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| Candy floss coconut and sugar cane |
Our annual mid-winter break. Off to a tropical location. Some years back, we booked and paid for a
family vacation to Fiji. George Speight
undid those plans with his military coup, 3 days before we were due to fly out. We were advised by NZ authorities, to cancel,
as we were travelling with children and the political stability was fragile and
hostilities prevailed. End of Fiji fun for
us. Luckily, we were paid out by our
travel insurance.
Fast-Forward to 2013 – we ended up in
Fiji, this time by default really. I
happened to spot a fax spam-mail that advertised a 5 night resort stay in Denerau,
Fiji, for $99 each. Wha? I hurried home to Mike and suggested we go
for it. “What’s the catch?” he asked. Well, turns out we had to attend a 90 minute
presentation on timeshare. I reckoned,
for $99, I didn’t mind that at all, so we bought and booked. But then, our 5 night holiday was lengthened to 2
weeks as Mike reckoned it was a good idea to see a cross-section of Fiji,
rather than just the resort experience, and since we were paying for flights, we "may as well".
(“A resort is a resort is a resort………… anywhere in the world” - true.)
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| Taveuni from the air |
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| Fiji is made up of more than 300 islands, many small ones like this |
So coinciding with our 24th
wedding anniversary, we set off on our second honeymoon, sans children, for the
first time in 20 years! It was exciting
but daunting. We have always travelled
with our children – India, Bali, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, Rarotonga. We decided this time, to do an eco-social-conscious travel
plan. We spent one night on the Coral
Coast staying at Natadola Beach Resort, a small boutique adults-only establishment
that must have been THE place to go in the 70’s. Today, it is a 11 room rather tired affair
which has been drowned on either side by 2 other larger, newer resorts. One is a Fijian bure-style
village (once the accommodation quarters of the “bigwigs” developing the mammoth Intercontinental resort on the other side) and on the other side, the
Intercontinental. This is a behemoth (extremely large beast), massive conglomeration of concrete structures, not too ugly at all due to great landscaping and pool vistas.
It has 216 rooms and suites, prices starting from $700 per night (I hope
that’s Fiji $ and not US$!!). It totally
dominates most of the beachfront for the rich and famous. Anyway, we had emailed the Natadola Beach Resort to ask if
there was a kindergarten nearby, which we could visit. There was, and they emailed us their “wish list”. We did manage a fair bit of their wishes.
My kindergarten administrator arranged for $50 of art resources to be
donated by OfficeMax, and our kindergarten gifted some puzzles and toys which
in turn had been donated to us. Mike
arranged for a local company, Sante Fe Shutters, to donate wooden building blocks which
they cut to size. We purchased some
other resources from shops, opp shops and Mike donated his fairly new digital camera
(now obsolete since he has an i-phone).
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Fiji Kindergarten donations: puzzles, art materials, games, blocks, and camera -
everything we could fit into a suitcase! |
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| What can we build? |
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| Mrs Kahlil and a handful of her kindergarten children |
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| The kindergarten |
We
arranged for a taxi to the kindergarten at Ramahtullah Kahn Memorial
School. It was a simple square building
consisting of 2 basic rooms, one for table work and eating, the other for free
play. We gathered in the spartan front
room, with tiled floors and open-grilled windows. About 10 children were seated on a tarpaulin,
awaiting our arrival. The teacher, Mrs
Kahlil, explained how difficult it is to get decent resources in Fiji – if they
need to buy anything it is financially prohibitive, as it includes a huge
postage or shipping fee.
Setting the building blocks and
resources on the floor in front of them, the children immediately started to build
structures. It was quite affirming to
see that we could make a positive impact on some little people’s lives, just by
being eco-social tourists. It’s the idea of tourists not
just taking, taking, but leaving something behind in exchange.
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| Captions on the school driveway |
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| The Primary School gathers for a photo - directed by the principal |
We had one of our best meals in
Fiji, on the road-side at a little supermarket with attached food serving
establishment. Nothing flash. Dusty and basic. It cost $13 for all 3 of us (our taxi driver
included) to eat an okra curry, rice, dal and roti each, along with some small
samosas and pakoras to take away!!
Compare this with a curry meal we had at Natadola Resort for
$78 for 2 – bland and awful really!
Our next stop: Denerau Island, Wyndham WorldMark
Resort. Tourist Destination Deluxe. Wall-to-wall flash, ritzy resorts jostling
cheek by jowl around a luxurious golf course.
The Raddison, The Sheraton, Westin and Hilton, to name a few. I must say, that although we don’t really do
the touristy stuff very well, staying at a pristinely kept resort for a few
days is a pleasure (remember the $99 deal). The quality of accommodation is high and you
have all you need on site, including access to spa treatments, gymnasium, free cultural shows and
pool. But if, like us, you have done the
family vacation for 20 years, and you like a little peace and quiet, resort life is tiresome, when
everyman and his entire family are running, jumping, yelling, bouncing,
skipping, splashing, bomb-diving, pool thrashing and being generally precocious
and annoying. So the timeshare presentation failed to make us customers. Close. But no cigar.
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| Some of the picture-perfect Intercontinental Resort beach-frontage |
We found shops in Nadi similar to Bali's Kuta cut-throat high-bargaining, pushy-sales experience. Most of the shop keepers and attendants are
Indian, and boy, they do not leave you to browse in peace. They hassle, hassle, hassle you,
constantly. Quite uncomfortable. It feels like you are in
Little India, really, in main street Nadi. Much of what is
available to purchase in India, is on show in shops in downtown Nadi. Stunning, exotic, bejewelled saris, brightly
coloured salwaar kameezes and Indian incense, creams, lotions and potions. Tourist souvenirs include lots of Balinese-recognisable
wooden carvings with “Bula Fiji” painted on.
I bet they are not made in Fiji!
I sure had fun in Fiji, learning how to use my new Nikon camera with zoom focus. I found I could take pics of flowers and birds with greater clarity. I just had to learn to keep a rather steady hand!
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| Beach flotsam and jetsom |
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| Stunning flora of Fiji |
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| My all-time favourite flower - frangipani! |
Fiji Travel Tips: What to take:
- A good camera! (with underwater options if you like snorkelling)
- A coffee plunger (simple pleasures in life are assured)
- Ukulele - you have time to learn all those tricky chords you never could play before
- Plenty good insect repellent
- Sunblock (organic, of course)
- Reef shoes, goggles and snorkel (if unlike me, you like to snorkel)
- A colourful sarong for throwing around your togs
- Swimming Togs, of course
- A few good books to read
Bula!
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