First day in Fiji

Aside from the questionable insight involved in attending a Halloween party the night before an international flight, the morning went well. Air New Zealand performed in that solid, unexceptionably competent manner that is, in fact, so exceptional in the modern day. Strange to climb aboard an airline and fully expect nothing bad to happen. Plus, I got to watch Moon, which was pretty damn good. Not as good as Il Divo, but good.

Fiji? Immediate recognition of the huge gulfs in society. Most outsiders at the Int. Airport in Nadi were being hustled into private cars or the shuttles/flights/frickkin’ helicopters of the elite resorts. They will never see Suva, where half the population lives. No shanty-town views. They will never even see enough of the population to form an opinion. That’s fine, that’s what they pay for. As for moi, I’m not here to sunbathe. Not really sure what I’m here for, but sunbathing on a private island in the Yasawas is right out.

So I caught the local bus instead. 5 hours to Suva didn’t sound too bad, until I saw how crowded the rig was. Finally found a seat but even middle-americans don’t fit in a basic bus seat. Polynesians are bloody huge. Not fat, any more than others, but just big. Thus you have a full to capacity bus where no one over 8 years old can fit in a single seat and the two main ethnic groups are growling at each other. I was one of the smaller specimens present, as well as being the only honky, so I crammed in best as I could.

Then the music came on. Christian praise music, like bad Amy Grant, but on a continuous loop of 6 songs, mixed English and Fijian, and issuing from a speaker just behind and above my head. This was nice, however, in that it helped block out the constant coughing, sneezing, and congested snorting of the poor soul sharing my shoulder to the left. The guy was miserable, yet was generous enough to leave me with a present whose fruition will undoubtedly arrive later in the week. Huzzah! 5 hours of huzzah!

Nonetheless, I am in a beach-side room for three weeks in Fiji. Everything else, including the bureaucratic war for which I am currently girding my loins, pales in comparison to that fact. The place is beautiful, the people friendly, the Indian food is great, and I have already seen a dozen species I can’t recognize. Even the rain isn’t cold.

So off to bed, and more tomorrow. Maybe some notes on last week’s Abel Tasman adventure as well. Unless I’m deported. In which case an expose on prison food.