Fiji 2011: The Good

Fiji will break your heart a thousand ways and purr in your ear, "Don't be angry. You know you love me. You know you can't resist me." Common knowledge for those who've experienced its tropical splendour, its laid-back pace, its intractable woes -- or merely wandered from the fairy tale compounds of his/her resort. Unfortunately, sadly, predictably, I recently returned from my wife's birthplace with a fresh appreciation for western-style law enforcement and an English-speaking citizenry.

[Foreboding aside: All photos in this post -- including the one above of the beach at Namuka Bay Lagoon Resort -- were taken with an iPhone on those infrequent occasions when it could be charged.]

This trip to Fiji -- my 6th in 4 years, bless Aradhna's benevolent heart -- was planned long ago. Atma Ram Sharma, Aradhna's Nana and a man I greatly revere and admire, passed away in September 2010. A puja was held 16-17 Sept to mark the end of his 12-month mourning period at the Korokoro farm where he and his wife of over 60 years – our beloved Nani -- raised 16 children. With family members from overseas filling spare bedrooms in Korokoro, I elected to begin the trip at an affordable resort about a half-hour's drive west of Sigatoka. This necessitated the hiring of a 4WD, both to access the isolated resort and help deliver people/groceries/Fiji Bitter to Korokoro. The events of Saturday 16 September would make me regret nearly every decision made up to that afternoon and would lead to a cascading series of tragicomedies ... but this post is about the good stuff:

My reasons for staying at Namuka Bay Lagoon Resort just west of Cuvu: 1) I'd never heard of it before, and 2) Their website is comically inept, one of the worst I've ever seen for a 'resort', and therefore making it ripe for overhaul. (Shameless plug: My freelance business is called Interactive Intuition. My previous work for Tourism Fiji may be found here.) Reaching Namuka Bay required turning off Queens Road onto a dirt clearing that serves farmers still growing sugar cane on Viti Levu’s western hillsides. Rough and dusty, but passable. At the top of a hill about 3 kms from Queens Rd a sign for Namuka Bay pointed left. A puddle of shimmering Pacific blue appeared in the distance before the road dropped like a log flume. The truck and I bounced for another 5 kms over a single dirt and grass lane cut by cane farmers generations before tourism replaced sugar as the mainstay of Fiji's economy. As this photo (above) demonstrates, bullocks, cows, goats, and other 4-legged beasts still demand right-of-way.

The payoff (right). After a final drop through jungle canopy, Namuka Bay's humble compound appeared at the water's edge. Old cane tram lines cut through the property, thin steel reminders of the backbreaking work that drove the English to import indentured labour from India. Six villas are perched between the lagoon and tracks. This view is what I woke to every morning from my beachside villa.

Viti Levu’s spectacular inland (left) as seen along the drive back to Queens Rd from Namuka Bay.



Namuka Bay's isolation prevents it from being overrun by the masses -- I was its only guest during my 5-day stay – so its beaches are practically untouched and the lagoon (right) is pristine. Its owner, a fast-talking gentleman named Mashuk Ali, described to me his dreams of mass development once the Fijian gov't builds a proper road to his self-described ‘natural phenomena’ of a resort. One can only hope Mr Ali, who lives with his family in one of the villas, doesn't bulldoze his natural phenomena someday.

Namuka Bay can claim natural features rarely found in the Fiji Islands. One is hulking, ancient coral (left) that extends from the western spit of beach and becomes jungle-covered as it curves around the resort's grounds like ramparts of a fortress. Another is a cave which holds, I’m told, bones of mysterious origin. A regal woman named Ole, whose soaring cheekbones and tall, thin frame signal a Lau Group bloodline, offers tours of these features, but the circumstances of this trip prevented such 'touristy' pleasures.

Bouncing over the unlit cane road (right) to Namuka Bay at night was like driving along the bottom of an overgrown ocean; silent spirits lurked in every turn.

I don't normally upload photos from a stranger's Facebook page but it’s important to recognise one of this trip’s true highlights: A traditional Fijian wedding (left). My misadventures in Sigatoka necessitated a trip to Suva, home of the (spoiler alert!) US Embassy and Raintree Lodge just north of Suva City in Colo-i-Suva. I’d phoned Tom Davis, Raintree’s owner, beforehand and he extended a welcome invitation to stay at his eco-tourism oasis. This past December and January I worked for a company called Webmedia in Toorak, Suva’s oldest and dreariest neighbourhood. A colleague and I traveled throughout Fiji at the time but Suva nonetheless grew on me like the mould that prematurely ages every building in Fiji's capital. Walking along Victoria Parade on a late afternoon I was accosted by 'Aggie' (real name Ikenesi Banuve), one of the two ‘housegirls’ who looked after me and two colleagues from Webmedia. (The other was Sheila. Sheila Ki Jawani.) I hadn't seen her since returninghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif to Melbourne in late January. She looked different. "I'm getting married tomorrow!" she said. "Come to my wedding!" It wasn't just a pre-bridal glow that had altered Aggie's appearance: She was 4 1/2 months pregnant. I'd met her boyfriend -- a quiet, solid bloke named Waqa (real name Laijia Waqanisau) -- in January but knew little about him. Nevertheless, I happily accepted Aggie’s invitation. As if bumping into her on a busy Suva sidewalk wasn’t coincidental enough it turned out Waqa worked at Raintree Lodge and had invited Tom to the wedding, too. The next day we drove to a 2-story house in Tatua Heights and witnessed the festivities. As shown in the photo, the 4-member bridal party wore traditional tapas and had coconut oil rubbed onto their skin. A minister performed the hour-long Christian ceremony upstairs while men drank kava downstairs.

I returned to Korokoro from Suva on a Saturday afternoon, watched the Flying Fijians get walloped in the Rugby World Cup on Sunday, and was tossed headfirst back into the rabbit hole of Fijian justice on Monday morning at Sigatoka Police Station. I once again placed a call to a friendly voice, this one Andrew Walkden-Brown's at the Beachouse in Korolevu, and he kindly invited me to his piece of Coral Coast paradise. I arrived via bus that afternoon with an ever-lengthening tale of woe and severely sprained ankle. A spot on the beach beside Lucy (above) was a physical, emotional and spiritual lifesaver.

Nick is a larrikin from country New South Wales who’s experienced a midlife rebirth at the Beachouse and is now a slimmed-down embodiment of the benefits of stand-up paddle boarding. This photo (above) shows him helping one of his sons become accustomed to a paddle board in the Beachouse’s lagoon.

My first appreciation of the therapeutic qualities of a woven hammock. Look closely at the left ankle (right), swollen and about to turn a garish purple.












Another of this trip’s unexpected highlights was traveling to Wainadoi and Suva with Justin, a surf instructor at the Beachouse. My sorrowful tale drove Justin to call his mom, Laisa Vulakoro, whom I later learned has released 16 albums and is referred to as the Queen of Vude (Fijian-style music). Justin believed his mom's connections could spur action on my case so we hailed one of Fiji's shiny new buses on Queens Rd and made the hour-long trek to Wainadoi, a small village 20 kms west of Suva. We were invited by a cop to take shelter from afternoon heat on the porch of the Wainadoi Police Post before Laisa arrived and delivered us all to her home a few kms inland from Queens Rd, a place she shares with her husband and son, a ball of energry named Lote (shown above with Justin as we walked Laisa's property, a former rubber plantation). Their spacious, chalet-style, mohagany wood house is situated so Fiji's easterlies pass through like a mountain stream through a rainforest.


Laisa's property in Wainadoi.










Sunset in Korotogo. My last night on this ill-fated trip was spent across the road at Bedarra Beach Inn, a reliable refuge that Aradhna and I have visited before and where two people I'd met at Raintree Lodge were staying (as per my suggestion). Charlene Edwards and Michael Pergola ... I could write 'til my fingers bled and barely scratch their collective surface. We met at breakfast on Raintree's spectacular lakeside deck. Charlene had a camera the size of a bazooka and was pointing it at the rare Fijian birds that roost at Raintree while her husband Michael and a pudgy missionary and I shared travel stories. Charlene's from Queens and Michael's a Brooklyn boy so their accents carried me to Sunday afternoons in my grandmother's kitchen. They were on a 5-month, multi-country tour with a week in Fiji followed by a month in New Zealand. I shared some Fijian travel tips and hoped to see them again along the Coral Coast. Five days later, broken and bruised and wanting only to be on the plane that would take me back to Aradhna the next night, I checked into the Bedarra and nearly shed a tear when they waved hello from their balcony. I was useless that evening but had the good fortune to enjoy coffee and Michael's company the next morning. We got on the subject of his return to Brooklyn after fighting in Vietnam and subsequent trips back, which are documented in Charlene's award-winning book called 'Voices from Vietnam' (a book I've got on order from Amazon at the time of this writing). Charlene joined us and we took a ride to the remains of a Tongan hill fort across the Sigatoka River from Nana's farm. We said our goodbyes in Sigatoka, where I caught a taxi to Korokoro. Later that afternoon I was on a bus to Nadi and then a plane to Melbourne.

Many of the Indo-Fijian-penned books I've read while researching Fiji's girmitya period incorporate the word 'paradise' ironically and by the end of this trip, I could relate. The particulars will be covered in a future blog post.