Yesterday it was sota tale to the busy-ness and beach of Wailoaloa, and bula to the peaceful rural setting of inland Nadi.
The Ideal Bed & Breakfast – home for the past three weeks – is memorable mainly for some spectacular people.
A Moveable Feast
The staff are all wonderful, but some of the guests are pretty special as well. I met many of them only briefly, because most stay only a night or two as a gateway to Fiji and yonder. Many had been to more than 50 countries.
A handful of Americans worked for an airline, and traveled on the cheap, always stand-by, basically wherever took their fancy. One bronzed middle-aged Californian was following the women’s football world cup. With stopovers in Fiji.
A young Italian chef had motorcycled through many parts of the world. Including to the Northernmost part of Europe , packing all his food back in Italy. He’d let Google track him over the years, resulting in the dot-infested global map he showed me.
A NZer – probably in his mid-30s and originally from Denmark – had retired, and now lives in Thailand.
A retired American couple had been all over the globe, and are still doing it on ‘social security’. They were easily identified by day-glo yellow / green “trash-busters” t-shirts. They were remnants of the best of the 60s – he’d stumbled across Woodstock during wanderings from Minnesota.
The younger crowd mostly stayed only a night or two, and then went island-hoping or diving or somesuch. They included a Sri Lankan woman working online, and here in Fiji indefinitely, a Czech guy who left after renting a car to live in, and a young Ukranian woman working and studying in London.
Ends and Means
Yeah, many of these people are much wealthier than the likes of me, and most likely you.
But at least some of them have been able to roam by either gearing their lifestyle that way, or by doing it on the smell of an oily rag. Or by the seat of their pants. Or both.
I’m a total novice at this game, but it’s shown me what’s possible.
Mr .Bojangles
Was the jibe of an old friend living in the Presbyterian south of New Zealand when I told him I’d been wandering around barefoot in shorts and singlet.