A weekend in Fiji: Part 3-strikes?
8:30amTour Lady: Bula! It seems that your Driver is not on Fiji time; you come so very early! Hahaha.
Us: Ha. Cough.
Tour Lady: We just need to wait for the others to arrive. You can enjoy retail therapy in the gift shop in the meantime.
The gift shop offers bottle openers (but I am too fatigued/famished/decaffeinated at the time to jump at the chance), politically incorrect brown baby-dolls (think the island equivalent of America’s ‘pick-a-ninny’ play-things from the early 1900s) and other tack. I stare out the window.
We meet the owner of the operation, a guy from ‘the Shire’ with creative facial hair and bleached tips. I swear I’ve seen him before … and then I realise, it was on that website: HotGirlsWithDouchebags.com. It appears we are in for a river cruise, followed by a ‘traditional cultural experience in a real local village’.
Things are not off to a good start. You see, in addition to being cranky, I loathe ‘traditional cultural experiences’, as marketed by small group tour operators. I spent years of my life shepherding package tourists through the exact same shit in another part of the developing world, and it truly makes me want to vomit. I find it pandering, inauthentic and embarrassing. But I’m here, I’m queer, and they might serve lunch (or even beer). So I fall in line.
We follow our tour leader (gag) onto a mini-bus (retch) and our fellow passengers … all bogans … quip about the footy (heave).
Driving ten miles through the interior of the island, my icy heart warms a few degrees – it actually is, well, rather stunning off the beaten track. And the people who are waving at us seem to be … actually hospitable! And genuine! They aren’t decoys after all. The scenery is spectacular and the weather’s perfect, and for a minute I forget that I am meant to hate this; that this is the antithesis of travel.
Arriving at a dock, we don lifejackets and board a jet-boat (if you’ve been to New Zealand and done the Dart or Shotover boats, they’re the same – even made by the same bloke). Helmets would’ve been more practical (the river is about three inches deep), but nevermind. And so we begin our cultural experience.
And, okay, it was awesome. All of it.
I catch myself grinning like a dope, and occasionally letting out a squeal on a couple of the unexpected 360s our captain pulled on the water.
After about half an hour we arrive at a village (assured that the tour company rotates visits daily between 12 different villages to ensure a more authentic experience and to spread the tourist-dollar love between more locals), meet the chief, and check the place out. There is a welcome ceremony, songs are sung and kava, or Fijian moonshine, flows freely (score). Our hosts bring out a spread of food (THANK YOU, JEEBUZ!) for the dozen or so of us: taro, cassava, slices of cucumber, cooked frozen spinach topped with tinned tuna and instant noodles swimming in oil and curry paste. Yum? The bogans, who had all enjoyed lavish buffets at their resorts this morning, turned up their noses and wandered the grounds; Magazine Woman and I tare in to the smorgasbord like, well, like we hadn’t eaten for a day and a half, and devour nearly everything. And, as such, the dudes singing songs and swilling kava decide I have street cred, and they ask me to join their circle. I sit on the floor with these blokes, clap sing, laugh, share snippets of language lessons, and drink kava for about an hour. I forget that I’m on a tour and actually feel like I’m seeing the real Fiji. Perhaps I’m totally mistaken, but JoshOnThe(Tour)Bus is no novice when it comes to this shit.
These people rule. And they actually enjoy the company of the farang. Their smiles and waves so sincere, their hospitality unrivalled. I’m totally into it.
But hey, they had me at ‘lunch included’.
2 years ago
