My flight to Fiji went to plan and we landed at about 4:30pm.
Once I had collected my luggage, I went outside to wait for the bus. I had booked
into a hostel – The Beachouse - on the main island and had been informed that I
needed to get the local bus heading to Suva. As soon as I stepped outside the
airport, I immediately felt the heat radiating off of the tarmac, although I
was dressed inappropriately in Jeans and a T-shirt, it was a welcome change
from the last few days of constant rain in New Zealand. I sat on my Rucksack
outside the airport and soon got chatting to a local guy who turned out to be
the bus ticket man. He told me, along with a German couple who were also
getting the bus that the next one would be at 6pm. It finally arrived, old,
rickety and full. We shoved our luggage in the compartments under the bus and
climbed aboard where I perched on the edge of a seat next to a young girl. The
journey ended up being 3hours long and the bus didn’t seem to get any less
empty along the way. I was quite happy looking out of the window though (until
it got dark) and the locals were extremely friendly, so I was kept entertained.
I was even offered Fish and Chips by an old man sitting across the very narrow
aisle from me. Finally we arrived at the Beachouse stop and I clambered off of
the bus tired and hot. The German couple were also staying for a few days at
the same hostel and we were met at the end of the lane by a guy with a torch.
We checked in and were shown to our rooms where I met my roommate (who turned
out to be quite a character and was the topic of many conversations), had a
shower and went to bed.
It was raining when I arrived at the hostel and was still
raining the following morning when I woke up, much to my disappointment. I
found my way to the bar where they were serving a free breakfast of cereal and
toast. I spent the morning with my book, relaxing on the sofas in the bar,
waiting for the rain to stop. It finally did early afternoon so I retired to
the beach where I spent an hour battling the wind which brought sharp swirls of
sand across my body. I gave up after an hour and went back for a shower to try
and get the sand out of my hair before dinner. I was a bit bored of my own
company by the evening, so walked into the bar and asked a group of young travellers
if I could join them. It turned out that they had all met at The Beachouse
within the last few days, so I didn’t feel too out of place and soon got
chatting. I ended up spending the rest of the week with this random mixture of
people.
I found out that my interesting room mate, Kimberley, had been at the resort
for 4 weeks. She was chatty enough but spent a lot of her time wandering round,
smoking and talking to herself. She was American; we guessed she must have at
least been in her 30’s and was obviously a sun worshipper – one of the boys
called her handbag face because her skin was like leather! One “Kimberley
moment” that kept us giggling all week was that she had planned to go to New
Zealand for two weeks as part of her month-long holiday. She made the 3 hour
bus journey to the airport on the day of her flight, only to get there to find
that she had missed it. When looking at her ticket, she had read the flight
number thinking that was the time of her flight. I, along with everyone else,
had absolutely no idea how she managed it, seeing as a flight number usually
has at least 2 letters in front of it and doesn’t correspond with what would be
a sensible time to fly. FJ212 – “Oh” she said “I thought my flight was at 12
minutes past 2”. So she hopped back on a bus to The Beachouse and there she
stayed. I think she was a picnic short of a sandwich.
The Hostel, like many other resorts on Fiji, was in the
middle of nowhere, with the nearest town being a 45min bus journey away. This
meant that our daily activities were limited mainly to lying in hammocks,
reading, swimming, chatting and waiting for our free afternoon tea and scones,
but the hostel did offer some other options which would use up an hour or two
of our lazy days. On Saturday morning we went snorkelling. We were taken to the
next bay along by ‘snorkel guy’ (Each employee seemed to have just one set job
at the resort and were known to guests by the job that they did - ’snorkel
guy’, ‘trek guy’, ‘horse man’, ‘harry the driver’ and so on). It was quite
windy, which meant the sea was pretty choppy, but the snorkelling was still
really good. We saw royal blue Starfish and tiny electric blue fish that glowed
in the dark; we saw a few stingrays and were also lucky enough to catch a
glimpse of a White-tipped Reef Shark.
On Monday, Laura, Ian, Tommy and I (the only ones remaining
of the original group that I had met on Friday) decided to venture out of the
hostel and make the 45minute bus journey to the local town, Sigatoka. The idea
was to get there around lunch time to have a look around and have some lunch.
We arrived just after 12 and found that the only thing to do there was to look
around the vegetable market (10 minutes), have lunch (20 minutes) and buy Rum
(5 minutes). The town was tiny and it reminded me slightly of my Asia days.
Everywhere felt a little bit grubby, the place where we had lunch served up
huge portions of noodles and rice and going into the toilets there scarred me
for life. There were ladies on the side of the road selling Corn and people
just sort of hung around, not really looking as though they were doing anything,
apart from spending the day away from their village.
We were only there for an hour before catching the bus back to the safe haven
of The Beachouse. It made me feel bad that we, as tourists, were coming to the
‘Paradise Island’, Fiji, to spend our time on beaches lined with palm trees,
reading books whilst swinging in a hammock, drinking cocktails whilst watching
the sunset over the sea, when the local people are living in little huts up in the
mountains, living off the land, sometimes without running water. But then on
the other hand the tourist industry is so big over there that perhaps it is
providing the economy with funds to improve living conditions and brings in an
increased amount of job opportunities for the local people. It’s hard to tell
what’s right.
We signed up to take part in Coconut bowling on Wednesday.
Run by one of the many employees, we all had to choose a coconut and try to get
it as close as possible to the marker laid a few yards away. We had a couple of
rounds on the grass, a couple on the beach and the final on a bridge which
crossed a small river. It was trickier than it sounds a neither Laura, Ian or I
did well enough to win one of the prizes – an Ice Cream, Soft Drink or Beer. It
passed an hour of our afternoon though.
Finally Thursday came around. My final day. We had booked
onto a village visit in the morning and were picked up from the hostel at 9am. We
were taken to where the local school was and were shown some of the crops that
they use on a daily basis – tapioca and coconut. We were then driven to a
village where we were shown around by guy who lived there. There were kids
running around everywhere and washing was hanging on bits of string outside the
huts where families lived. Each village has a church and we were shown around
the little building where the village hold services everyday. The place had a
real sense of community, everyone knew everyone else, helped each other and
waved and shouted ‘Bola!’(Fijian for Hello!) as we passed. We were then taken
into the chief’s house where we sat on the floor for a Cava ceremony. Cava is a
root vegetable which gets chopped up, dried, ground and mixed with water.
Fijians drink this instead of alcohol and a Cava ceremony is used as a way to
welcome people into the village. We sat in a circle and were passed half a
coconut shell of the concoction in turn. It tasted like it looked, like muddy
water, but it was only polite to drink what we were given. It made my tongue
feel numb but didn’t seem to have much other effect on me. After our Cava
ceremony, some of the children of the village sang a traditional song for us,
which was a lovely way to end our visit. We were dropped back to The Beachouse
at lunchtime.
My flight wasn’t until 10:50pm and I walked around in a bit
of a daze for the rest of the day. I had been so excited about going home for
the last few weeks, I hadn’t really thought about feeling anything else and was
just picturing seeing dad at the airport and my lovely mum, brothers and Bec when
I got home. But although I was still excited about seeing everyone and sleeping
in my own bed, I was suddenly scared. My travelling experience, which I had
been thinking about and planning since I was 17, was over. What was a going to
do now? I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, apart from to see
more of the world, which I’d have to wait for. I had been talking about careers
all week with my hostel buddies, who all knew what they were going to do – a
lawyer, a secondary school music teacher, a history teacher......I guess it
would just have to be something I’d have to think more about when I got home.
I packed up my stuff for the last time, throwing away a lot of my travelling
clothes which were smelly, tatty and falling apart after 6 months of being in a
backpack. I checked out, said goodbye to my friends and went to catch the bus.
I got on, amongst the locals, and cried. I did that for a while, being stared
at by an old man, who obviously thought I was some crazy white girl, before
thinking “Pull yourself together Laura. What are you crying about?” I’ve had
the most amazing time, seen and done things that I never thought I’d ever get
to see or do. I’ve volunteered in Thailand, help build a house, seen the
sunrise over the temples in Cambodia, ridden a scooter around the crazy streets
of Vietnam, floated on a rubber ring down a river in Laos, been White Water Rafting,
watched the sunset from a boat on the Great Barrier Reef, camped on a sand
island, hiked up a glacier, jumped out of a plane. I’ve eaten things I never thought
I’d eat, met amazing people who I never would have met under normal
circumstances. I’ve travelled the whole way round the world (a big place), some
people aren’t lucky enough to get to do that and I’ve done it, at 23. What are
you crying about Laura??
I bumped into Ali at the airport after I’d checked in. We
knew we were on the same flight home but hadn’t managed to meet up in Fiji. Our
flight to L.A. took off only slightly late and I settled down to watch a few
films and try and get some sleep. When we arrived in L.A., it was 1pm and still
Thursday. My body was extremely confused; I’d had the longest Thursday of my
life. Ali and I, along with a girl who I’d got chatting to in the queue for
border control in L.A., all checked in together so we could sit together on the
plane. Our flight was on time, we just had to sit in the airport for 3 hours.
Finally we were on the final stretch. Now I was with friends I felt fine and
was just ready to get home. I didn’t really sleep much, but that was expected
due to the confusing time zones that I had been through in one day. Coming into
land at Heathrow, it was extremely foggy so everything was a bit delayed. We
were home to good old English weather and I was surprisingly happy about it.
Never expect anything from English weather apart from cold and rain and then
anything else is a bonus! We had to wait for a while to get off of the plane
once we had landed, which was very frustrating. We were home, I knew dad was in
the airport and I couldn’t get off of the plane. Finally we were off and
through passport control. Our bags came out pretty quickly and I said goodbye
to my travelling buddy, promising to visit each other soon. Dad wasn’t there
when I came out of the arrivals gate, so I waited until I saw his head above
the crowd. And then I saw another face I recognised...and then another. Mum and
Mike were there to surprise me! They didn’t recognise me and were looking
straight past me until I stood right in front of them. I was so pleased to see
them all. I was home and I was extremely happy about it.
