Fiji Part II...

When we last left you we were making our mad escape from the Sonaisali Island Resort... and now, we have arrived,  at a truly incredible place.  We are on the second leg of our vaca, and we are at the Warwick in Korolevu.  The difference here is striking.  For one, they have electricity, which is really nice, after five days of, well,  not so much electricity.  Korolevu is on the coral coast of Fiji and the beaches that we drove by were stunning.  You know those beaches you see on screen savers or James Bond movies?  Yeah, those kind of beaches. 

This is the view from our hotel room.  It is perfect for watching the sunset with a cold Fiji bitter in hand.

See what I mean?  And notice how the tress are decorated for Christmas? 

The first night there we participated in a kava ceremony and tasting.  

 http://gohawaii.about.com/od/fijiculture/a/all-about-kava.htm

Kava is made from the root of a plant, and the guy who is making it (usually the chief) puts the powder in a bag and then squishes it all around so that the water looks like a dirty puddle.  According to our guy, Lasano, you can tell good kava by looking at a stream of the dripping water.  If it is dark brown, it is too strong, light brown, too light, and medium, then just right (yes, like Goldilocks).  And so the finished and ready drink looks like muddy water that has been mixed by someones hands, and those hands had just finished running hermit crab races for the kids, so not exactly sure about the hygiene, but whatever.  Also, kava makes your lips and tongue numb.  YAY! So, you clap once, take the bowl, say BULA!, drink it, then hand it back and clap three times. 

Gary has just finished his tsunami bowl of kava and has numb lips and tongue....  Pooks is drinking her low tide bowl. 

R-man struggles to drink is low tide bowl.  But he did it!  That night we all had numb lips and tongues.  And everyone could sleep but me. 

The next day Gary and I decided to walk out to the very edge of the coral reef that was our beach lagoon.  This whole area filled with water at high tide, and at low tide you could walk out here and see all kinds of stuff.  If you are closer to shore the water is deeper, but out here it is about knee high.

Each night at around 6 they did the beating of the Lily.... ahem, the beating of the Lali... which was this great rhythm on a hollowed out log, and then the girl huffing with all her might into a giant conch shell.   Now, I say "about 6", because of course, anytime you go to any island, time sort of loses it's meaning.  Here they call it Fiji-time, which means, about 6,
but probably a lot closer to not 6. 

To give you a little idea of what Fiji-time is like here is a little story: on the first day we asked our room-lady for some washcloths.  So she brought us one, and said that as soon as more were ready she would bring them.  So the next day we asked again, and got the same response, "as soon as they are ready..."  pretty soon we gave up asking, figuring that we were getting clean enough in the ocean, and from the balmy sea breeze.  On our last night (9 days later), we were all in bed, asleep, when we get a knock on the door.  The washcloths had arrived... at 10PM, nine days later.  
That's Fiji-time.

On with the trip...

 

We wanted to get some more "provisions" (see last post) and so we headed into Sigatoga, where there is an incredible fresh air market.  If you look on the left hand side of the picture, behind the lady in purple, is a man in purple.  That guy wanted to be our market tour guide so bad!  We had to leave and come in another entrance, and he STILL found us! 
One of my favorite things about Fiji: everyone is so warm and kind.  Each person smiles and says, "bula!" and they love to just stop and have a chat.  As you drive down the road, they wave and cheer, "BULA!" They invite you to visit their village, and offer you bananas, and the kids are just so amazing.  They walk out of their way to talk to you and love to shake hands and say, "nice to meet you!", and they want to find out all about you, and share their coconuts.  The Fijians we met were really just generous spirits, which is so amazing, for people with so little.  Anyway, back to the market...

dried fish and coconuts

Some potatoes and squash.

This is our kava dealer.  Kava is sold in root form (left) and in powder form.  We got the powder, so be ready at the kid's birthday party this summer for some!  BULA! 

Vilisite's restaurant was about 5 minutes from our hotel, again, gorgeous beach front, beautiful sunset, and fish and chips.

Oops. Did I forget to mention the "provisions"?

I wanted to take a picture, but I had to wait for just the right moment... and this is it.

Out front there was a huge lime tree, and both kids got to pick a couple to bring back to the hotel.

Pooks showing off her lime (fresh picked) and the rainbow.

We didn't do too much at while we were in Korolevu, happy just to have the sunshine, pool and beach, but we did go to the Kula Eco-park. 

http://www.fijiwild.com/

Pooks wanted to take this picture specifically for YOU, Aunt Claire.  She thought you would scream just looking at this iguana. 

Until she saw this snake. 
Then she decided that THIS would be the picture that made you scream. :)  We spent the whole day walking around this park, and while I would usually not post pictures of animals at a zoo on here, the animals here were so darn photogenic that I had to share them. 

Even the fish posed!

And look at this peacock!  He was just strutting his stuff all over the place. 

And if you ever wondered what the BACK of a peacock looks like, well, now you know.  Right?  I mean, I told you they were photogenic, didn't I?

And look at these two monkeys. 

The rest of the time we spent pretty much just relaxing on the beach, throwing spears...

collecting shells and crabs...

splashing around. 

 Oh yeah!  I forgot about this.  Our hotel offered these wedding packages.  So here is this vestal bride, about to be delivered to her waiting groom. 

 She can't walk across the sand in her heels, so she is carried by these two...

 to her raft...  it all sounds so romantic and charming...

 except that in the pictures they airbrush out the screaming kids splashing around, and the fat ladies that have been drinking mai-tais all day hooting at the bride...  and so maybe not so romantic, but whatever, this is FIJI!

OK, one more Fiji story....  On the last day of our stay I convinced Gary to take a sea kayak out with me.  I told him that I wanted to take a picture of the water breaking at the edge of the reef.  When we walked out here earlier, the water was about knee deep, now, it wasn't that much deeper, maybe hip deep, but the current was pretty strong. 

Anyway, the hotel has these orange buoys that mark the edge of the area that you can kayak in, and when we got as close as we could, I took this picture (we're still about 100 yards from the break- you can see it behind the little wave in front).  Then, I had the brilliant idea that we should kayak out past the reef.  I mean, when will we be sea kayaking in Fiji again?  And that wave doesn't look so big, and it would be fun.  Gary was hesitant, you know, we have kids now, so we should be careful.  Somehow I was able to convince him (I think the word "wuss" may have been involved) and so we started paddling like mad.  As we approached the break we waited for a pause in the swell, and then just paddled like crazy....  until we were on the other side. 

Phew... so then we had to turn around and paddle in, and it was like Hawaii- Five O... we almost tipped back over front, then rode the wave, and then just kept paddling.  Once we were in the clear we both looked up and spotted the kayak life guard.  He was paddling towards us and waving for us to come back inside the buoys.  Gary was like, "Oh, no... I told you we shouldn't go out there..."  So the guy tells us that we weren't supposed to go past the buoys, that the current was too strong, and it was dangerous.  So I was apologizing and apologizing, and looking at the shore, we could see that there was a little crowd gathered there: the water sports guys, the activities guys, the water sport director, and some of the guests.   Gary was getting nervous that we were going to get in serious trouble.

When we finally landed, the water sports director came over and was yelling at us that we had signed a form and that we couldn't go past the buoys, and so I looked at Gary and gave him the raised eyebrow.... I got this...

"What do you mean?  We got near the buoys and the strong current just pulled us out!  Those buoys are too near the edge of the reef!   You're lucky we're strong paddlers, we could have died out there!" 

Everyone in the crowd was quiet.  What could they say? 

And so we lived to see another day, and it was amazing.    

Been a long time coming...

Typically, this is not a great way to start a vacation. 

This picture of Fiji was taken on Monday December 17.  We were scheduled to arrive on Thursday December 20.  Naturally, we were all just a tiny bit worried, so I made sure that Gary called Expedia to insure that the Sonaisali Island Resort was still running, and in good shape.  The kind folks at Expedia assured him that the hotel had not called in with any damage, and so we should be good to go!  At the time, that seemed fine.....

However, on the ride from the airport to the hotel, we found out that all might not be as well as we had hoped, and the reason that Expedia didn't know anything about it was becase there had been no power and no internet for a few days.  Also, no pool.  So here we are, waiting for the boat to take us across to our island paradise.

I won't bore you with ALL of the horror stories from our first few days in Fiji, let me just say that the pool was drained and half-filled with silty water, the beach was decimated, the generator was sputtering, there was no A/C, and the water only worked half the time.  

 But you know what, we were in FIJI!  So we made the best of it. 

After one day of sitting around in the heat and investigating the destruction, we did what the Fijians do...



we hit the outlets!  Here there was at least some fans, an ice cream stand, lots of cold beer, dancing, and of course

PIZZA!  Mama's Pizza was the best pizza we had eaten in a LONG, LONG, LONG time.  Of course, the fans may have helped. 



The water here was beautiful, the sun was shining, the humidity was making us glisten, it was a perfect day for a walk around Denerau. 

Here the kids are with a Disney-esque genuine imitation Fijian tiki. 

There were trees knocked down every where, and the trees that were still in the ground were mostly bare.  Talking to some of the residents, they could not believe how strong the wind was during the storm. 

And somehow, this litte car survived. 

But this boat didn't.

This is how you get a backhoe to Sonaisali Island.  This, and crews and crews of military guys worked around the clock to pick up the debris and do basic clean up of the island. 

 No matter how bad the beach looks, and how hot and sticky the room is, the sunset can't be beat.



At least the hotel provided us with some excursions, since there was really nothing to do AT the hotel but swelter, sweat, and complain, and so we got to do two really amazing snorkelling trips.  The first day we took a pontoon boat out to Malololailai (yeah, I can't say it either) Island, and then to Castaway Island (where the movie with Tom Hanks was filmed) 

The water was that amazing deep blue that just seeped right into crystal turquoise and then shocking white.  The pictures don't even begin to capture the colors.

Anyway, here we are snorkelling around. 

Another fun thing to do is to jump off the roof of the boat.  R--man was the first one in.

Pooks then followed.  In addition to the sparkling water, the hundreds of fish, and the jumping, LUNCH was amazing!  Barbeque!  On a grill! 



After that sun drenched day, we decided that the next day we would head into town to get some provisions (you know that is my code word for beer, right?), and stay out of the sun.   Isn't this the cutest police post ever? 

So we hit the MH Supermarket.  Our cab guy was so cute, he gave us his rewards card to use, you know, so he could get the points.

 

On the way, he was telling us that during the last major typhoon in 2003 the water came up to the roof of the first floor.  And so while this storm was bad because of the wind and the trees, everyone was glad that there wasn't flooding.  And for people who don't really use A/C or much electricity, losing it isn't really that big of an inconvenience. 

And so we managed to stay out of the sun, thanks to the shopping and this downpour.  How is it that kids can play all day in the water? 

So we were back at our hotel, and we settled in for a long night with A/C that worked only sporadically.  Gary had to keep getting up every fifteen or twenty minutes to flip the breaker, because the fuse kept blowing.  He finally gave up, the room was quiet, and we were barely on the cusp of sleep, when I hear...

Gary:  Li?(pause) Did you bring back something alive?

me:  What?  No!  I don't think so....  Why?

Gary:  Well, there's something alive on the desk.


I mean, really, I DID learn to check each shell before putting it in my backpack after waking up to a clicking hermit crab party in our bathtub one time, so I knew (mostly) that it was not the shells...

And, on listening in the dark, and from years living in RGP's house, I knew exactly what it was....

A mouse was trying to break into our peanuts! 

Yup, this vacation just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

So we stole a boat, and Pooks drove us far, far away from the Sonaisali Island Resort .... 

Um... well, that is not exactly what happened. 

Really the next day we had another snorkelling trip, this time to Beachcomber and Treasure Islands. 

Pretty, right?

Again, the water was amazing, the fish were so, so cool, and lunch was... again... BARBEQUE!  This is the second stop, where the water was DEEP, and the main activities were beer and jumping off the boat.  I decided to take a solo snorkel and I could not even see the bottom. 

Gary only told me later about the sharks.  Thanks.

That night we let the kids play in the half-full, silty pool, because other kids were doing it, it WAS Christmas, we were leaving the next day, and what would they do really, kick us out? 

Even the band got into it... and you could almost hear them over the pool pump.   Sigh...

And so here we are, on our way to our next stop, the Warwick Hotel in Korolevu... Look at our smiling faces... it can only get better from here! 

Merry Christmas!