Email from Caro: Fiji

So, hideously, at 4am, yes, 4 as in F-O-U-R and a.m. as in aaaaghhh, its bloody early in the morning A.M. We got up to go to Fiji. I was dead excited.

Sadly, Fiji was a gross disappointment. My advice to anybody going there -go there in style, do not attempt to budget, if you want paradise, you have to pay for it. We only had a week there, and the resort looked as if it would provide all our needs for the duration (requirements were: lazy quiet reading by the pool and sitting in the sun perhaps a couple of drinks and some fresh fruit and vegetables sorta thing). By the end of the week, it was hard to find my sense of humour, which had packed up and fucked off to Hawai'i, where it was joyously awaiting my arrival.

We also discovered the Fijian dollar is worth just a little less than the Oz dollar but more than the NZ dollar. Hardly surprising really, everybody’s money is worth more than the NZ dollar, we should have taken an oak chest cheap baubles and trinkets to trade with.

As soon as we arrived at Nadi Airport, I thought "oh shit, its Ho Chi Minh city" (refer to 'Nam email). The Fijian people (Indian and Fijian) are rude, unhelpful, and see you as a huge bag of money. 

They have yet to learn the power of good customer service and the finer points of the tourist trade like; 

*hot water in your room for showers 
*not charging you F$54 to do a load of washing which returns ruined
*having the public phone working
*not charging 25c per minute for email -50c in midsummer! 
*not shouting to each other in the morning outside your door to someone else half a mile away
*having fresh fruit and vegetables and send the the resort chef on a course to update his skills and creating dishes that are not deep-fried, fried, dripping with grease, perhaps featuring something other than out-of-the-packet battered fish fillets and chicken pieces, fries and crappy coleslaw.
* and the big one: remembering we are guests and that we arrived the other day. I got really tired of "Bula! You jus' arrive today?" after being asked like twice a day for a week, sometimes by the same person. 

Oh, and if I ever meet the resort courtesy busdriver again, I will be arrested for GBH and give him the biggest earful of his life while I explain the operative word in his job title is "Courtesy". 

Sorry, feel I had to purge. Gosh, mmm, that was therapeutic. I feel great now. Thanks. So, as you can imagine, by the 16th, I was like a seething heap of righteousness with a trough for a mouth. Poor Symon. Still, his way of dealing with the whole debacle was to get naked. At every opportunity. I'm starting to think that perhaps he's not of Irish blood at all, but German. 

I think what actually tipped me over the edge was the milk. It was that horrid UHT long lasting stuff. Makes Caro's milky coffees taste yuck. No coffee means no caffeine which means grouchy... 

Apart from that, and the fact that it rained solidly most days, we did spend some quality time with each other, and had a few larfs as I whipped Symon's ass playing "Speed" and "Last Card", painting his toenails and listening to the local radio station (which is hilarious in an unintentional way), reading books and planning the USA leg of the trip. It was nice to not have to go looking at the tourist sights and monuments and museums and whatever...

...or get ripped off by locals. 'cos he's such a nice guy, when this old codger rocked up to him, chatting away and whittling stuff from bits of wood and asking us questions, Symon thought "what a lovely old man". I was suspicious and not speaking. He assumed Symon was "the best person to approach", as the the lovely old man turned out to be a con. 

He'd asked us our names in the conversation, shaking our hands and then carved them onto a scary looking mask and two spears. Obviously no one will buy them, so we have to or he won't go away. Its a clever ploy, but he hadn't counted on the fact that we were:

a) backpackers with no money. He looked alarmed when Symon said that, for the first time looking at our crappy T shirts and the lack of "extortionate handicraft" shopping bags dangling from our fingers.
b) my thin temper was ready to go mano-a-mano with somebody.

And so it began.

He started haggling with Symon at $45, I laughed. 
$45 again. 
Symon explained we were backpackers. 
$40 then. 
Jee-zus christ (agitated), you're dreamin' mate 20 bucks. 
His time to laugh $40. 
Forget it $20 is it. 
OK $35. 
No.
Handmade my me $35. 
No. (pulling out a cigarette looking disinterested).
Can't do $30.
$20.
How much you got? 
$10 (slow drag) but I'll go to $20 (exhale).
$20? 
$20 (looking down the street). 
OK $20 but $2 so I go buy a coke. 
So $22 then? 
(peeling off a note in my pocket so he can't see my money)
Yeah, $20 and $2 for a coke. 
(I give him $2 for the coke).
All events took place in a lane at the back of the shops.

The day before we left saw us sitting on sunloungers, in the sun (which decided to reveal itself finally), reading books, soaking up the rays and me swimming in the pool. 

Fiji was OK, but the lesson here is: Don't stay at the "CLUB FIJI RESORT", Nadi. Go straight to the white-sanded, gorgeous Sheraton.