040107

When I awoke this morning, we were docked in Suva, Fiji. Even at 0730, you could tell that the day was going to be a hot one.

I had asked the Captain, yesterday, what time the ship's agent would be aboard today. He said he would be here about 0800.

The Captain had mentioned that Suva is a dangerous place. As a precaution while in port, they were going to lock all the doors into the ship's superstructure from the inside except the one on A deck, port side which is one level above the gangplank. Thievery is apparently endemic here.

After hearing the Captain's comment about Suva, I wanted to ask the agent if he could recommend a good taxi driver - one I could trust. I wanted to hire a taxi for about six hours and tour around Suva and part of the island, itself. I also wanted to go out and find a nice reef and do some snorkeling.

After breakfast, the Captain waved me into the conference room and there were four or five Fijians there. One of them, he introduced as the ship's port agent. An intelligent burly looking fellow. I told him what I wanted and asked dif he could help and he said he could. We agreed that he would return with a taxi driver and meet me here at the ship at quarter to 1000.

It was about 0815 at that point and I remembered that John had told me that there was a market just outside the gate. I decided that I'd like to walk out and have a look. I didn't take anything of value. There was one gate directly before where the ship was moored and another down at the other end of the docks. The market turned out to be outside the far gate. I walked down and exited the docks area through loosely guarded security gate and almost immediately found myself in a large building within which was a large marketplace.

I've seen places like this before in third world countries. Hundreds of vendors, small aisles, mostly vegetables and fruits and an assortment of other stuff mixed in. As I walked, I noted that I hadn't seen one Caucasian face since I'd left the ship. People were noticing me. I caught many of them glancing away as my gaze shift onto them. But, I didn't sense any overt hostility or particular danger.

The people here look mostly Micronesian but I'd read that their culture is more Polynesian. Indeed, Fiji sits upon the boundary of these two South Pacific cultural areas. I walked around for a bit feeling conspicuous. Several people had said "hello" to me. Strangely enough, the first several all wanted to shake hands and they all wished me a Happy New Year. I also had two or three, as the day wore on, who wanted to joke around with me and they wanted to know if I was going to honor my wedding vows while I was in Fiji. With good humor, I assured them I had and I was going to.

I walked back to the ship so that I'd be there when the agent came. I wasn't back long before he arrived. We ended up in the ship's office on A deck and Emil, the First Officer, was there was well. Emil had told me earlier that what ever they asked for the Taxi's price, I should cut it in half and start bargaining from there. I was glad Emil was there.

The price they wanted was pretty high. About $80 US for 6 hours. We dickered for about 30 minutes. I told him, I'd give $40US for the Taxi and that I'd give him $10NZ (about $6.50US) on the side if he could get the taxi to accept my $40 offer.

Of course, it wasn't his decision and it was not the taxi driver's decision either and the person who could make the decision was en route somewhere and ... well, you probably know how these negotiations go. Emil talked at him for a bit and I did as well and it seemed we were stuck. Finally, I thought I'd offer another $10NZ to see if extending myself a bit from my opening offer would free things up. He made another call and this time he got 'the man' and that individual agreed and we were 'go'.

It turned out that the agent didn't keep anything for himself. He gave the $40US and the $20NZ to the cabbie and so I paid about $53US to rent the taxi for six hours. I was happy with that. I knew that because the shipping agent had set it up, that the taxi driver would watch out for me because the agent would hold him accountable.

The agent waited a few minutes while I went up and grabbed my snorkeling gear and we were off. I snapped one picture looking back at the Direct Tui as we took off.

The Taxi driver's name was Khan (phonetic) and he was East Indian. He told me that his family had been here for three generations since his grandfather came over. I told Khan that I wanted to tour around the city, take a spin in the country and also to go somewhere where I could do some snorkeling. He suggested that it would be best if we headed out of town and did the snorkeling bit first and that seemed fine with me. He headed out of town on the road that circumnavigates the island (the Fijian island, where we were, with Fiji's capitol city of Suva on it is called, Vita Levu) headed west. The entire island is about 80 miles east to west and about 60 miles north to south so it was obvious that we were only going to get to see a small part of it. I asked, and he said you could drive around it in seven to eight hours.


The road out of Suva	Old style housing approaching	A closer view	Folks planting Casava

On the road west	House above the road	An interesting tree/shrub	A house in the tourist development

Folks at Jet-Ski Safaris	The 'Christmas' tree (that's what the locals call it)

The first place Khan took me told me that something had been lost in translation. He pulled into an upscale tourist development area and then into a place called "Jet Ski Safaris". As we pulled in, I wasn't sure we were off track but I was considering the idea. A lady came out and invited us into the house very graciously. I liked the house - very open, airy and bright. A man came out, who I think might have been her partner and/or spouse, and they started telling me about their Jet Ski packages. I sounded very interesting and it might have been a lot of fun if I had been there for two or three days but I had to stop them and tell them that I was only there for a single day and that all I wanted was to find a place along the coast where I could go in near a reef a snorkel a bit. He and I and Khan looked at the map on the wall of the southern side of Vita Levu and the man suggested one or two places.

He said that he doubted that the snorkeling would be much good because the high surf from the typhoon over by Samoa had stirred the sediments up and so the visibility in these waters was pretty murky. They gave me a few brochures and I snapped a picture of the couple (and a bit of their house) and we were off again. Later, I looked at their brochures and I found them quite interesting. They've got a web site at www.jetski-safari.com.


First place we stopped at looking west	and then looking east	we went around to the west but it was no go.	Panorama of the second place 1 of 5 west to east

2 of 5	3 of 5	4 of 5	5 of 5

We stopped first at one place and I walked out onto the edge of a reef where the water dropped off suddenly. I looked at it for awhile but decided against it. I didn't have gloves to protect my hands and I was worried that getting down off of and then back up on the reef might be tough. There were small waves breaking across the edge and without gloves, I'd have a hard time not getting hurt.

We drove around the bay to the eastern side where I could see that the reef was arranged differently and I ended up going in there at two different locations. I went I the first time directly in front of where I shot the panorama but it was a bust. The bottom was sandy all the way out and the fellow at the Jet-Ski place was right, the water was murky and I could hardly see my feet though the water was nice and warm. I got out and told Khan that I was going to walk around the arc of the bay further yet to the east where a reef joined into the sandy beach and see if I could come at the reef from the back side.

I stayed at the second location for quite awhile paddling around. I did find some reef coral and a few plants but no fish and again the visibility was poor. I decided it wasn't meant to be and that I should change back into dry clothes and use the rest of my taxi time to advantage.

Back at the taxi, I got my dry clothes from the car and went behind some bushes partially sheltered from the road and changed and dried off. The sand was like powder and so it was not easy to get free of it. I finally gave up and pulled my underwear and levis on and said, "Oh, well". It would only be a few hours of sand in odd places. I rolled up my stuff and went back to the cab.

I discovered, the next day, when I went to look for a nice shell I had found on the beach, that in my drying off and packing up, I had forgotten to grab my swim trunks so they were gone as was the shell. Someone there at that beach made a nice find <smile>. Luckily, nothing else was lost. (Sorry, Alicia - the shell was going to be yours).

Khan and I drove west for another 10 minutes or so and then turn around and began to head back to Suva. The truth was that after 20 minutes of palm trees and tropical poor folks homes, it was all looking the same to me.

On the way out, we'd stopped at the Jet-Ski place. It was part of a larger grouping of businesses which called itself "Pacific Harbour", www.pacific-harbour.com. I think at some point in the late seventies, the government had put a lot of money into building this area up into a tourist destination. Part of the complex was a small village of shops where you could wander and buy things or eat things. Khan pulled in there and I went for a wander. There was a small museum, various cultural exhibits, shops and a few restaurants. I wandered all of it and finally went into a restaurant called the Oasis Restaurant. The lady that waited on me was really nice and I took a picture of her when she brought my lunch of grilled lobster. I also had a local beer which I quite liked, a "Fiji Bitter".


Shelter for a drum?	The drum?	Cool plant - love the color	Another nice one

The shops and the water mixed	The walkway	View from the walkway	A native boat you can ride

Native defensive position	Fijian warrior with club	Mountain chief in battle dress	Ancient Fijian weapons

Another warrior	A nice shrub	A close up of it	At The Oasis Restaurant -view from my table over a lily pond

Another view	And looking up	This is my Fijian Bitter beer, eh?	And here's my grilled lobster served by a very nice lady

On the way back into Suva, I shot more photographs including one panorama of some typical countryside.


Countryside	A typical house	Panorama 1 of 5	2 of 5

3 of 5	4 of 5	5 of 5	The road ahead

The Direct Tui across the harbor as we come in from the west	Paintings on the prison's outside walls	Back in the city	Another city shot

I told Khan that there were several things I'd like to see when we returned to the city. I wanted to see the parliament buildings and the president's house. I also wanted to see a typical Hindu temple.

Khan and I talked a lot about the things that happened here in Fiji two years ago. But first, some background:

Fijian society is almost equally divided into the native Fijians and the descendents of East Indian laborers brought in by the British. I think the ratio is about 55 to 45 percent in favor of the Fijians. There may be one or two percent Chinese here as well. At some point in the past, laws were passed that made it very hard for the Indians to own land so typically, the Fijians own and lease out the land and the Indians become the lessees and work it. Also, the Fijians don't seem to be very adept at business whereas the Indians are good shop keepers. I'm not sure about the truth of this but it is what more than one person told me.

Here's some text from Microsoft's Encarta about the political events here in the last few years:

Speight is now in jail on an island off the coast of Viti Levu and relative normalcy been restored to the islands. Though, reading back through their history over the last several decades, things are unstable. I asked Khan what he thought would happen if the Indians won another election - he predicted trouble.

I heard another take on all of this from a Fijian who works at the docks here. A young fellow named, "Junior". He studied computers in school and his job involves walking around with a small portable computer and entering in the IDs of the cargo containers as they come on and off the ships.

He described what happened the day that the take over of the parliament happened. A lot of what he said was hard to follow because of his accent, his excitement and the speed of his delivery but I got a good chunk of the drift. He said that the leaders were the only one's who knew what was coming and they gathered up a large crowd and began to rampage through town. He described people in the mob as rolling a 55 gallon drum of fuel in front of them and stopping periodically to fill bottles from it which they then turned into Molotov Cocktails and threw into Indian business establishments. I'm pretty sure he was along for the ride from the way he described it. He seemed happy and excited about it all as he talked. Though he repeated, several times, that only the leaders knew what was coming with respect to storming parliament. Junior and I talked for awhile and then, at the end, he told me he was hungry and asked if i had any money. I liked him and gave him $5NZ out of my wallet. This was not the last I heard from Junior - but more on that later.

So, here are some pictures that I shot as Khan took me around to the various places I'd asked for and that he thought would be interesting:


Governmental Buildings	And again	Statue of the Fijian largely responsible for the laws preventing Indian land ownership	Honor guard in from of the President's house

The President's house	The Parliament where all the trouble was	Hindu Temple in Suva	Close up of the entrance

We were getting close to the end of the agreed time for the taxi hire.

There was only one more place I wanted to visit. I'd seen a nice park with some botanical gardens as we were on the way to the President's house. It was called Thurston Gardens and I wanted to go have a walk around there. Khan dropped me off there after we agreed on a place to meet and I went in.

This was a very nice park with some great trees and shrubs but they had no signs to identify anything so I just had to fire away taking photos and wondering what all these amazing things were:

As I was about the leave the park, I spoke to a man who told me the name of the tree I was admiring.

I ended up by taking a photograph of this fellow standing under the tree. He told me his name was Thomasay. He showed me one of the fruits on the ground and explained that people eat them. I gave him my card and he said he would write me a letter. I wonder what will come of that. I believe he said he was a musician or a song writer or something similar.

I walked out the front gate of Thurston Gardens and found Khan just where he said he would be. He drove me back to the ship and I thanked him and said that he'd been an excellent tour guide and went aboard - that was about 1545.

At about 1630, I decided to go out and take a walk in town and see if I could work out how to call Sharon in the States. I hadn't changed any money into Fijian but I did have an AT&T Calling Card and I was hopeful.

I walked for a very long time in the heat and the crowds of people. At one point, I found a place that promised wonderful entertainment and described pool tables, ping pong and Internet. I went in. I asked at the front where they apparently checked out the pool table and ping pong stuff and they said "Upstairs".

I went upstairs following a Chinese woman and found myself at a door way of what looked like private living quarters. Inside was a desk in the left corner, a bed in the right and a doorway on my left into another room. In the room I was facing, there was the Chinese woman I'd followed, and man who was about her age and a younger girl sitting at a computer. The woman invited me in very nicely and I mentioned "Internet". The two (parents?) and the younger girl (in her twenties?) began a rapid fire conversation while the older woman kept looking at me as if to say, "Just a moment - we are working it out". Looking over the girls' shoulder at the screen though, I began to have strong doubts as everything on the screen was in Chinese ideograms. I stood up and said something about needing English and another flurry of Chinese ensued. I think the young girl was irritated and the parents just wanted her to make it right so I could use it and they could charge me (at least, I think that's what was going on). Finally, the young girl turned half way around and motioned me to the screen as if to say, OK, Here you are". And I leaned in again and had another look, thinking she may have changed it into English mode but, no, it was all still oriental Greek to me. I stood up again and said, "No, no, I need English" very politely and began to back out of the room. They smiled and seemed to understand - perhaps that's what the younger girl had been telling them all along. Still sweating from the heat, I was back out on the street and refocused on the phone problem and glad to have escaped what could have been a big tangle of misunderstandings.

After walking some more, I found an outside public phone. It said it took Fijian pay phone cards but it also had a way for you to get to the operator and I called. They told me that if I dialed "004 089 1001", it would lead me to an AT&T automated operator and, indeed, it did. Soon, I was talking with my beloved.

Stories of snow and the worst Seattle winter in nearly ten years from the other end. And me looking at palm trees full of coconuts and sweltering in the afternoon sun and humidity. I think it was hard to imagine for both of us. Sharon continues to rest and her condition, Bell's Palsy, hasn't changed significantly now for several days. She's coming up now on two weeks since the onset and the reports are that most folks begin healing spontaneously in two to three weeks. We are both hoping, of course, that she's in the 80% majority on this one.

She and our friend, Toodie, were kicking around ideas for emigration to New Zealand. I found that very interesting. One of Sharon's major concerns has always been, with respect to emigration, that we'd have to put our animals into quarantine in many countries - New Zealand being one. In their plan, Toodie would be a vet in New Zealand and would immediately begin to handle quarantined animals. I like the way they think. Well, we'll see. There's a lot of water that would have to pass under the bridge of changes before we'd be ready to make a move like that though it is an idea I savor.

We talked until 1745, at which point I judged I just had time for a fast walk back to the ship for supper at 1800. We rang off, I walked and sweated and just made dinner. A very interesting day.