz again. So the last 1.5 days we spent relaxing and reading by the pool.
It seems that we were going to leave Fiji at the right time. Up to our departure everything had been really quiet. However we read in the newspaper that a group had announced that if
The government was not reinstalled by 25th December they would launch a counter offensive. Then things could get out of hands anyway.
In the mean time we have started our descent down the East coast of Australia. We would like to wish everybody a merry Xmas and (if I don't check back in before the end of the year) a happy new year too!!!!
Talk to you soon!
PS: Bula means hello, welcome and a thousand other things in Fijian.
PS: 2 pages
FIJI meke
and the males (4 the girls) of pictures again
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denjames
non-member comment
merry x-mas
geweldige stop precies daar in fiji.. meer sharks dan ik zou aankunnen, maar wel the chance of a liftetime indeed.. terwijl jullie op de hemelse stranden liggen, staat onze broekseelse toren al een paar dagen in de mist... profiteer er nog maar goed van, want dat is hier een ander paar mouwen.. groetjes, ook van de meisjes, james