Six Weeks In Fiji

Two big girls from school are we

Oh forget not when you're far away

Fiji Diary

On my return to New Zealand in 2019 after ten years in China, I got an infatuation to visit Samoa. Everyone assured me Samoa was dead boring. I must go to Fiji instead. As my sister put it. "After half an hour, you will have finished your visit to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum." About myself, she was half right. I recall in China, an otherwise dull Kiwi saying. It took him all day to reach a Chinese temple. He walked in, looked around and thought. "I have already seen the museum in a virtual tour guide."

I had since 2001, discovered nations' lives do not revolve around their cultural treasures. They are for the tourists who mostly attend to it as a duty they quickly tire of and slink off to sybaritic resorts. I visited a Japanese palace in Tokyo. In its Imperial garden, I looked around. I was in the heart of Tokyo and I didn't see another person in a palace and temple landscape that stretched several miles. Before my first international tour after babyhood, I had assumed one could scarcely move in Asia because of the crowds. But I forget no Japanese considers himself to be Asian. Like no Kiwi considers himself to be Polynesian.

So Fiji would be my next foreign adventure. Then came Covid-19 and everything went into lock down. My stepson Jim rushed into our apartment with a bottle of fruit juice. "If you come near me, at your age you will die!" he shouted. My masked wife Yan fled from me as I approached her. I kept a straight face. Everyone else appeared to be panicking and I could not take it seriously. They were fleeing New Zealand back to their homeland China. Chinese are total hypochondriacs. I sent a message to Yan. "Your perfumes are in the apartment, waiting for your return." Her reply showed enormous relief. They came back to New Zealand some months later, on the day of the second Covid-19 lock down. I said fuck.

I had planned to make a detour from Fiji to my birth place Kiribati, aka Gilbert Islands. But my landlady Anna of Avondale stole my bond. I gave her two weeks notice and referred to the bond. She gave an Oriental smile and said, "Don't worry." Chinese regard the non Chinese world as fair game. The world is going to miss American landlordism. That at least had universal and humanist ideals. She accused me of staining two of her mattresses. The mattress I could inspect and now slept on had a faint stain at its foot. I screen shot it. Yan brought in a mattress cleaner and she and Anna scrubbed it. That made the stain more conspicuous. I said to Anna. "I am not going to pay any more rent and I am taking you to the Tenancy Tribunal". She looked uneasy and sent a text to Yan, I had to leave after two days. The Tenancy Tribunal was no good because without a written tenancy agreement, I had the status of a settee squatter. The lesson there is: Your Chinese landlady may be a stalwart Jehovah Witness Christian and have a family. But like the cat turned into a Princess in the Aesop fable, she will still dive to the floor to catch a mouse. I recalled later, the father of modern China, Deng Xiaoping had a parallel aphorism, "It does not matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mouse." Hong Kong was his last mouse

I will miss Avondale. Former small towns and boroughs remain real places, not suburban sprawls even though the shops are now almost exclusively Asian. The Asian shop keepers are usually genial, honest people. I will also miss the happy hour every evening of the local tavern with its old identities, the Maori lunatic and the bar maid who had never heard of Robert Louis Stevenson. Historic Avondale is now set to be torn down by a Council agency with a Maori name. The local Maoris sunning in the Avondale open spaces, are most aggrieved and helpless. The sweet side of Anna had got me into the Jehovah Witness. I attended the Sunday English language congregations. Jehovah Witness does not consider itself a Church. It instead re-enacts in every Church session the Jewish Messianic Jesus cult in First Century A.D. In my last attendance before leaving Avondale, the Congregation imagined themselves fleeing Jerusalem to Pella at the invasion of the Roman army. They did it with a literal intensity that warmed my heart after my academic education. When I said farewell to the Pastor, I felt it too flippant to say, this was a useful lesson for my flight from Avondale. I talked to him about my planned detour from Fiji to Kiribati, my birth place. He asked me, "How did you end up being born there." I said. "I have no idea." I partially explained that my father was a school teacher in Kiribati.

On August 12, 2025, Jim drove me to Auckland International airport. He warned me I was forgetful and to keep a watchful eye on all my possessions. I was glad to be reminded. Since I turned sixty five, I have noticed with alarm, my short term memory loss. Sometimes it has been small events a few seconds before that I have no memory at all. My long term memory seems as sharp as ever. I can name all the British Prime Ministers and the years of their entering Ten Downing street from Disraeli to Blair. My eighteen months sojourn in Outer Mongolia where theft is a part of their culture, has caused me paranoia about loss. To the extent it has become dangerous.

At the check point, I was asked to show my return ticket. I had somehow thought I would be required to show that at Nadi airport. Fortunately, years of traveling experiences have inculcated me to have key documents ready for showing. I rummaged through my travel bag and with huge relief soon found it. The counter lady asked me. "Would you like further assistance." "I replied. "No. I am old but I am not stupid." A genial elderly Fijian man x-rayed my travel bag. I had removed anything remotely sharp pronged. I had no suitcase. Jim had rung me that morning that a suitcase would cost me an extra one hundred and fifty five dollars. I googled for a no extra charge travel bag and Jim got one at an Auckland shop for me. The dark ages of shoe removals and groin squeezing were over.

When I online booked my flight to Fiji, the booking did not show I had been successful. So I clicked at the top of the screen. A message came through my booking had not come through. So I tried unsuccessfully three more times. Then I checked back at my bank account. Fiji Airways had booked me four times for the flight. The next week day, I rang Fiji Airways. I had to accept the bookings. I explained what exactly happened. The Customer Service was immediately apologetic and not surprised. This seemed to be a glitch Fiji Airways knew about. I was promised my three later bookings would be cancelled and I would be refunded. That evening I got an email from Fiji Airways. An apology and refunds were made. Fiji Airways hoped I would enjoy the flight. I was relieved but not encouraged. As Fiji Airways is so desultory about their bookings, how careful are they about their public safety? I googled Fiji Airways and was relieved their safety record since 1947 has been a few tight misses, and no fatalities. It seemed I had already experienced the Pacific Way. Things run smoothly most of the time but unexpected surprises can happen any time.

I got into the wrong queue at the boarding. The Fijian boarding inspector said she would hold my boarding pass. I refused to hand it over. I had visions of it being lost on the counter.

After an apologetic over half hour delay, we took off to the south seas The flight was non eventual. the food was cardboard lite tasting. The melodious Pacific sounds augmented with smiles wafted through the cabin. We were promised coffee and got more alcohol.

The bright sky shone above us. All we could see below us were fluffy clouds. We reached Nadi after a three and a half hour flight. In that span of time, we had flown over the Tasman sea, over the Australian land mass and into the heart of Melanesia. A flight from Auckland to Sydney takes three hours. The time zone of New Zealand and Fiji are the same. We had flown north as the crow flies.

We landed smoothly into a first world international airport. I thought the Pacific sound was overdoing it as Fiji men strummed their guitars in the heart of the airport as stressed out I completed my arrival card and rummaged nervously for my passport. I had borrowed a pen from an air hostess on the assumption I would be required to fill in my arrival card on the aeroplane. I had not flown for six years. I of course could not remember my passport number. She imperiously and rightfully demanded it back immediately after the aeroplane landed. My passport was in my shoulder bag with my wallet. Inside the wallet were my visa cards and one hundred and fifty Fiji dollars. I had become a seasoned international traveller despite myself. A Fiji dollar is about half the currency of an American dollar.

In Auckland, I had consulted AI Microsoft co-pilot. I do that for every bit of public knowledge now. That delightful bot gentleman assured me Fiji was still in the Covid-19 dark ages. I was horrified. Then I checked the Fiji Immigration Department. Covid-19 requirements were all gone.

Airport security and health travel checks were being returned to pre 911 sanity. But the four horsemen of the Apocalypse hovered above Europe, East Asia and the Middle East. In Fiji, Constitution agitation was evoking hideous recalls of the four coups since 1987.

As I had read in Microsoft co-pilot, I was required at the arrival airport to show documentation of my bank records and my Fiji residency. I had them ready at the Nadi check point in my bag. As I anticipated, I was too old and white, to attract suspicion. The genial Indian official asked me where I would stay. "One night at the Bamboo Lodge, and six months at Smugglers' Cove," I blurted out. "Six months?" he raised his eyebrows. My tourist visa stamp would confine me to three months. "Six nights," I corrected. "Do you have enough money," he asked. "I am on superannuation, the Government gives me a lot of money to have holidays," I gasped. The official smiled. He stamped in my passport the three month visa.

Now I was in the terminal. I looked around for a sim card shop. No sightings. Then I found the ubiquitous taxi drivers that hang out at exit centres. "I said Bamboo Grove" and offered the fare recommended by Microsoft co-pilot. All the taxi drivers demanded a lot more. I was beginning to learn A.I. cannot be relied to be up to date.

I had booked at the Bamboo Backpackers for one night at $30 and at Smugglers Cove for six nights for one hundred dollars. Smugglers Cove was fourteen dollars a night. I couldn't find any economically suitable places to stay in the capital Suva. A I wrong again said a bus ride from Suva to Nadi is as low as $2.50 and takes about three and a half hours. So i intended to make Nadi my base.

I took a taxi and before the driving started moving, I started bag rummaging for my wallet. A student of mine in China had told me how a thief had unzipped her bag pocket as she walked and stolen her valuables. My wallet was there at the bottom of my bag. One tucks valuables carefully away and they wriggle to the bottom. The taxi driver told me to relax. Everything was going well for me.

We drove out to the airport highway. I noted the road was not entirely smooth but not dangerously pot holed either. Fiji had had two decades of military rule punctuated with Parliamentary Democracies since 2006. A generation had grown up without personal memory of coups except for their elders' stories. For them Fiji must seem the epitome of normality. We arrived at Wailoaloa beach in the evening after about fifteen minutes.

Wailoaloa Beach. The Purple Shadows Fall

Smugglers Cove at Wailoaloa Beach

Wailoaloa Beach was a sprawl of hotels and cheap resorts that stretched over the shore until fading away into the countryside. It was evening and it pulsed with life and a jam of discordant musical vibes. I after inquiries from strangers found the Bamboo Backpackers. A jovial Fijian man found my listing and directed me to an enclosed space of dormitory tunnels. I left my desktop computer and my passport in his office.

I went out for a walk. A short distance down the road, was a police post. "I said to the smartly attired young policeman. "I am glad to see you." The Prime Minister of Fiji, installed after a tumultuous election, was Sitiveni Rabuka. In 1987, Colonel Rabuka had staged the first coup in Fiji. In its aftermath, the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs had called him a thug. Rabuka said. He did it to stop the Indo Fjians taking over Fiji and turning the Fijians into Maoris. A perhaps ironical turn of phrase by the New Zealand Minister. The thugees were an Indian murderous sect genocided by the British Empire without ever any apology. Now Rabuka was an elder statesman of the South Pacific. In the previous week, he ha declared in an interview with the Fijian Times newspaper that all officials of Fiji must set an example of lawful and honourable conduct. The Indian dominated newspaper let Rabuka's words stand without comment. In Auckland, I had promised myself never to let the words Rabuka and coup slip my lips in Fiji even in jest. Their victims might now see humour and irony in them. But I would be a guest in Fiji.

Wailoaloa was once a shore of fishing villages and yes smugglers. Now the Fijian constabulary led by a man who had taken Fiji by gun point, work diligently to remove the riff raff from Wailoaloa shore and make it safe for the world's globe trotting tourists, including myself. I imagined any hobos or beach combers who tried the timeless habit of squatting and sleeping on the beach were quickly taken way to cells by Fiji's finest. They might protest. "Why don't you arrest Rabuka," to no avail. Out in the distant sea in the purple sunset light, were the ghostly images of floating commercial boats. I thought they were fishing boats but I was assured they were for tourists to hire them for island hopping.

I went for a tranquil stroll. I quickly found an open air restaurant. Its prices eliminated any more illusions about third world living costs. But as I got used to Fiji prices, I became aware the Fijian prices and the Fijian dollar value were agreeably less than in New Zealand. I ordered a mediocre rice dish.

I returned to the Bamboo Backpackers. I gingerly climbed up into one of the tunnels. If I was not careful I would break my neck.

The next morning I found my way to the Smugglers Cove. Smugglers Cove is a few minutes walking distance from the Bamboo Backpackers. Smugglers Cove was a hive of frenetic humanity. At the reception my name was soon found. My valuables were put in storage, and I was ushered to my dormitory. My dormitory provided lockers and a Western bathroom. You could get anything you wanted in Smugglers Cove as befitted its name, if not contraband.

I asked the Smugglers Cove manager, should I always on excursions carry my passport She said yes, rather pointedly as if recalling bad experiences. I did so. I am pleased to say outside hotels and the airport, I was never asked to show it. Fiji and New Zealand after the Covid madness have returned to English ancient liberties.

I found the friendly Smugglers Cove bar and restaurant on the ground floor overlooking the beach which was filled up with restaurants and bars. I ordered a Fiji beer. I always select an alcohol ethnic to its location. Inside New Zealand, I restrict my alcohol drinking to social occasions. Outside New Zealand, I drink moderately the ethnic ales. That is either because they are brewed as an accompaniment to food rather than intoxication, or they relieve my nerves in foreign language lands. Then I took a stroll down the beach. I gazed at the sun set and recalled the song lyrics of Lisa Lei: the purple shadows fall.

I returned to my dormitory and booked online for Fiji Cultural Village for the next morning. The Fiji Cultural Village bus picked me up from Smugglers Cove at the appointed morning date.

I was the first passenger on the bus which picked up passengers from several Nadi hotels. I sat next to the driver. We were both chatty fellows. When I mentioned I was a bit nauseous from last nights' Indian food, he carefully said he was Indian. I had noticed a distinctive Fijian appearance which blends in both races so that you usually or often cannot tell. I mentioned the barrenness of the countryside. He said. The land we saw through the bus windows was all farmed by Indians. The Fijians still lived in their villages in the hinterlands. I noticed he said Indian farmers, not Indian tenants. The young people, he said, don't want to work the back breaking land which is suitable only for growing sugar cane. They come into the cities to find work.

I mused to myself. Fiji has become hostage to global tourism. They have missed out on tourist bonanzas because of racial turmoil. Racial turmoil has instead raised Cain from the land.

Fiji Cultural Village, featuring indigenous rituals, singing, dancing, kava and a traditional feast

I emailed to my friend Roger. "The Fijians are such a charming people so long as I can spend money on them. They are fabulous rhythmic dancers."

Recent DNA research asserts. The black races never got the Neanderthal gene. They have remained Homo Erectus while the other races are lumbering Neanderthals. Homo Erectus are nimble in tongue and limbs. Neanderthals are the great builders. When the Fijians danced for us Neanderthals, they were not just performers. The land danced its primal dance with them.

At the reception at Cultural Village, I paid by visa,150 dollars. The Fiji lady guide's first instruction was. "Before the missionaries came, Fiji was a terrible country." She said it with pride and a knowing smile. That was to prepare her effete Western guests for the shocks ahead. But in the age of social media, she need not have worried. When she spoke of gory tales of human sacrifices at the Fijian temples, a Samoan lady earnestly reminded her. Since our Lord Jesus Christ was sacrificed for our sins, there has been no need for human sacrifices.

The next day, I took a taxi ride to Nadi. The taxi drivers did not have visa card service. From bad experiences, I approached nervously the Smugglers Cove ATM. I had an ASB and a BNZ visa card in case of disaster. A hotel manager sensed my nervousness and offered assistance. I took it gladly. I withdrew over a hundred dollars without mishap.

The taxi drivers who hang out at Wialoaloa Beach are always alert and always very polite. We arranged a modest price for Nadi before we left. I did that every time before I entered a taxi having been stung in China. As we drove onto the highway, the taxi driver enthused on taking me at a bargain price to see the sights in Suva. I declined truthfully that I couldn't afford it. He drove me to a somewhat lifeless dusty town. Nadi had seen much better days and was now in terminal decline. I left the taxi at a sim card shop. I got a Fiji sim card inserted in my mobile to last me a month. Then I went for a walk. I saw an upstairs massage parlour. I truly had a stiff back from the flight and my dormitory. I knocked at the parlour's door. An old Chinese lady scurried out. She was the only Chinese person I had so far seen in Fiji. Roger who had lived in Fiji before the depredations of Colonel Rabuka told me. He saw many Chinese. They have appeared to have one way or another fled from Fiji to anywhere. I said full body massage for half an hour. She successfully discounted the price for one hour for fifty dollars. Like Alan Dershowitz, I said to her. "I will keep my underpants on before we start. I emphasised before. She gave the Oriental smile.

As she massaged me, she put her finger to her lips and pointed to my tiddly bits. I declined. If my funds were ample, I would have done the same with an old lady. That would be my only massage in Fiji under her expert hands.

I spent the next six days soaking in the Wailoaloa environment. I found the Blue Water Lodge a short walking distance from Smugglers Cove. It supplied an outside little restaurant. The food was good light breakfasts and lunches The catering by Fijian women was lovely. But I was annoyed to find the restaurant did not provide visa card service. I was acclimatising to digital currency. Soon I mused paper money will seem as archaic as a cart and buggy. In Auckland, I assume paper money is a sign of nefarious activity. Across the road there was another hotel and restaurant, The Beach Club. I was told The Beach Club provided excellent dinners. That promise was fulfilled that evening. A Fiji decor restaurant with Fiji traditional songs, helpful staff, and food and wine that delighted my palate.

On the seventh day, I booked another week at Smugglers Cove. The reception desk could not find my booking. I showed them my booking on my laptop. To their amusement and my horror, we discovered I had booked into another hotel. "Just down the road," they assured me. I fled Smugglers Cove in mortification. I hired a taxi which took me to my new hotel in two minutes. I was to my great relief back at the Blue Water Lodge. The manager was delighted to see me and my booking. The shock of my hotel displacement made my hand shake when I signed in my booking. My seventy one years were catching up on me. The Blue Water Lodge was a quiet restful hotel where for the rest of my holiday, I had light breakfasts and lunches.

I was picking up on a social pattern in Fiji. The Fijian women with very smart aplomb manage the hospitality. The Fijian men are the hewers of wood and drawers of water. That is they are the manual workers. But they seem happy as their prestigious relatives are soldiers, policemen and statesmen. The Indo Fijians are the shop keepers, technicians and bureaucrats. But buried social temperatures rise and bubble to the surface in coups. They are the steam eruptions that clear the air until normality soon after returns. That contrasts with New Zealand where there is always political friction and social gloom. I am not sure about my metaphors.

The next morning, I took the bus to Suva. The bus station was as befitted a bus station in an efficient but developing country. Not Mercedes nor tuktuk. I purchased a ticket, via cash. After much angst and rushing around, I boarded the correct bus. The bus trip from Nadi to Suva was four and a half hours. Travel fatigue ended vague ideas of several more trips to Suva. As the bus ground through an arid landscape of small town/village settlements to the other end of Viti Levu island, we passed by Cannibal Country Restaurant. I googled it. It seemed a nice regular place. Ethnic dishes were served with no hint of homo flesh. During the first coup, the more fanatical coup supporters dug a cannibal pit outside Parliament House.

I have read that in several accounts but Microsoft co-pilot denies that happened. As the great Samoan author, Albert Wendt has written. Pacific cultures take traumatic events into the quality of myth. Cannibalism seems an issue of overt nostalgia in Fiji. In New Zealand, its history is glossed over. The 1960s popular pop song Puha and Pakeha has long been suppressed.

After this tiresome journey, we arrived at Suva bus station. I found a taxi and directed it to a mobile repair shop. I had taken my mobile into my hotel bathroom. Its rough outdoor nature had irrigated and ruined it. I had my sim card transferred to a spare mobile. But the spare was a Chinese version. No one in the Indian shop could read its instructions. They directed me to a Chinese mobile shop. But they couldn't or wouldn't either. So the ubiquitous Chinese were still around in Fiji when you looked for them.

The night before I had watched a rather scary youtube about taking a stroll through Suva. So I avoided the Suva byways which the video showed were chock a block with aggressive hucksters. I was in central Suva. I noticed a few kava haunts. If you want to escape the stresses of life in Fiji or plot, you get stoked in a kava setting. The first Fiji coup was conducted via the stupor of kava.

I took another taxi and directed the driver to take me to the Suva Public library. I asked him how much does the cheapest hotel in Suva cost for one night. He said. sixty dollars. For six dollars, I could pay for a room or one hour. I wondered allowed. "What can one do in an hotel room for one hour?" We both laughed at the nefarious choices in Suva. I resolved to return to Nadi that evening.

Suva Public library, Suva Museum and Fiji Parliament occupied within walking distances central Suva. The night before, I had googled Fiji Parliament. To my disappointment, the Parliament was not in session. I noted Parliament was in session only a couple of months a year. I suspected the Prime Minister and his office is the man. The Parliament website rather plaintively, I thought, stressed its role as Fiji's Democracy. I read on the website, the official history of the Fiji Parliament. It in a single sentence mentioned the first "military coup" in 1987. The three other coups are described as 'political troubles". I had wanted to see Rabuka in the flesh. I am not such a fool as to ask loudly in the Parliament where did the soldiers enter Parliament and exit with the Fiji Government. How official histories gloss over their bad history fascinates me. The Palestine and Haiti Embassy histories end at the last moment before the Balfour Declaration and after the second election of Aristide. The invasion of the Fiji Parliament was led by a Captain X, still publicly unknown. Colonel Rabuka sat in the public gallery and waited for his men. I imagine he sweated with a pager unlikely in his hand.

My taxi reached the public library. I was surprised at its small size and backward technology. I had imagined a shining prestigious edifice funded by international aid. Then I felt impressed. Fiji does not boost itself with shining building. Its boosting is its Fiji human spirit and culture. Its public money is spared for the Fiji people even if only in private bank accounts of politicians. They have their relatives and retainers.

Fiji Library still used a card catalogue as I remember in New Zealand libraries fifty years ago. Without mentioning it, I looked for books on the coups. I asked the mostly Indian librarians for books on" twentieth century history". They kept diverting me to Fijian culture. Twentieth century Fiji history was clearly still an open wound. I found in the lacuna. Rabuka's No Other Way. The only other books starting from 1987 I could find, were George Speight's coup in 2000. I read that caused much rioting and terror. Books in New Zealand about Fiji dwell obsessively up to the Speight coup. Then they are almost silent. Speight's coup in New Zealanders' eyes put Fiji politics outside redemption into criminality. The Fiji people seemed to have public amnesia about the earlier two coups in 1987 and recall the 2000 coup as a public calamity. Still, the Fiji turmoil was relatively sedate. There were no reported civilian deaths. Four soldiers and a policemen died in a military mutiny in 2006. Fiji remained a Christian nation. Unlike large Chinese minority populations who have been slaughtered globally, Indian populations seem immune except in pre partition India. The physical attacks on Indians in Fiji seem to be mostly symbolic roughing up, letting off steam to continue my metaphor. Like the disciplinary sea captains of old, Colonel Rabuka in 1987 whipped the Fijian Government's ass.

In Auckland, I had read No Other Way and Indo Fijian books about the 1987 coup. The coup shattered the international branding of Fiji "as the way the world should be". Reading Indo Fijian books about Rabuka, and a Fijian book about him is to enter two seperate worlds.My heart warmed to both worlds.

Rabuka's big mistake was to mire himself in his first coup. He should have immediately done the full monty acts of his second coup a few months later. Rabuka had no education in Constitutional law. He thought holding the Fijian Government hostage would be the end of it. But the Constitution lay in the British Crown who were not amused. Conversely, Rabuka's enemies had no education in deep State. Their big mistake was not to investigate and immediately arrest the plotters.

I left the library and hired a taxi to the museum. It charged a more than nominal fee. It was excellent All the populations of Fiji got fair and sympathetic coverage. Unlike the museum in my East Cape home district in New Zealand, that appears to have completely forgotten the existence of half the population, that is the white people whose enterprise and ingenuity built the district. I mused that Fiji seems to have been spared the language war that besets New Zealand. All the traffic signs and notices, I saw, were in English. And no gay rainbow street crossings! Fiji has its critical problems but has not gone lunatic. I was reminded about reading in a column by Tom Scott how Fijian Parliamentarians attended a New Zealand Parliament session to be instructed in the Westminster tradition. The debating chamber erupted in uproar not over public issues but over something so petty and childish Tom didn't mention it. The language and gay issues in New Zealand are made so prominent because the grievance industry of politicians and civil servants have no other way to justify their salaries. In Fiji, officialdom must show they work diligently in running the country or they have generals' and ex generals' wroth.

When I left the museum I gazed across the street to Parliament grounds. I considered trying to enter the grounds and Parliament. I concluded when not in session, the place would be dead and most likely in security lock up. Anyway I had a bus to catch back to Nadi.

I booked another taxi. My sense of direction has always been shot. The Indian taxi driver unexpectedly burst into tears. He told me that morning, his house had burnt down. He had lost everything I commiserated and asked did he have insurance. No. He said and wept more bitterly. When we reached the bus station, I said he could keep the five dollars change. He agreed with surprising alacrity. I wished him him future good luck. He handed me my mobile phone I had left in the taxi in my concern for his welfare.

When I got to the ticket booth, I found out I was now short of cash to buy my ticket. The weeping taxi driver had short changed me. I had to find an ATM machine. My face filled with horror. ATM machines had become my bane. Like most digital things, they seem to always get more complicated and confusing. Once at an ATM machine at an international airport, a black girl shrieked my card, my card. I stepped up gallantly and rescued her card, to her immense gratitude. I treasure that rare moment of being practically useful.

Karma was kind to me. The Fijian ticket issuer, gave me complicated instructions to the nearest ATM. Seeing my distress, he immediately offered to take me to it. I agreed with extreme gratitude. An American entertainment cliché used to be the magic Negro. A black man breaks down a door to rescue Archie Bunker from the cellar. The white races like to help out but at the back of their minds, is they don't want to be involved in strangers' problems. The Chinese leave a prostrate man in the middle of the street. To be fair, Chinese students are helpful to strangers.

We soon found an ATM machine. He offered to use my card and I immediately agreed. As I feared, the screen was full of complicated instructions that flashed by in less than a second. All in English of course. Kiwibank originally set up as a social bank, is now instead a paean to bi- culturalism. The first screen sign that appears is in Maori, perfectly set to confound customers and block their card.

The required money exited the machine. The man then directed me to a coffee establishment opposite the bus station. It was a cavernous uninviting place but spared the discordant muzac that plagues just about every café now in New Zealand, at least for the tin eared.

I found the bus and nerved myself for the long tedious journey in darkness back to Nadi.

I was told all the rooms at Blue Water Lodge would be booked out the next few days for a religious festival..I went back to Smugglers Cove and looked elsewhere on Wailoaloa Beach. Everywhere the same. I went back alarmed to Blue Water Lodge. The manager said. She would jack up a room for me somewhere else for the next two nights of the festival. In Auckland I would just be booted out without a warning. In the late afternoon, she came back to me all beaming. She had found a dormitory room at the Beach Club across the street. I went over with my pyjamas and toiletries to the Beach Club. I was told to go back and get my passport. I was now being confronted with a slightly embarrassing situation. Every time I approached or passed by the Blue Water Lodge staff, they would greet me with Fijian smiles. I learnt to skulk pass them.

The dormitory at the Beach Club was a large room with mattresses. There were two co-habitants. Two dark fellows. One was Fijian, the other looked Middle Eastern. The Fijian shared his pizza with me and left. The Middle Easterner asked where I was from. I said New Zealand and asked his country. He said Palestine. I promptly pumped my fist and shouted Gaza. His right arm had a tattoo that appeared to be a design of a prison camp. I was glad he was there. Moslems, I assumed he was Moslem, pray five times a day to keep the Moslem tenets of honourable conduct and honesty. In hostel experiences in New Zealand, there are two populations that cannot be trusted. One is a group I will not name but all Kiwi readers will know whom I am referring to. There was one fellow in that group, a military and charismatic man. I trusted him completely. I left my bag with my wallet in the room. When I returned the money had gone. He was later blocked from the hotel because of several reports of theft. When that group is around, I hope for honesty but keep my possessions locked away. The other group I have zero trust. They are the Israelis. They come in as an identity group and steal everything they can lay their hands on. They are also noisy and seem drugged. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz would quote liberal Israelis. "They go into the IDF as nice boys and come out monsters." One Israeli was startled to hear from me that the food at the hostel was not communal! However, the Israelis I met I cannot equate with the monsters in the Gaza war.

For three thousand and more years, Gaza flourished as a mercantile and cultural city. It had Kings, prophets, religious centres, a false Messiah. Sampson was made eyeless there and brought down the temple. Now it has been destroyed by deranged Poles and Ukrainians,

The grand plan of the Zionist billionaires appears to be to exterminate and expel the surviving Gazans, and replace them with condominiums and endless reruns of The Golden Girls and Sex And the City.

A few days after my return to blue Water Lodge, I was banished again for a few days. This time to a hotel in Nadi. The hotel was run by genial Indians. So long as my money doesn't run out, everyone is genial. I will call the hotel, Somewhere In Nadi. All I recall it. A retired Kiwi couple complained bitterly. They had to pay exorbitantly for a room with a tiny bathroom. Whereas I with no private bathroom and a bunk paid pennies. I was less sanguine when my Indian bunk companion kept me awake when he snored like a puff train for two nights. When the Fijian Government were held hostage in 1987, the Fijian Prime Minister Bavadra almost had a Cabinet crisis by his night snoring. Snoring is one of those irritants that are never funny to the victims. Maybe, the Bavadra Government who had been enjoying the baubles of office, learnt or relearnt how life is for their poorer brethren. Not really relevant to snoring, but I will say this this anyway. Bavadra was from the Melanesian region of Fiji. They had been oppressed by the Polynesian region of Fiji represented by Rabuka. The Fijian coups opened an underground cavern that started several hundred years before the Indian Immigration. In Rabuka's and his compatriots' eyes, no Melanesians nor Indians would blight the ancient lands of Fiji

I strolled down the street in Nadi and had a splendid meal in an Indian restaurant with Indian national flags proudly displayed. The restaurant post Covid-19 was probably up to its eye balls in debt, but you can't stop restaurant entrepreneurs like oases in deserts.

Somewhere In Nadi kindly provided me with a mini lock and key for my dormitory locker. Where I returned to Blue Water Resort, I stole it. In the Pacific way, one has to learn not to be rigorously middle class honest. The lack of locks in Blue Water Resort had heightened my anxiety that led to the bathroom mobile disaster. When I returned to the dormitory, I discovered a bag of clothes was missing from the locker. My dormitory had been booked by by a Solomon Island Church. When I heard that, all my prejudices rose. A staff member said. "Take comfort that the clothes will be distributed to the poor in the Solomons." I nodded glumly. Then the clothes were found in a lower locker. I was thrilled and immediately felt white guilt.

A white junkie looking woman when I was in my dormitory said to me. "Can I trust you?" We were the only people there. I advised her about dormitory security. Then she started ranting about things in her life until the manager hushed her with her finger to her lips. Later I felt bad about it. How awful to be a woman and the man does not even think about it.

The days remained hot and cloudless dry. I had in the rush from Auckland stupidly not brought my togs for the hotel swimming pool. Otherwise my choice of provisions to Fiji was good. I bird spotted the swimming guests and concluded the Anglo girls displaying their arse cracks and tits need lessons in etiquette that everyone else knew. As a Mullah was excoriated for saying. "If you walk around like a piece of meat, you will attract the dogs."

I read a couple of books from the hotel collection. The first was about an Austrian kidnapper and rapist of his own family. I chucked it in when the case went to Court. The other was about a recently discovered American woman photographer who had home photographed life in America her entire twentieth century adult life time. In our new digital age, that seems almost as distant as the Parthenon.

One morning I heard for the only time a discussion about Fiji politics. It was at the breakfast table at Blue Water Resort. An Aussie who had lived many years in Fiji mentioned the coups and their instigators as if they were periodic natural events. I was all ears. He said naval officer and former Prime Minister Bainimarama ran the country well under the civil direction of a smart Indian. I recalled a Fijian Indian taxi driver in Auckland in 2014 who was glowing about the Prime Ministership of Bainimarama. He said he and most other Fijian Indians supported Bainimarama to save Fiji from Indian crooks. Their subordinate position in Fiji they seemed resigned to.

Bainimrama had staged the fourth and last Fijian coup in 2006. He might at the time have seemed like Tweedldum after Rabuka Tweedledee. Another hulking military man out to impose might is right over the Fijian Constitution. Cronyism and corruption are as Fijian as kava. The newspaper Fijian Times lovingly reports these public wrinkles. Then in 2013, this military man became filled with a wonderful and simple inclusive idea. A new Fijian Constitution .

To quote AI Overview

Fiji's 2013 Constitution enacted after the 2006 coup, established a new unitary, secular state, eliminating race-based politics with a single at-large parliamentary seat system where every vote counts equally *** and solidified the Constitution as supreme law."

In theory at least , the Fijian politicians can now get together or fight about the issues of poverty and social disorder affecting all Fijians. The Fijian Times was covering a massive amphetamine Court case. Convicted dealers were being given huge prison sentences. The newspaper was duly reporting the shocking effects of amphetamine in Fijian villages. There was also an ongoing case of a murder of a transsexual Fijian doctor in an apparent "hate" crime. The Fijian politicians could now jaw jaw about those social issues instead of warring over a race based Constitution. Cynics would say the 2013 Constitution could be imposed because reduction of a third of the Indian population after 1987 ceased them being a demographic threat. The Fijian Supreme Court has ruled the 2013 Constitution as illegal because it came out of a coup that benefited the coup instigators. But it is as it is. In other words, pure political idealism in Fiji is not practical and pragmatism rules.

Bainimarama then stood for election under his Democratic Constitution and won by a large majority. Gandhi tried that during her dictatorship and was sent packing by her electorate. Bainimarama did not impose sterilisation like Gandhi. Fiji is a small oceanic country and almost everyone is poor.

The Aussie said. Bainimarama steered Fiji through Covid- 19 with little cruelty. There was no State relief for Fijian businesses. So the Fijian Government is not facing financial ruin although Fijian businesses are drowning in debt.

In 2022, Bainimarama lost the Fijian election by two seats despite a majority of the popular vote. Covid-19 has been a global graveyard for Governments that followed the regime of WHO. With a Fijian salutation and a merry laugh, Bainmarama handed over his Prime Ministership to his nemesis Rabuka. Bainmarama was too pure in political idealism. In 2023, he was suspended from Parliament on legal points and convicted and imprisoned over a South Pacific University scandal. The scandal seems to me not worthy of a prison sentence. He was released after six months but then in 2025, he received a suspended prison sentence for as Prime Minister having unsuccessfully demanded the chief of police dismiss two policemen! A photograph appeared in the Fijian Times of the former Prime Minister in Court, a cloth covering his hands, presumably from handcuffs. Now social media reports he may be facing a private charge of murder from the Fijian Barracks mutiny.

Since the storming of the Washington Capitol in 2021, lawfare in Democracies has globally replaced due legal process for Governments that lose elections. It is a very bad sign for the future when civilised hypocrisy is replaced by open thievery.

Rabuka as the benefactor of the 2022 election has been pushing to remove Constitutional safeguards and bring in "inclusion" to the Fijian electorate. He speaks compassionately of electoral seats for the Council of Chiefs and for the disabled. A tiger does not proverbially change its spots. To mix the metaphor, being a Prime Minister in Fiji is riding a tiger.

The Aussie commented Fiji does not have political demonstrations. In Western Democracies, they are every day a benefaction or a plague, depending on each person's point of view. He clearly thought as a businessman they were plagues. There was no report in the Fijian Times of demonstrations in favour of Bainimarama. That was either political resignation after the coups. Or his supporters remained scared of Rabuka and his henchmen.

The biggest political issue in my time in Fiji appeared to be about the dishonouring by the Bainimarama regime of old age pensions. The elderly Fijians were appealing to Rabuka's honour as he had professed in his interview with the Fijian Times.

I met an American lady at the Beach Club restaurant. I was alone with her at the restaurant for dinner. She asked me to sit beside her. I did readily as I had confused her with a guest at Blue Water Lodge. I ate her oysters as she had an allergy for them. I had learnt not to eat the chilis as Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair had learnt. Etiquette required the waiter to take away the oysters. But I am socially always gauche and in my stomach rather than the dust bin seemed eminently sensible. I found out she was an author. She was dowdy and plain. But at my age, I look for the mind. I told her I too was an author. Like me, she has self published. We both agreed the old stigma of self publishing has gone in the woke age. We are the literary pioneers. I told her that Microsoft co-pilot I had compared me to the Mesopotamian tablet writers. That I wrote social media rather than books in the traditional meaning. I told her my travails as an author. She said she had heard from other authors all my authorial experiences.

She said she was fleeing from Trumpian America. I said Charlie Kirk before his assassination only rang a bell with me. She said to my amazement that despite employment in a Federal Agency now eliminated by Doge, she had until the assassination never heard of Charlie Kirk. That reminded me that even clever people in our era often live in their own chosen realities. I had met a clever Brit thirty something who had never heard of Ted Heath. After I spoke about Heath, he said he was glad he hadn't. She said her brother was a Trump supporter and also an author which ran in her family. I said I had been a cautious supporter of Trump until he went deranged. She said the difference was, he still is.

We agreed to meet at a suitable time on the next night at the Beach Club. The restaurant would be showing a fire dance. She said she stayed at a hotel and walked alone at night half an hour or so to and back from the Beach Club.

I didn't tell her my esoteric view point. Musk's Doge looted and burned Washington's DC Byzantium as in 1204. Her esoteric field was science fiction and she might not have grasped its point. The Doge who looted and burned under his personal command Constantinople was blind.

The next night I duly arrived and she appeared delighted to see me. We ate, drank and watched the spectacular and frightening fire dance. I recall we only drank iced water. The Fijians sure can put on a show. It goes beyond performance into their oceanic souls. They had put on a show in Auckland for the Indo Fijian Prime Minister. A few months later, their relatives or even some of them, held him prisoner in Parliament House.

We agree to meet again at the restaurant the next night. I wasn't sure if I was on a date. But my due Superannuation to pay for my meal was delayed for over an hour. When I arrived she was not there. I would have told her if the Democrat Party had allowed a fair election in 2020, Trump would have won. Instead their malice towards him blinded his frequent overtures to work with them for American's benefit. President Kim of North Korea was adult enough to do so for world peace at Trump's invitation despite Trump calling him, Little Rocket Man. Trump would now be safely secluded in his resort in Florida and a Democrat woman would now be President. Trump would have been quality control for the Democrats. In his first term, I always read Trump's tweets during his first Administration. I picked up on a plaintive voice wanting to be treated as the American people's President instead of a blah blah blah. When Thai boys were trapped in a water cave, unlike Musk, he stayed completely silent. After their rescue, he congratulated the rescuers "On behalf of the American people." His tweet was ignored by the media. In his second term, he has supped with a short spoon to keep him out of prison and save the Trump dynasty fortune. Back in Auckland I read, Trump said about his critics. "I couldn't care less about them." I never met her again. Was that a lost opportunity to join an authors' social club I wondered. I had on a number of occasions had encouraging overtures to join authors' social clubs. But when I tell them my literary themes, they go silent. The authorial classes seem to be stuck in 1977, the year of the publication of David Irving's Hitler's War. Despite Irving's authorial esteem and MacMillan publisher, Hitler's War was pulped and Irving cast out of book publishing. I had been in communication with David. He said I "was awfully kind "to compare him to T H Huxley at the Oxford debate about evolution versus creationism. He sent a broad hint he wanted me to send him money. After that and no money transaction, he stopped the communication.

One morning I chatted with the Blue Water Lodge waitress. She said she was training to be a nurse at a medical school in Suva. I asked. How did she travel to and from Suva every school day as she lived in Nadi. She said she studied nursing via zoom. I thought generation Z. I was struck how the Fijians effortlessly slip from Fijian into flawless English and back. That is a mysterious talent that only infants, people of colour and linguist geniuses have. The rest of us have to struggle to learn the grammar of a non native language. And we never really succeed.

"Visit the Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple

This brightly coloured Hindu temple at the southern end of Nadi town is hard to miss. The entire complex is a visual feast with pyramid shaped towers (typical of Dravidian architecture) covered in elaborate carvings of warriors, kings and gods.

For a small entry fee, you can join the guided tour which runs every 1/2hour between 8.30am – 3.00pm but you'll need to observe a few rules like dressing modestly, removing your shoes and keeping your photos for the temple’s exterior.

Top off your tour with a hot cup of masala tea and a delicious vegetarian meal at the Saravana Bhavan restaurant next door.

" -fiji.travel

For the entire six weeks in Fiji, I toyed with the thought of visiting. I never got there. The "small entry fee" for a half hour tour bothered me. I recalled the Indian retail shops. It would have made a good complement to the Fijian Cultural village and I am sure they have excellent relations. But my money was running short and tramping a Hindu temple in bare feet did not overwhelm me. I was there in spirit.

Now I was due for departure back to Auckland. The manager of Blue Water Resort reminded me to write an online review. I never got round to it. Online reviews of hotels turn out to be deceptively long. Smugglers Cove and Blue Water Resort will have to settle for this Amazon book.

I had booked the cheapest flight. It would arrive at Auckland airport at the twilight hours. I sent an email to Jim, that I would sleep at the airport and he can pick me up at ten in time for a morning booking at the YMCA. Jim kindly wrote that he would be there at the airport when I arrive. At his age, driving through Auckland at midnight remains an adventure rather than a hazard.

I took the taxi to the airport in the evening. I had everything carefully prepared from Fiji Airway regulations. I was horrified now to discover I was required to flash my mobile at that spider looking thing on a wall that scans one's presence. I now had no working mobile. Mobiles are now taken for granted like one's extra arm. Well Jake had an extra leg. I had visions of being trapped in an algorithm. Then I was told to do the mobile scnning at Auckland airport.

I joined the queue into the aeroplane. During the flight, I watched a movie about Madoff. I noted no Yiddish music accompanied his multi billion dollars ponzi. He was portrayed as just a low down fraudster. The young Kiwi man beside me from a traveling sports team talked about his passion for the Lord Of The Rings. I had given up on it after desultory reading of half of The Hobbit. Our conversation drifted to the Narnia stories and movies. I remarked their book illustrations and movies didn't succeed because the Narnia children and animals remained just children and toys. They could only exist as Kings and Queens and beasts in C S Lewis' cerebral imagination. He nodded off to sleep.

When I arrived in Auckland, there was no further mention of mobile scanning. I soon met Jim. He gave me a container of his mother's cooking. He inspected my irrigated mobile and said it was ruined. He drove me to the Y.M.C.A.

A few days later after purgatory at the YMCA, I became a house warmer for Roger's million dollar home which he treats as a student pad.

As a final epitaph on Fiji, in a tweet I wrote. "Fijian pride and Indian brains work well in harmony. Fijian brains and Indian pride always ends in disharmony and disaster."