Bula and G'day
After a long period of writers block I am finally getting off my ass to write another mildly amusing but hopefully very informative entry in my travelpod.
Looking back at the first entry I made way back in September last year makes me wonder where the time went and how its possible that I will be leaving in just over 2 weeks. How time flies when you are having fun.. So true!
Well a lot has happened since I last sat down and hacked away at the keyboard trying not to be chaotic and make some sort of sense. So here goes..
I left you last time with Suze just gone and a friend Lia on the way.
Lia arrived and we headed over to Taveuni a smallish island in the north with a great repulation for natural beauty and diving. We did a dive on the rainbow reef and saw some pretty cool coral and heaps of fishies! Also took a trip up to Bomar waterfalls and had a very cold swim in the rock pools! On the whole taveuni was pretty expensive and not my personal favourite place but it was still cool to get up there and check it out.
Recently there has been a little bit of political unrest due to a little thing called the Reconciliation and Unity Bill.. I can't really go into too much detail.
1. I don't really know much about it
2. Because I'm not really supposed to express political opinion.
Anyway given the history of Coups in this country I was a bit worried about the impending arrival of one Hamish and One Richard (Ditch). I had great concerns that an already fragile situation could be exacerbated by an inebriated and slightly crazed Ditch mounting a peoples revolution, based upon copious amounts of alcohol and free love! Luckily, or perhaps sadly this was not the case, but we did succeed in having a pretty cool time of things.
Hamish arrived a few days before Ditch, which was fun, he quickly became an expert on Suva and was discovering such gems as Cakes 2000 which actually does a pretty mean fish in coconut milk soup (no cakes though). On Sunday we headed out to a small village called Vuci and attended church before being treated to an amazing feast fiji style, many types of fish, meat, and even fresh water cray fish were on offer. I was most impressed as always with the singing talent of the Fijian locals. It's just amazing that these people can sing so well, is it genetic or learned? I really don't know.
Ditch arrived in Suva a few days later (can't remember exactly) and was treated to a not-so Fijian welcome of a bee, though he did sample some island produce as well. We hung out in Suva for a few days and Ditch and Hamish soon got into the Fijian drinking style of Taki.. dangerous shit but you will surely see it first hand when I return and bring it back as the latest trend. I think one of the major problems is the Fijians can really drink, they tend to be pretty generous too so Ditch and Hamish found themselves in a drinking session with some soldiers... Some deep conversations were held with the cistern that night!
We took a long bus ride up the coast, staying at Nadi Bay Hotel for the night then off to the Yasawa islands. Ended up meeting some cool Aussie chicks who we kept confused about whether we were English or Aussie for our entire stay. Ditch and Hamish were great value, good travellers for sure. The very debauched game of ring of fire which left most of us in our underwear was a highlight, but embarrassing in the morning!
We were slightly productive doing some snorkelling and taking the gruelling 15-minute hike over to the other side of the island. Another highlight was a trip to "swim with manta-rays". Manta rays are like massive stingrays and generally just cruise around with not a care in the world. Unfortunately their relaxed little world gets blown apart by 50 snorkelling tourists chasing them. I did see a manta-ray and took a photo, but afterwards felt a little bad to be part of the experience.
Having just got into island mode it was back to work again.. to meet up with the boys the following weekend for our mission to climb the highest mountain in Fiji.
So it was off into the hills in our purple Toyota Rav 4 dubbed the "Poon Tank". The Fear and Loathing style road trip (sans illicits) had begun. Had great fun on the "dirt" roads that often resembled dry creek beds, and the Rav 4 handled it pretty well, we even made good use of the sunroof. I think they boys were ok with my driving, though I did pull off a couple of Tommi Makkinen handbrake turns just for kicks.
Our basic plan was to climb the mountain and hopefully stay in the village below (Navaii) overnight. To do this we had to present a sevusevu to the chief of the village, basically a big kava root, and ask his permission to tromp on his land. This stems from the old days when if you didn't ask permission you might get eaten! So we thought it a good idea to follow protocol. I tested my Fijian language skills to the limit and found I could communicate ok, but certainly not well enough to talk about anything too detailed.
Anyway we climbed the mountain in a couple of hours, though we struggled both through being disgustingly unfit and hung over! To add insult to injury a host of the village kids followed us up barefoot. Made us feel pretty lame, but a beer at the top lifted our spirits!
The climb down was easier, and we were soon kicking back with some of the village men drinking kava. By chance we were at the village on the 100th night since one of the older ladies from the village had died. 100 days after death Fijians have a large feast to remember one last time, so the boys and I were treated to some better than average village fare and lots of it. Too much food and kava later we crashed out and the next day continued our rally driving trip back to Suva. I returned the car, which had now had a hole in the exhaust, noisy ball joints, steering well out of alignment and a host of other rattles and an engine that didn't sound too healthy. Lucky I managed to get out of there quick smart before they started it up, and have not recieved any irate phone calls from the rental company so I guess my deposit is pretty safe!
Since ditch and Hambo left its been pretty normal. Work has been going well, been working on some more php, mysql and dabbling in ASP. Also been doing some work on the strategic direction of the department in terms of IT, which has been causing a bit of controversy but hopefully it will be beneficial.
So I guess I'll be seeing a lot of you in around 2 weeks, I will be arriving in Adelaide around 4pm on the 26th and plan to head back to the hills to catch up with mum and dad, then perhaps grab a pint of Adelaide's finest amber ale if anyone wants to join me. Venue TBA, but depending on the weather the Austral springs to mind..
"And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually..."
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