Today we arrived in the tropical island paradise of Fiji. Flying over Fiji at sunrise gave us a
wonderful view of the volcanic mountains in silhouette. It would seem from the lack of house and
street lights that the islands are very sparsely populated in the rural areas.
We had a very long day in transit to get here. Our check out time from the hotel, even with
a late checkout, was 1:00pm. Our flight wasn’t until 10:30pm. When got to the airport, we found out that
the baggage couldn’t be checked in until 6:30pm, which meant that we couldn’t
get into the departure area where all the shops and restaurants are. It made for a very long afternoon in the
Planet Hollywood bar. We spent some of the
time playing Scrabble on our computer and of course Marg beat my butt. We also played Cribbage with pretty much the
same results.
I was glad to be out of the Hilton hotel with their Conscious
Life Expo. The conference attendees
reminded me of the patients from the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”,
with their blank stares and their exaggerated smiles. In the foyer, as we left, there was a Ravi Shankar
tribute band with a female singer who would make Yoko Ono sound good. As I say this could only take place in
southern California
Our flight from Los Angeles to Nadi was about eleven hours. Neither Marg nor I had very much sleep during
the flight. I guess were still not hardened
jet setters. We flew on Fiji Airways. It was a very spacious and comfortable plane and
the staff were excellent. We were on a emergency
exit row, so we had plenty of leg room for the long flight.
When we arrived in the airport you could tell the new coronavirus
has become a major source of concern here.
Most the customs and border security personal were wearing masks and we
had to fill out a medical questionnaire before we were cleared.
Walking off the plane was like walking into a sauna. Even at 6:00am you immediately felt the heat
and a wall of humidity. Our hotel shuttle driver told us that the temperature today
would reach the mid 30s and the humidity would be about 95%. You can tell that this is hot even by Fijian
standards, because the locals mention it when your talking to them.
Our hotel shuttle driver was outstanding. Even though he persisted
in driving down the left-hand side of the road, we were safe because so did all
the other drivers. He told us some
interesting facts about Fiji. They don’t
have summer and winter seasons. Instead
they have dry and rainy seasons. They
are currently in the rainy season, although the only expected rain in the next
few days will be localized thunder showers caused by the combination of heat
and humidity.
He also told us a bit about the culture of the islands. He told us that everyone will great you with
the word “Bula”, which translates to “Good Health”. He was right, everyone seems to do it when
you walk past them. He said Fijians were
extremely friendly and we found out today that he was not wrong.
Retail shops close in the later afternoon or early evening,
there is no night shopping except in some of the tourist areas. Most shops close early on Saturday so that
people can enjoy the rugby and soccer matches.
Rugby is a national obsession, and on most days after school hours you
will find the children playing rugby on the school’s athletic fields. Fiji recently won the Sydney 7s tournament
and our driver seemed shocked that we didn’t know that this was one of the
biggest international tournaments outside of the world cup.
He told us that Fiji has a diverse agricultural economy. The
dominant crops are sugar cane, coconuts, ginger, cassava, taro, kava, kiwis,
mangos, bananas and breadfruit. Raw
sugar and molasses are Fiji top export.
The driver also told me to try the local rum as it was the best in the
world.
When we got to our hotel, the Radisson Blu, we were way to
early to get our room. We had to endure
a three hour wait, which turned out OK for us because we got a room upgrade to
a full-sized suite.
The hotel is on Denarau
Island, which is where all the top international resorts are found. There is a residential section also on this
island, and it is very upscale and expensive. One the properties was for sale
for $4,000,000. That was in Fijian dollars, so that worked out to $2,400,000
Canadian.
Late this afternoon we went into Port Denarau and had a very
nice fish dinner.
It might seems that we missed a day in this blog, that is because we did cross the international date line, so our today is North America's tomorrow.
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