Categories
Fiji Random Thoughts

Bula from Fiji

It looks like I’ve tricked myself into arriving in Nadi.

Knowing that I’d get cold feet, I booked a non-refundable plane ticket, and AirBnB accommodation. Sure enough, my feet became very cold early in May.

But the Miser won out over the Laggard, and here I am. Warm. In shorts. In winter.

Vapes

But not before I fretted for more than a week about vapes, which cannot be bought legally in Fiji. I pestered a Fiji Facebook group, before finally asking the horse ( baggage check-in at the airport ).

Which told me to put everything vape-related in my carry-on baggage. I did that, with the result that I dribbled through customs like a normal person, without the normal Aussie grilling.

The Flight

I decided not to stand on ceremony, and insist on taking my allocated window seat from what turned out to be a surly old man next to me.

He told me – I think – that it’s unusual for Fiji Airways to be nearly two hours late taking off. As I write, the same flight was only 36 minutes late today.

Plus it took more than an hour to get through luggage drop-off. And the plane’s narrow aisles meant I spent three hours in the path of pedestrians.

Nadi, and My Digs

The “studio apartment” is a two-room affair – the bathroom / toilet, and everything else. I’m used to that from my time in Thailand and Vietnam. Good enough.

There’s a decent yard too, and coconuts galore – as soon as I figure out how to climb 20 feet up the trunk without doing a Keith Richards.

On the downside – after only 24 hours here, mind – it looks like it might be difficult getting around.

Nadi is sparsely-populated, and affordable transport options seem to be limited. Taxis aren’t much cheaper than NZ, and renting a motorbike is $80 FJD / day ( compare that with less than $2 / day in Thailand ), the same cost as renting a bicycle!

A taxi ride to Wailoaloa beach and back ( about 4 – 5 km ) cost $35 FJD.

Even though the beach was nearly empty, the driver was adamant that leaving gear on the beach while swimming was inviting theft. The beach itself was disappointing – black sand, and even though I turned up at low tide, nothing better really than a fair to middling NZ harbour beach.

Also possibly on the downside – everything’s locked, which probably means there’s a fair bit of theft. A guy loitering beside the money asked me for change. I gave him $3, hoping that I won’t see him every day.

On the Upside – I got chased up the road by a young woman. I’d left a bottle of water I bought at the counter of the supermarket.

I wanderplantained up the road early this evening to discover that Namaka – the little centre 5 minutes’ walk away – abuzz. Some street vendors with some interesting offerings – Cassava for example, and plantains ( left ) the size of marrows – and some affordable-looking Indian restaurants.

 

Whereupon it dawned on me that the Natives disappear during the sweltering midday heat, leaving it to Mad Dogs and Kiwis.

Categories
Vietnam

Someday I’ll Learn

How easy it is in a foreign country for things to come crashing down.

‘Crashing’ because I’ve had a second bike accident. Very suddenly, the cock-a-hoop of the last post became a dead chook.

It means everything has suddenly become twice as difficult, because moving around is uncomfortable.

I landed on my left side, so have some scrapes, the worst on my hip.

Hip injury

After the Thailand accident & following infection, the second thing I did was get to a pharmacy and clean and patch the wounds.

The first thing was dealing with a swarm of yapping Vietnamese who rounded on the fresh meat ( me ) of the accident scene.

Only the taxi driver I collided with spoke a little English, but I didn’t need a translator to clarify that I wouldn’t win this argument.

He’d started a U-turn right in front of me. I came off the bike, which then slid into his car.

I made the mistake of trying to swerve and brake at the same time. The road was wet, and I was going a little too fast for the conditions.

As I slid, there was a marked flash-back to the Thailand accident, to that point where things there suddenly became a truckload more difficult.

The taxi driver demanded $3m VND ( ~= USD $138 ) for repairs, threatening to call the Police. As a foreigner, that was unlikely to go well for me, nevermind the sheer trouble of dealing with a gang of Authorities who spoke little English.

I negotiated him down to $2m VND ( small crack in his left rear side-panel ), and scarpered the scene after convincing him of my address and Serial Number.

It doesn’t end there. Today I’ll fork out $750k VND for what could be a patchwork fix, so at least the lights and indicators on the bike work.

The bigger picture is that recent anxiety about the stability of my situation here has shot up. Part of that is uncertainty about when my school re-opens.

For now, I’m doing what I can to batten down the hatches – optimising sleep, diet, and health generally. One step at a time…