Fiji - Paradise (and Nemo) found. Part 1 - Viti Levu for beginners

Natadola Beach
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We arrived at Nadi airport on Saturday evening and had booked a room at the Sandalwood Lodge, on the Queen's Road half-way between the airport and the centre of town. According to our guide, there were several lively places to eat and drink in the area so we quickly dropped off our very heavy bags and went off to locate a nice-sounding place called the Lazy Cactus for some supper. Some cheerful prostitutes called "Bula!" to us from the corner and we bulaed back. (Bula, by the way, is the Fijian greeting which everyone says to everyone else, and is impossible to do without a big cheesy grin on your face).

Cheesy grin at the Bedara Inn
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The guide indicated that the Lazy Cactus was just across the main road and to the left of our hotel so we set off down the road and down several side roads - no Lazy Cactus. The local police were out in force doing some sort of road check, although they seemed unconcerned at the unroadworthines of most of the cars and the abundance of hookers. So we bulaed them and asked where we could find the restaurant. "Oh, yes, the Lazy Cactus, just down there (back the way we'd come), about 300m". Back down the road, 300, 500, 750m and no Catus, Lazy or otherwise, so we went for plan B and crossed over to a pub called the Bounty where they had a power cut. We could barely see the menu so guessed at a couple of dishes and tried the local beer which, after our little walk, tasted great. An early night ensued because the Bounty hadn't read its assessment by the Lonely Planet guide as one of the busiest places in town with live music every night, and closed at 9.30pm.

Monts and Iguanas - Kula Eco Park, Korotogo
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We planned to spend the next week exploring the main island, Viti Levu, before going and doing nothing in some of the small islands to the North West. After blowing the budget in New Zealand, we decided against renting a car, especially as we had seen the size of the potholes on the way from the airport and had read that there was a good and cheap network of buses running up and down the main road that circles the island. However, our cheery landlady at the Sandalwood advised us against the bus for the first part of our trip - to pretty Natadola beach - as it was Sunday and the beach was some way from the main road down an unsealed track. She managed to get us a good price with a local taxi driver and agreed to look after one of our heavy bags so we only had to drag one round with us. The drive was bumpy as the taxi appeared to have lost its suspension as well as several other important parts, like its clutch, but even the driver wasn't prepared for the huge muddy holes in the unsealed road leading down to the beach and he gratefully dumped us at the entrance to the hotel, where a freindly chap was waiting to take our bag.

A1 Position
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The guide said there was only one hotel on Natadola beach, although the Intercontinental was in the process of building a very large (and ugly) resort nearby. However we were puzzled that the hotel didn't quite match the guide's description of a "Mediterranean oasis of calm", but was instead comprised of the typical Fijian "bure" or individual hut-rooms. It was only after we had signed in and paid for our room - in cash - that we realised we were somewhere else altogether. It seems they had built this complex for the contractors working on the big resort development and made some extra money on the side by taking in unsuspecting guests who were dropped off at the first building the taxis arrived to, the Mediterranean hotel being tucked away in greenery 200m down the track. No wonder the chap had been so smiley and keen to take our bag... Being British and therefore disinclined to kick up a fuss, and already in laid-back Fijian mode, we decided the place was nice enough and decided to stay, although we quickly discovered that all the contractors had bogged off home for the weekend and we were the only guests, apart from a cute kitten who lived under our patio and followed Monts round like a dog until she relented and fed him some of her fish dinner. A visit to the "real" hotel revealed it to match the guide description, although the kiwi manager sadly informed us they had no guests at all, which made us feel rather bad.

Waiting for the bus
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Bidding farewell to the cat we caught a ride in the contractors' minivan up to the main road and, by some good fortune arrived at the same time as a bus heading East. We hopped on, bulaed the assorted locals and decided our next stop would be Korotogo, a small beachside town just east of Singatoka. In Singatoka, Monts went to the cashpoint while Phill was chatted up by some local Indo-Fijian women who, of course, had a shop he should go and have a look at. Monts returned to guard the bag and resisted the advances of a toothless old crone who also had a shop while Phill was dragged into the market. Twenty minutes later, when Monts was about to give up hope, he emerged looking sheepish with, yes, another necklace! Before we could be accosted by any more stall-holders we jumped in a taxi to Korotogo and the Bedarra Inn, which was actually where we intended to stay for a change.

Rugby in Suva
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After a pleasant afternoon snorkel with lots of fat blue starfish, we adjourned to the bar where Phill ordered the cocktail of the day, which was blue and girly and Monts had a beer. The bar was full of Aussies and a number of the men had misguidedly decided to purchase and wear the local oufit: a wraparound "skirt" called a sulu and had matched it with loud hawaiian shirts. Now, these sulus look great on the locals but not so good on a 20 stone Australian. As they passed, one asked whether we liked them... Monts commented, somewhat tongue in cheek that they were great and wished that Phill would get one. "Ah well", he replied, "you Poms couldn't wear this attire in that shitty weather you always have. I'm going to wear this at home back in Perth all the time". "Ah well", we thought, "at least Phill won't look like a complete tit in a skirt and flowery shirt like you will", although he was perilously close by drinking a blue cocktail with an umbrella in it.

Travelling by Bus
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We were to encounter many more fat Australians on our tour of the island, none more so than on our next stop, a so-called "luxury" hotel on the Coral Coast near Korolevu. The resort was nice enough although it was raining and the only restaurant open for lunch was crammed with screaming kids stufing their faces with pizza and burgers - something like an Australian Butlins. With no evidence of local food on the menu we went for a club sandwich, which had been made several hours earlier with burnt toast and was soggy and revolting. We escaped for the afternoon and played some very bad golf on the hotel's par 3 course, which turned out to be quite fun, although we have destroyed all evidence of our dismal score.

Starfish
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A few rickety bus rides later full of ladies with huge afros and luxuriant mustaches, children with small afros and, as yet no mustaches and where we spookily kept bumping into the same bus conductor who patiently lugged our big bag up every time, we arrived in Suva, Fiji's capital where it was also raining. Apparently it rains a lot in Suva, or so we were told by the suave young taxi driver who picked us up at the bus station. We had chosen from our guidebook a nice sounding B&B up on the hill, but had not called ahead, which of course meant that when we got there, it turned out to be closed. Hmmm, we thought, this guide book's a bit out of date. We found a slightly less swish but comfortable hotel near the centre and headed out to see the town, which was, well, a town. In the museum we saw lots of cannibal forks and other pleasant reminders of the islands' past including the prayer book and what was left of the shoes of some ill-advised missionary who went to convert some locals and ended up in the pot. However, no reference to Philip Snow, an old friend of Monts' dad, who was a local celebrity, but not enough to displace the cannibal forks, apparently. On the way home, we stopped to watch some rugby being played on the Albert playing fields, which were waterlogged with all the rain. After watching them repeatedly pile into knee-high puddles face first, and undecided whether this was dedication or foolishness, we headed back for a warm shower in the hotel.

Now you'd have thought that, by now, we would have learned a lesson about checking ahead that the places advertised in the guide still existed. But that would have been too easy. Instead, that evening, we jumped into a taxi and asked it to take us to a restaurant on the other side of town which our guide described as "unmissable". After driving around in the dark and the rain for half an hour we discovered that it had, of course, ceased to exist and is therefore now entirely missable. Luckily taxis are cheap in Suva, so we retraced our tracks and ended up back in the centre for a hot curry before crossing the road to a very strange club full of locals dancing their boots off to local music. Not quite ready for this we found something called O'Neills which wasn't particularly Irish and was full of a mixture of locals and ex-pats dancing their boots off to some crappy R&B.

Two nights later and a very long bus journey back along the coast, we returned to Nandi and the Sandalwood where our bag was waiting for us. The following day, we were due to be picked up and transported by boat to Waya Island and the Octopus resort, but in the meantime we caught yet another bus to the centre of town to see what it had to offer. Not an awful lot as it turned out, and Phill almost threw his teddy out of the pram when we discovered that the place featured in the guide where we wanted to go for lunch had turned into a Nando's. But he cheered up when we were told that the Japanese restaurant we had lined up for the evening had, by a stroke of luck, been relocated just down the road from our hotel.

Friday night was livelier than the Saturday of our arrival and locals, tourists and the hookers were all out in force. Determined to discover what had become of the Lazy Cactus we took another walk and concluded it had been turned into a BBQ joint. Downstairs wasn't doing much business but the upstairs bar looked busy so we decided to go for a pre-dinner drink. It was packed full of Japanese tourists and we were lucky to get a table. Or so we thought, until the band, who had been taking a break - no doubt to get their pacemakers recalibrated - returned to the stage, right next to our seats. They proceeded to murder a variety of local songs very loudly with the singer, who was about 90, finding no difficulty in reading the lyrics of a cheat sheet and fondling his testicles at the same time. Declining a second beer and invitations from various loonies to join them for a dance, we waited for a pause in the cat-strangling and escaped for some Teppanyaki at the Japanese restaurant and drinks and a boogie at Ed's, the local club which was heaving with every conceivable nationality, age and sexual orientation.