Slightly Sad - Blackwattle's Fiji Visit

by Nancy Knudsen on 9 Oct 2007 Its a full moon behind dark clouds as we sail along the south coast of the biggest island of Fiji, Viti Levu, As we skim the flat sea the rich smells of cow dung and cut grass are enticing after several days at sea. But the next morning the picture is less alluring. For the first time in all our time in the South Pacific, as we sail northwards through the vast western lagoon which contains many of the holiday islands, there is refuse in the water – plastic bags, discarded beer cans, thongs, other unidentifiable junk, even a large polystyrene box that must have escaped from someone's picnic.


The welcome is fairly miserable too. The Fijians must have learned their bureaucracy from the Australians. Unlike the so-easy checking-in we've become used to throughout French Polynesia, we must anchor by the Customs wharf next to a wood chip plant which drops its cargo of flying wood chip dust far and wide (and all over the boat), put down the dinghy, attach the engine, motor to a concrete wharf with sloping steps designed only for lizards, get off without falling in the water, walk in the hot sun to the Customs Building, fill in reams of forms that we've already filled in before in the last port because you have to fax seven pages of forms to Fiji Customs at least 48 hours prior to arrival.

They haven't received the forms because 'they go to a different office'. Then there's a disagreement between the Customs and Agricultural officials about how many people must visit our boat. Other cruising boat buddies reported that they were visited by five and even seven people for an inspection. In the end, we are visited by only one, who then wants some baksheesh. The whole process takes about three hours. It must be the longest check-in since India. The officers are just doing their job, however, and we all stay patient and as pleasant as we can in the hot sun.

'O that wood chip plant – yes, it's very good. Very good money for Fiji – we sell those wood chips to Japan, and then they sell us back the chipboard they make. Very good? Or very strange?' Even a Fijian customs official can spend time thinking of the irony.

Finally we repair to Vuda Marina, a pretty marina-cum-cyclone hole, and we're finally at rest in Fiji.

Fiji is home to 500,000 Polynesian/Melanesian Fijians and 340,000 Indians.

Yet on arrival we're surrounded almost exclusively by Indians – Indians in the marina office, Indian mechanics, Indians IT specialists, Indian security guards, Indian taxi drivers.

As we increase our orbit of travels, of course, we find the Fijians – they're the ones wandering the foreshores, having conversations on the side of the road, selling fruit and vegetables in the markets or beside the road. Always a smile, always 'Bula' – the ubiquitous Fijian greeting.

There's military rule here at the moment – the old wars between the Fijians and the Indians have erupted again, and the Fijians have once again taken over the government of the country by force. So we start to learn about how these two totally different cultures live in an uncomfortable truce.

Yet Fiji is one of the most successful tourist meccas of the South Pacific, and it's not just the blissful weather of the western shores of the islands.

The developers and the hotel operators have recognised and capitalised on the natural warmheartedness and obliging nature of the Fijian. They've built their resorts and populated them with Fijian smiles. The gentle atmosphere of the resorts is all Fijian, with western efficiency keeping the wheels oiled in the background.

But only a few hundred metres from the six-star atmosphere of the large resorts, the Fijian villages stand as indictment of the system. The thatch and woven grass walls of old villages have been replaced by cheap unpainted besser brick or corrugated iron. The villages have a down-hearted feeling. Some tiny huts have obviously been built by the government – standing like clones in straight lines, dirty, disheveled surroundings. It's hard to equate these villages with the gentle uniformed staff of the great hotels.

By contrast, the Indians live in comparative opulence in the countryside.

Small farmers till the soil – everything from sugar cane to pine forests. Or they dominate the trading in the city. In Suva, where we spend the day, every shop seems populated by Indians – the streets stream with lovely brightly coloured saris and, while the streets are dirty, it's a prosperous feeling, so unlike the dejected atmosphere of the Fijian villages.

It's also sad to see an entire fleet of Taiwanese long liner ships in the Port of Suva. These pillagers of the oceans, who trail many-kilometre-long lines that kill everything in the sea indiscriminately, have been dammed by every green organisation and made illegal in many countries, but here they are, lying at peace before their next killing spree.

We are not tempted to stay. The resorts are good for what they represent – a break from city life for the working populations of New Zealand, Australia and other more distant countries.

The unwitting holiday maker rarely sees anything outside of their resort and their day tours. However, for the cruising sailor, the natural charisma that exudes from the other islands and archipelagos of the rest of the South Pacific we have visited seems to be now missing from Fiji – if it was every there.

It's time to move on – Vanuatu our next stop.