BULA !!
Bula Bula. This is the only word in the Fijian Language. Well, it seems that way anyhow. You can have a whole conversation using Bula, said with gusto and enthusiasm. BULA!.

18th July. Arrive in Fiji.

Something tells me that Fiji is very laid back. Apparently, the whole island operates on Fiji time - which really is any time you want it to be. For all our previous transfers the taxi company have someone holding a big sign with GREGORY on it at the arrivals area. In Fiji We had to find the company ourselves. We where then taken to their office.What now? Hello, any one here? Asking around we realise that we have to wait a while. We wait. Whats the hold up then? Arr, you see, the Pacific islanders Rugby team has just returned from playing the All Blacks (having Won). Our Driver has taken the victorious team to their hotel. He has obviously been invited in to help with the celebrations. If a few tourists get left at the Airport - well Bula to them. Wait here, he'll be here soon. We wait. He eventually arrives very proud to be official chauffeur to the Pacific Islanders Rugby team. Right.

Curiously the clock in the minibus has stopped. Indeed, most other clocks in Fiji don't seem to work. Nobody really bothers to wind them up, change the batteries or put fresh cuckoos in them. Fiji time. Any time you want it to be. Look at a map of the timezones around the globe. Fiji-time actually distorts the international date line!

The Outfriggers Reef Hotel is spectacular. The main part seem to be built into a cliff. Reception is on level 8, ground floor is level 4. Rooms starting with a 5 are on level 6. There is no level 1,2 or 3. The lift (when its working) runs on Fiji time. Its much faster to take the stairs. Once these basic rules are learnt, life becomes easier and much more relaxed. So we start to relax, to get in sync with 'Fiji time'.

19th July.

The hotel has its own beach and coral reef. The pacific Ocean crashes against the outer reef and provides a calm lagoon. Unfortunately, the tide always seems to be out during the day, and the entire lagoon is only 2 foot deep at the most. Snorkelling in about 2 foot of water is a strange experience, but can be done. But, the coral and the fish here are almost as good as the barrier reef in Australia. Even in 2 foot of water, we see most of the marine life that we saw diving onto the barrier reef. Including Nemo (the Clown fish) in its anemone home. There are amazing bright blue star fish and shoals of tiny neon like blue fish. This really was like swimming in someones tropical fish tank.

We went to one of the Hotels restaurant a bit early. We where the only ones there for half an hour and the service we got was extraordinary. They called it the ivi restaurant after the plant growing nearby. Spellings is also not a Fijian strong point.

Earlier in the day, a couple had a wedding service in the grounds of the hotel. A surreal situation as the location was right next to the Hotels massage area. A wedding going on within a few feet of bodies being kneaded and prodded. Somehow it all blended together here.

Too late, I realised that I hadnt booked up any excursions for the next two days we are here. So, the plan was to get up to catch the local tour operator at 7:00 in the morning in time for any excursions leaving early that day.

20th July.

7:00 AM. Bleary eyed, I managed to book up a visit to a uninhabited desert island for the day. A castaway experience. I also managed to book up a white water canoeing trip from the mountainous center of the island for tomorrow. That would leave us with the following day to chill before flying out to LA.

It was an hour and a half transfer by bus to the harbour and a further hour and a half to the desert island. So much for the nearby island I was promised. We where dumped at the harbour and again had to play 'guess what we're supposed to do now' - a game for all the family. Eventually, we find our boat and obtain boarding cards - that was what we where supposed to do, obvious really - hardly need to be told, do we.

The island was magnificent. It was worth all the bother. One of the islands around here was used for the Castaway film. It could quite easily have been this one. Coral sand, palm trees, Blue, blue ocean. You can walk around it in ten minutes. The snorkelling off the beach was amazing. The island is uninhabited but for a bar and a barbecue. The bar was free to visitors - drink as much as you want. Unfortunately, this was taken as a challenge to a certain individual. This Ausie guy believed that wherever you go in the world, Beer is a common language. He had heard that 31 'stubbies' (1/2 pint Bottles of beer) was the record for the island and he was going to break the record - for free. He was going strong, regularly knocking them back and still standing. An hour before we left he was on 19. I didn't want to get engaged in conversation with him again toward the end, so never did find out if he broke the record or not. However, he was very drunk.

Its a thing with Fijians, that where a group of 3 or more join together, guitars appear and they break into song. Such was the case on our trip back to shore. And our drunken party animal was up for it. He had absolutely no sense of rhythm, that didn't seem to bother him, but it was great amusement for us.

21st July.

Got up at day break to go white water canoeing down from the center of Fiji. I got the boys up, and in a daze we had quick breakfast and waited for our coach to pick us up. And waited. And waited. When I finally went over and asked the tour desk what was going on - 'arr..Mr Gregory, your trip has been cancelled.' eh? 'Yes, when we rang back to confirm it, it was fully booked, sorry'. He hadn't bothered to confirm our booking with the operator till it was too late, he hadn't bothered to put a note through our door (apparently people don't always read the notes), he hadn't bothered to find us, he hadn't even bothered to walk over to where we where waiting for this coach to tell us our trip had been cancelled. But it was alright, we would get a full refund! ..!%$@?* &^%$&$!!!!BULA bloody BULA!!!

Well only one thing for it, chill out round the pool. Took part in Pool aerobics and water polo. Not quite white water canoeing, but we splashed around a bit and got wet.

Thursday 22nd July:

Leaving today. Just for a change, we chilled out round the pool again. We are just SO chilled, in a hot sort of way. More Aerobics and water Volley ball. I had one last snorkel around the bay, this time the tide was in. Still pretty amazing down there.

Mini bus transfer arrives late. Apparently Nadi suffers from a sort of rush hour this time of day - Fijians? Rush? I don't think so. We are further held up behind lorry loads of Sugar cane. The Sugar cane around here seems to be cut by hand in the 'traditional' manner. In Australia, they plant acres and acres of sugar cane, and harvest it with highly efficient machinary. Even then, Australian farmers complain that they dont make any money, and some dont bother to harvest if the crop price is too low. Compare that with these Fijians cutting their cane by hand, and loading it onto wagons.

On the bus ride I get to do some thinking. There are some major contrasts here between the standards of living and the lot of the indigenous people in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

In Australia, the European settlers, the whites, have full control of the country and the Aborigines are almost invisible. The Aborigines take virtually no part at all in the white mans culture, other than to drink its alcohol. They dont run corner shops, drive taxis, nothing. Aborigines that live in the cities are effectively tramps, living off the white man and scraping a living. Aborigines that live away from the white man do not trust its technology and try hard to maintain their culture away from the whites. Aborigines have a culture and a philosophy that pre-dates any other culture on earth. Although they dont have a written language, their 'dream time' stories and ways of living have been passed down through generations, predating Greek, Egyptian, Aztec, any other culture on Earth. This is a major puzzle to those that puzzle such things.

In New Zealand, the whites and the Mauris live together in a partnership. When the white man first landed, the tribes on the island where well organised, organised enough to be having battles between themselves. The Europeans (English) wisely chose to form a partnership with their strongest leader. This legacy means that Mauris have absorbed a lot of European culture into there own, and take a very active part in running their country, and this seems to work well for all New Zealanders.

In Fiji, their colonial masters seem to have just let them get on with it. Fiji has the Queens head on its bank notes, but is otherwise a third world country and re-assuringly 'foriegn'. Their isolation meens that they look alarmingly alike, as if they are all part of one family, which in a way, I guess they are.

Fly out.

Every time we took a flight on this trip, we lost a few hours of the day due to crossing time zones, 7 hours to singapore, 3 hours to Australia, two hours to new zealand. Well all those lost hours accumulate somewhere. They all accumulate on one side of the international date line. This line runs down the middle of the Pacific ocean on the other side of the world to Greenwich, London. It curls around Fiji, putting Fiji in today, and to the right of Fiji in yesterday. Confused? Well, the upshot is, that it was Thursday 22nd of July when we left Fiji and the next day is Thursday 22nd of July in Los Angeles. We get to have the whole day again! Its a bit like Groundhog day. We get the chance to make sure this day is even better than yesterday.

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