Fiji By Road: The Way Life Used To Be

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

Renting a car and driving through rural Fiji is like being Queen For A Day. The two people carrying the baby in the village of Wailevu shake their parasol and cry "Bula! Welcome!" The peasant farmer walking his cow to pasture waves his hand and shouts, "Bula." The children, immaculate in white shirts and blue sulu skirts, signal "Bula" enthusiastically from the side of the road as they hurry to school. "Bula," we shout back and again in a few minutes, "Bula," raising our hands in salutation like royalty.

Since English is the common language in Fiji, any tourist can get by with "Bula" the constant greeting, "Kerikeri" for please and "Vinaka" for thank you. Visitors say vinaka a lot in the Fijian islands. Strangers are welcome and shown extraordinary courtesies.

Fiji is not perfect. The native people are often at odds with the resident Indian community and Western-style crime, though still of  petty nature, is appearing in the urban areas. This dismays the village people who still cling to their old world and family life styles. Evening television programs, broadcast now for years, are changing the formerly long-established community habits when people congregated to discuss the day's happenings. And, indeed, the day's events were always more important than tomorrow's because the Fijian beliefs have always been—and the Western world could learn from them—enjoy today, tomorrow will take care of itself.

So think like the Fijians. Live for today. Come visit, before it loses its innocence, this group of 300 islands. Not them all of course, but you can easily visit the biggest, Viti Levu, still able to retain the flavor of Fiji even with the best-developed tourist infrastructure in the islands. That flavor is essentially unchanged from the old days of trans Pacific flying. Then flights from our west coast couldn't fly direct. They had to put down at intermediate stops like Fiji. Tourists got to know Fiji without even trying. Now visitors have to make a point of seeking it out. And as the fast, comfortable jets replace the PanAm clippers, as CNN brings a big world to a small population of 750,000 people, and as this era moves on to, doubtless, a less benevolent one, the question arises: will Fiji survive as tourists have been lucky enough to find it in the past?

For example, at the former Regent of Fiji, the hotel on the island most favored by American tourists, now the Sheraton Royal Denarau Resort, no coconuts are allowed on the beautiful palm trees fringing the resort. "They've all been taken down," says a hotel employee. "It's a question of liability. What would the public do if a nut fell on its head?" She was being polite. What she really meant, no doubt,  was -- what would an irate American do?

However, few tourists in Fiji are irate. Most come looking, searching for something, mostly for what life used to be.

"A lot of our guests," says a guide at the resort, "have been to Hawaii before and loved its people and its scenery. But they tell us Fiji is different—it's the way Hawaii was 30 years ago. And it’s a lot cheaper than Tahiti!"

The difference shows on Viti Levu, on the Queen's road that runs south-east from Nadi, well-paved to Suva, the capital, the largest city in the South Pacific. Driving once you get there turns into a Hell of sorts if you use your car to explore this city of missing sign posts and one-way streets. So park your car in Suva and walk or take a taxi.

Beyond Suva lies the road to Nausori, once an adventure to make you feel like an extra on the set of The Terminator as you struggled on the last of the paved road past morning traffic belching enough diesel fumes to make a California Clean Air Yuppie croak, with, ahead, three hours of dirt road with pot holes to make a New York cabby cringe. It is now much improved

The road, now the Kings Road, was once so poorly signposted, we stopped a man  crouched over a surveying instrument.

"How far to Rakiraki?" we cried hoping he would be optimistic.

"A comfortable 50 minutes," he replied.

Nothing comfortable about all this, we thought. On we went past glorious scenery, huge banyan trees 60 feet high, mangos smelling like turpentine, pawpaws with their meat tenderizer enzymes, and, amongst the pines, glimpses of Poinciana and Hibiscus and fragrant Frangipani.

At times the Wainibuka river swept into view like a scene from a Tarzan movie, then suddenly the Koro Sea was before us and now a delightful run west along the north shore past goats and pigs and schools and villages, back to the resort—only 300 miles on the clock but surely greetings from 3,000 schoolchildren in our hearts.

On rural roads, the villagers are so unsophisticated and trusting, world travelers worry sometimes that Fijians may be unfairly treated or exploited by visitors. The contact between native children and tourist is particularly revealing. Unlike, say, Egypt there is no begging and unlike, for example, Rome no petty theft. What you see is what you get: curious, delightful, polite kids—and all they want from you is your name so they can roll it round their tongue and practice their English.

A school teacher, Dan Qorowale Namuatabu, once explained why Fijian children captivate visitors: "They've been taught to respect customs," he said, "in their first school—the home. That's where they learn behavior." Wasting time is "pulling the sun." To be an idle member of society is "to ride on the outrigger of a canoe." Though the Fijians revere their aged, an old person is a "patched boat," and an aggressive but weak person is called kurusiga, "thunder without rain."

American visitors who would like to reward Fiji children would be a hit with coloring books and crayolas or simple illustrated books about the United States. A Polaroid snapshot would knock kids over. Tourists on the road should not just park and enter a village. They should come with some kava (pepper tree root) for the chief's traditional drink and offer it as a gift. Those old-world customs are helping to keep Fiji the way it is and should be respected. It's not hard or expensive to follow protocol—and the rewards are many.

Tipping is not expected. Local crafts are pottery, mat and basket weaving, and wood carving.  Driving is no problem. Just watch out for livestock and remember to drive on the left. Road signs are in English. Distances are in kilometers.

In restaurants and some hotels, don't be surprised if the waiters cheerfully shake your hand when they introduce themselves. Fijians look you straight in the eye; they're proud even in service situations, as so they should be. Learn to accept slow service. Like waiters in Greece, they're in no hurry and eventually even though you may not have realized it, neither are you.

Visitors can learn from us, says a member of the Fiji Visitors Bureau in Suva.

"We're more than sun, sand and sea," she says. "Visit us for our culture and our people. We are natural and traditional hosts—we've always had an open door in our communal life. There are no policemen in our villages. They're not needed. You could sleep on our beaches and be respected as a fellow human."

She's probably right. There was no loss of life in the coups when the native Fijians feel they took back their country and their government from Indian dominance. Those were bloodless events. Fiji is not a particularly expensive vacation; it's a lot cheaper than Europe, these days, and the airlines often fares that are hard to resist. Tourists find Fiji the second most developed island in the South Pacific (after Tahiti) but the easiest to move around in. Compared to other island groups, the roads around Viti Levu are state-of-the-art highways.