I woke up at 06:40 with the sound of children and Niko in the first light of the morning.. I had my breakfast with pancakes and tea with “The Breadfruit Trees” that resembles potatoes, boiled and cooked with curry sauce.. This fruit, which grows on trees and tastes like potatoes, has an important place in Fijian cuisine.
Children change their clothes to go to school in the morning and walk around the room naked.. They have a short-sleeved white shirt at the top and a gray loincloth-skirt style school clothes underneath that they wrap around their waists.. We walked to school with Niko’s 3 grandchildren from his eldest son and the younger daughter of his other son who lived in the same house.. Everywhere is wet and humid at night due to the rain, and everywhere shines due to the sunlight reflecting on the rain water on the leaves of the trees.
ⓘ List of Contents show Viseisei Village, Fiji Fiji Time planning my trip to Fiji Lautoka city, Fiji Extraordinary sunset
Viseisei Village, Fiji
Niko showed the Christian School right across from their house, many of these schools in the country was present. When we reach the school on the hill, I am greeted with an incredible view.. The school built on the hill sees the deep blue sea stretching behind the coconut trees and the islands and islets scattered over it.
It is difficult to distinguish whether the students coming towards the school with their curly, dense hair are boys or girls.. School uniforms for boys and girls are the same. It is possible to see many Fijians with short haircuts.. Both men and women can have their hair cut short, and they can dress in the same clothes they wrap around their waists.
In this case, it is really difficult to distinguish their genders.. You can even see considerable mustaches on some women, as in Ana where I stayed at home.
There is not much hustle and bustle at school, but when you look at their faces, you can see the smiling and happy faces on almost all of the children’s faces.. Every student who saw me greeted me by saying ‘Find it!’
The school is taught entirely in English.. Their teachers stay in houses right next to the school.. Classes start at 8 am and end at 3 am.. There is a container with lunch in each student’s bag.
Fiji Time
After dropping the children off at school, Niko and I walk home with each other in colorful clothes on the street. it is possible to see the village people chatting. When we got home, Ana and Fi were sitting on a log by the side of the road, which was used as a bench.
It’s just 8 a.m.. When I walked up to them and started talking, Ana started to tell me that the people of Fiji are very lazy.
She explained that they sometimes drink kava until late at night, chat, laugh, have fun and sleep late, then go back to sleep after sending the children to school in the morning.. What are we going to do if we don’t sleep!
She explained that this kind of life is better, they own the house and they don’t need money except for electricity, water and sugar, salt and some basic kitchen expenses.. He advised me to go home and sleep again. When we got home, the other house was still asleep.
Planning my trip to Fiji
After going to my room and listening to podcasts about Laos and Indonesia on my phone for 2 hours, Fi’s house i passed. Eli and Fi were sitting in the living room while Jen from Canada was still asleep.. We started to make my plans with Fiona.
Fi, who has established his own travel agency, makes travel programs for his guests via Couchsurfing, makes early reservations and receives a commission of around 30% from agency companies in return.. It’s easy, simple, profitable and smart. It provides free accommodation and meals to its guests.
As you have the opportunity to see and discover a real Fijian village life, you also arrange your entire trip organization with first-hand realistic information.. I have no inclination to sell the expensive ones, or to put some pressure on them and make them stay longer.. He answers your questions and gives information about interesting and important places and leaves the choice to you.. That’s why I made the planning with peace of mind.
First, I planned 4 days on Mana Island, 3 days on Kuata Island from the Yasawa group of islands, and 2 days on the Blue Lagoon.. I thought I’d spend the rest around Suva and Viti Levu. As a result of long phone calls, asking prices, organizing transfers, I gave 1300 FJ$ okay.. According to Eli, they were very expensive, in fact.
Because I wanted to get my diving certificate here, too.. I gave up when the diving course cost 690FJ$ including 3 days accommodation. I thought I could join one of the courses like 290 FJ$ that only offers diving courses during the trip.. Thinking it was 3 o’clock, I looked at the clock and was surprised to realize that it was 11:50.. How slow was the time here. As a result of getting up so early in the morning, despite such a busy time, it was only noon.. Maybe this is what they call Fiji Time.
After walking for an hour in and around the village, I stopped by Fi and Eli again.. Jen, who had been on vacation for 2 weeks from Vancouver, Canada, also woke up.. My first choice for language school was actually Vancouver. However, I had given up on Vancouver because of its cold climate and relatively expensive living conditions for Auckland.
When I got to Fi’s house, he told me I was not done yet and had to reschedule, because Mana I had to pay an additional fee of FJ$ 30 to go to your island.. I completely removed the Mana Island from my itinerary.. Because Fiji was a little more expensive than I expected.
The city of Lautoka, Fiji
We decided to go to the city with Jen. Actually, Ana’s wife was going fishing.. I actually wanted to go fishing, but at the same time, Jen had waited a long time for me to go to town. She had to wait for my planning with Fi.. Niko accompanied us while we were on the road and waiting for the bus.. Niko is already someone who loves to chat.. Sitting in the shade of the coconut tree, Niko said that the stately house next door had one of its chiefs, who served as Fiji’s Prime Minister in the ’78s.. While we were chatting, our bus arrived.
Buses are interesting. Buses with plastic curtains that are folded up for use in rainy weather instead of glass in the windows are quite old.. We bought our ticket for $1.60 from the driver of our bus, whose aisle is too narrow to walk due to the triple seats on both sides. was passing fast. The roads were bad, but not as bad as the airport road, with deep potholes in places, jolting and roaring on the poured asphalt, we arrived in the city of Lauoka 40 minutes later.
If I said city, it was worse than a molehill, huge deep, full of water. It consists of 2 other parallel streets intersecting 2 parallel short streets with potholes.. There are many large and small markets, grocery stores and supermarkets on the street.. I dived into one and bought fly repellent.. We were able to find it after a lot of searching for an internet cafe.. They said the internet was very slow, we tried it, it was really bad. We looked for another cafe, it had air conditioning and the internet was also working, but it was still very slow than we expected.
I sent 2 requests for Suva from Coucsurfing.. Again for Sidney, I sent an invitation to 2 people, one from Turkey, for April 15th.. It started raining outside. From the so-called string. After we finished our internet work for about 2 hours, we started to wander around the city.. The vegetable and fruit market, located right in the center of the city, is a place worth visiting.. You can find 3-5 kilos of bananas for 1-2 dollars. Again, papaya, coconut and other fruits, vegetables and fruits have taken their place in the aisles, and of course, a kava plant.
We went to the nearby bus terminal to return to the village.. It’s rush hour, the buses were packed. There were many students and people returning home from work.. We were relieved when we found our bus after thinking about how I could withstand a 40-minute bus journey in such a crowded place.. Because it was not crowded and we were among the first to board so we could find a seat.. This time, we arrived at the village after about an hour’s journey.
Extraordinary sunset
When I got home, I threw myself directly onto the beach again.. An indescribable sunset, an incredibly beautiful red and blue. After taking a few pictures, I was again into watching the kids playing rugby on the beach.. There were things on the beach that didn’t exist yesterday, lots of trees, wood and garbage were brought and dumped at the entrance of the beach.. I think they were using it for garbage. The beautiful little beach was in a bad state.
I came home, bought some very salty noodles with curry sauce and a piece of oily bread prepared in thin phyllo-style and ate my dinner.. Then I retreated to the room, put on the headphones and fell asleep while listening to the amateur travel podcast.. I couldn’t get out of bed despite waking up and hearing voices from time to time.. I slept, slept, slept.
Day 270: Fiji:2, Viseisei Village, 31 March 2011
