I step off the plane, pick up my bags, make my way through customs and head out to find my courtesy shuttle to a nearby hostel. I shuffle myself and my luggage out of the exit and take look around. In the distance I spot the name of my hostel on an old beat-up minivan….that’ll do! I wait to see if I can spot the driver anywhere. I wait. And….I wait. Finally he shows and tells me to load my things and then to wait for some more backpackers. We wait. And wait. I ask whether we can get going sometime today and nothing could prepare me for my answer….the taxi driver consoles me and explains - “you’re on ‘Fiji time’ now my friend!”

The bustle of people, the sidewalk-less streets, the fresh fruit stalls, the fish markets, the 20p bus rides, the 60p meals, the window-less buses with no maximum capacity, the goats grazing at the open roadside, the endless smiles, the smell of old diesel, the roads with never-ending potholes, the dirt roads, the non-existent roads, the welcoming people (greetings of ‘Bula’ from everyone!), the beach life, the 5 quid resort rooms, the palm trees, the coconuts, the cocktails, the undrinkable tap water, the lush green vegetation, the bare-footed rugby being played by school kids, the makeshift bamboo rugby posts, the only white guy for miles, the sense of adventure….ahhh *breathes in* the sweet smell of the ‘third world’! This is life on ‘Fiji time’ - a reference to how horizontally laid back this place is that NOTHING runs on time! But it’s certainly part of the charm of the country….and I for one love it!

A time warp after the industrially advanced nations of Aus and N.Z…..I must admit it’s a welcome return to ‘less civilised/more primitive’ surroundings after an absense of 3 months! I love it….there’s just something about that feeling you get when you arrive in a new, unknown land. Less than 3 hours away but a world away from the pristine streets of Auckland’s CBD….it’s not better, it’s not worse, it’s just different and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it!

I’m nearing the end of my two-and-a-half week stay here and my days have just been packed! I came to Fiji expecting some R & R and instead got a sizeable dose of R ‘n’ R! Snorkelling, zip-lining, jungle-trekking, beach volleyball, horse-back riding, coconut jewellery-making, waterfalls, rope-swings, kava ceremonies (the local drink of choice - a mild anaesthetic derived from the root of a local plant), kayaking, hitch-hiking, bamboo and banana-leaf bures, midnight guitar beach sessions, crab races, banana-leaf weaving, Polynesian party nights with firedancers and just regular Fiji Bitter beer nights is what it’s all been about! My first week or so was spent hangin’ out on the set of ‘Celebrity Love Island’ (did anyone watch that show!?…no, didn’t think so!). Apparently the place was rebuilt for the filming so it’s a pretty cool hostel, complete with the deck where Kelly Brook used to meet and greet the guests aka Z-listers. Then it was off to experience life as a castaway on some desert islands! I would spend a few nights on Mana Island including an eventful St. Paddy’s Day and then went to party at Beachcomber Island! The 100 bed dorm room is quite a sight! The island’s circumference is walkable in only 7 minutes….it’s quite a feeling of strandedness!

There have been many highlights, but I think up there has got to be spending time with the local villagers. You see Fiji, probably an influence from the Brits, has quite an established tourism industry for a relatively poor country….if you want to be part of that, it makes things very easy. Well I like my sense of adventure and I always think it’s nice to see both sides so one night, as the rest of the hostellers were busy getting fed their Fijian-influenced food of fish and chips and steak and mash, I decided to go for some real Fijian food at a local guide’s house in the nearby village. Wonderful. Locally-caught reef fish, fresh spinach, kumala, bread fruit and soup, all consumed by the fingers of my bare hands. Then a second course of Indian-influenced curry; there is a high percentage of Indian immigrants here. The previous day I walked into the village with a interesting Canadian guy I’d met and we played bare-footed rugby for an hour in monsoon rains with the local kids. The next day we went to Church for Palm Sunday, sang gospel and witnessed a local boy getting baptised in the sea! It was great seeing how the locals live their lives because, let’s face it, they don’t have a lot. Still, they give so much and are so friendly. Overall, another thoroughly enjoyable time in a great country.

So there we have it - Fiji done and dusted! The Fijian life, the island life, the beautiful life….the real life.

Tonight I’m off to another island paradise: Hawaii! I will be attempting to travel through time by taking off tonight and landing this morning….all this being made possible by hitting that magic speed of (five hundred and) eigty-eight miles per hour and the strategic existence of a warp zone allowing cross-dimensional time travel called the international date line. My flight is scheduled for take-off at 2250 hours on Sunday 23rd March….but I think I’ll turn up late; after all, this is Fiji time!

A happy Easter to you all!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 5:17 am and is filed under On the move, Fiji. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.