{"id":31,"date":"2004-10-06T21:22:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-06T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-07-18T20:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:25:11","slug":"nadi_that_s_india_scrambled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/2004\/10\/06\/nadi_that_s_india_scrambled\/","title":{"rendered":"Nadi… (that’s “India” scrambled)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fiji
Fiji Countryside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I flew into this tropical paradise without any reservations, hoping to just wing it and get a discount for rocking up unannounced. The travel books warn of the touts you’ll face at the airport, hawking their cousin’s accommodation (one of the customs officials was even doing it) — but the travel guides recommend taking refuge from them in the Fiji Visitors Bureau at the airport.<\/p>\n

\"Fiji
Fiji Palm Trees<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As luck would have it, the old FVB shut down and has allegedly moved somewhere between the airport and the town of Nadi, but I haven’t been able to find it yet. Maybe it never really existed. I ended up in a small hotel halfway between the airport and the city with questionable security (it looks like the door has been kicked down a few times), cleanliness (which is what my pre-trip travel immunisations were for), and no air conditioning. It has a ceiling fan instead of air conditioning, but it was cool enough to shut off the fan by 8 PM last night. They have nicer places, but they’re a lot more expensive than what I am willing to pay.<\/p>\n

I wandered into the town of Nadi (pronounced “Nandi”) this morning, and found that there really isn’t much to it. It’s basically one main street that runs for about 4 or 5 blocks. All traffic was stopped when a small-gauged sugar cane train roared through town towards the sugar mill. The town itself is full of little Indian merchant shops, much like Little India in Singapore — all hawking their wares to the visitors (which gets annoying). One of my first impressions of the town was a long line of school students, both boys and girls, all wearing skirts. Yes, the guys often wear a “sulu” here, which is essentially a men’s skirt.<\/p>\n

\"Men
Men wearing Sulus in Fiji<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Children
Children walking to School, Levuka, Ovalau Island, Fiji<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Within my first hour of strolling around town, I was continually pitched products and finally succumbed to my first Kava ceremony on the pretence of a shop owner just wanting to be friendly to the visitors. Kava is a drink made from the roots of a pepper plant and is said to have medicinal properties. It’s an ancient Fijian custom. I can’t say it tastes great (sort of like ground wood), but I survived okay. A few other tourists were dragged in while I was there. We were welcomed, but warned off buying anything from the big-business Indians. Oddly, the shop owner seemed Indian. Seems like those coup tensions from a few years ago still haven’t worn off. Sure enough, I was given a hard sales pitch afterwards for buying their hand-carved trinkets to help their poor indigenous Fijian village. I later met other tourists who had been lured to the same selling scheme. We concluded that they probably had no ties to the village, and only used it because it was mentioned in a Lonely Planet guide they knew we were all carrying. I decided to walk back to my hotel, only to have every taxi driver and bus toot at me to see if I wanted a ride.<\/p>\n

\"Kava
Kava Ceremony in Fiji<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have booked a catamaran ride to a small neighbouring island tomorrow, where the nicest part of Fiji is supposed to be. It’s in the string of islands where Tom Hanks’ “Cast Away” and Brooke Shields’ “Blue Lagoon” were filmed. Lots of white sandy beaches, great snorkelling, huts on the beach, and good hiking trails. I’m not expecting them to have Internet access, so it might be 3-4 days before I write again.<\/p>\n

\"View
View from the top of Wayalailai Island of Yasawas Island Group, Fiji<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After my West Island jaunt, I will probably take a bus to Suva (the capital city), a traditional village, and visit some other recommended islands to the north and east of the main island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I flew into this tropical paradise without any reservations, hoping to just wing it and get a discount for rocking up unannounced. The travel books warn of the touts you’ll face at the airport, hawking their cousin’s accommodation (one of the customs officials was even doing it) — but the travel guides recommend taking refuge… Continue reading Nadi… (that’s “India” scrambled)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiji","category-viti-levu","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sHuW-v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}