Lautoka

The first city we called at in Fiji was Lautoka, on the the island of Vitu Levi. We didn't have real expectations for the place; "third-world" cities can be great or miserable. This one we genuinely enjoyed. It was a Saturday, so everyone (both buyers and sellers) were at the public market (which takes up a good chunk of downtown). The town is clean (by developing-nation standards), with truly "friendly natives". Fiji's population is a mix of the original Polynesia, plus descendants of Indians brought over to work the sugar fields in the 1800s. Lautoka is an Indo-Fujian town - it was like being in a city in India, but where nobody hassles you or tries to take advantage of you. Clean, relatively orderly and we're thinking... this can't be real. Lautoka isn't the main tourist destination for the islands (that would be "Nadi" [pronounced "Nandi"]). It's a big sugar producer, but it isn't currently harvest season so the plant was idle.

Rail cars for bagged sugar	Idle Sugar Processing Plant	"Y'all Come Back"

Bula! is the traditional greeting, and it really is universal, not like the country's marketing slogan or something. At first there was some ambiguity about who "bula'd" whom and who didn't. As we observed the ritual a bit more, it became more clear: if you made eye contact with another person, they said bula! Simple as that. Often, someone would beckon you over, introduce themselves, shake hands. Anywhere else this'd be a sign of trouble. You're about to separated from your money either by sales or begging. But NONE of this happened. Ever. Some of our fellow cruise passengers even got invited to lunch this way. Where people trying to sell us stuff, "no" meant "no". It didn't mean "must try harder" as it seems to in India.

We did our typical "new city" things, wandered in and out of supermarkets (we like foreign markets, they bring you "right next to" a very important aspect of culture: what people eat). We found two unusual trends: canned meats ("corned beef", "canned chicken", "canned mackerel", "canned mutton" -- rather a disgusting concept, actually) -- and -- we should have gotten a photo of these, large (like 2" by 2 feet) bars of very colorful soap, for washing laundry. These polychromic ingots were stacked in large piles and were selling for about 80c (US) per bar.

Say, think these products have potential in the US? Hair mayonnaise? Barfi candy (in lime, strawberry and other flavors)? And we also saw kava roots for sale - the national drink, a tea-like brew made from the roots of relative of the pepper tree.

	Market Scenes

We remained ever vigilant for tonic water in small bottles or cans, this must not be a popular concept in the South Pacific as we were once again thwarted.

Kathy and I parted company at that point, as she'd found a beauty shop able to apply mendhi to here hands and feet. Once again Scott has the "tatooed lady", and Kathy received many complements on the work from our shipmates. She arrived back to the ship shortly before I (barefoot, via taxi, so as not to disturb her new artwork; I walked back in the mid-day sun...).

<<mendhi photo>>

Dravuni

Score 2 for 2 on Fijian islands! Dravuni was also a treat, but completely different from Lautoka. Dravuni is a tiny (800 square meters) [about half a square mile], long and thin. The entire island is a fraction the size of the city of Lautoka; home to a couple dozen families. We arrived by tender boats to a big Welcome sign, and a list of the day's activities (it was Sunday, the big event was the service at the Methodist church...)

Along with several fellow passengers, we wandered through the Villagers' backyards, trying not to trample their vegetable gardens (it was a little hard to tell sometimes, where jungle path ended and garden began). Pigs and chickens roamed free, children in their Sunday best headed to church... as did we.

We found the church simply by following the "joyful noise offered unto the Lord"(it would be a stretch to call it "singing") by a children's choir aged perhaps 5 to 9. You can listen here if interested. What they lacked in harmony, they more than made up for in total cuteness. After listening to the kids for a while, we headed off on to a climb to a mountain top, and were rewarded with fantastic views but also footwear totally caked in remarkably resilient mud. Scott chose to extricate his mud while enjoying the warm tropical waters.

Later, we did a bit of snorkeling an sunbathing: Kathy stopped by the church during the service and found it packed with both locals and our visitors. A while longer on the shore and we headed back to the ship.

There was a big Sunday meal after church. We spotted village men baking breadfruit in the traditional fashion, on the beach. Samples of the starchy staple fruit were offered to all. Women brought various dishes. After that arduous work, the men gathered under a big shade tree and drank kava from a common bowl.

Men prepare imu for...	...steaming breadfruits	Finished product

There were no buoys marking the break in the reef from which ships were to enter and exit. As a substitute, men from the village took their little fishing boats out on either side of the reef cut, and waved brightly colored flags (made from red shirts or yellow slickers) on long sticks. The captain called them"Buoy Boys".

Toward sunset we set off for the Bay Islands. We're nearing the half-way point in our journey (it's Day 42, we have 62 more left) and are headed pretty much due south toward New Zealand. The weather has turned cloudy and relatively cool (75 instead of 90), and the seas rough. But that's another story.