Fiji

It struck us that we never did describe our trip last September to Fiji! Now there’s a name for a travel destination that is bursting with promise, mystery and romance, much as can be said for Zanzibar or Timbuktu.

Early last July Stu started his new job with Oppenheimer. As you know, Barbara plans our vacations well in advance (often more than a year ahead of time). So, Stu made it a condition of employment for him to be able to spend three weeks diving in Fiji just two and a half months after his first day at the new job. On 11 September, a Thursday evening, we tried to fly out of Newark Airport to connect to Aukland later that night but were put on a weather hold since a line of thunderstorms were just west of us, stretching from well north or Boston to well south of Washington DC. The weather got us to LA too late to catch the connection, so the airline put us up in LA until the next night’s flight. That meant that we would not be able to spend a day and a half revisiting the New Zealand capital before flying on to Fiji. But we did take the opportunity to visit a couple of sites in LA that we hadn’t seen in any of our previous trips, and then caught our flight. In Aukland we used the airline lounge to rest, wait, snack and shower, and then flew on to Nandi airport on Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian islands.

The tour company got us settled into our rental car, and we went exploring. Incidentally, Fijians and ex-pats alike were impressed that we took the time to really see Fiji by driving the Kings Road which nearly circumnavigates what they call the “mainland,” and for our taking the time to go to a nearby island with its former capital of Levuka.

We spent the first night in a lovely, evolving little resort in Rakiraki owned and operated by a family of Kiwi ex-pats. The owners have done a fine job of designing, building and landscaping the place, and typical of Fiji, it is very friendly and accommodating. Their food is good, and they continue to improve the entire facility. We hope that they are successful but wonder if the location (halfway around the Island) will attract enough business.

The road is paved completely from Nandi to a bit past Rakiraki. After that it degrades, but travel is lovely, passing through villages, fields and wilds. When we were there, the final few km into Suva (the present capital and largest city) was under major repair and was slow and difficult going. Should you find yourself traveling to Suva do not to try to come into or leave town anywhere near rush hour unless you have plenty of time. Going to our next airport, Nasauri, we planned adequately, even allowing enough time for our unexpected replacement of a punctured tire. Incidentally, one day in Suva is plenty to see the limited number of sites, among which one must go to the museum to learn of Fijian history and see all manner of artifacts, including huge ocean-going canoes.

We spent one day on Ovalo, the next island over, and location of the former capital, Levuka. In Levuka we stumbled upon a local tour office run by Mike and Jennifer Brook. They are delightful, and even served us tea and cookies, and suggested where we should have lunch. (Hint: Jennifer’s recipe for meringue cookies includes chocolate chips.) Jennifer took us on one of our tours. She is very interesting and has been leading a successful crusade to restore Levuka and many of its historical buildings. Near their office, the Whale’s Tale served very good lunch of a well prepared and imaginatively conceived sandwich. One day is a very generous amount of time for Levuka, but we’d caution travelers to book the next-to-last flight out since the runway is not lighted, and one could be stranded. Our plane was delayed by weather (El Nino was playing havoc with the temperature and precipitation early in the trip), and landed JUST in time for a twilight touchdown, load and take-off.

We were picked up at 7:30 the next morning to catch a boat to our first dive location, Marlin Bay. We really could have gotten up later since our driver was exquisitely adept at setting new records for rapid transit. But waiting on a dock for the boat was okay, especially since some of the flora and fauna were irresistible (including a HUGE spider), and we met an adorable couple from Florida who were still wearing what they put on after leaving their wedding party the night before. He is a pilot for UPS, and she a flight attendant for Delta. To picture them, just think of what Ken and Barbie would look like if they could be turned into humans. And they were very sweet. Remarkably, Stu knew his father from when they were both working for PaineWebber. Since then we learned of their getting a terrific souvenir of Fiji, with the birth of their daughter who was conceived in the bure next to ours.

Marlin Bay is lovely (walking the grounds and entering our bure we both thought, “And THIS is the LEAST nice place we’ll be staying?”), staff is terrific (that’s almost universal in our limited Fijian experience), and the Austrian chef is very talented, only being outdone by the Wakaya kitchen, at our next island. Diving here is very good, and one often sees blue ribbon eels and colorful nudibranchs. On every dive at all three islands, we saw species we’d never before seen. However, no place in our Fijian diving did we see really big fish. We suspect that commercial fishing may be the reason (Levuka almost died when copra processing moved to Viti Levu, but they’ve opened a fish processing plant - why would they do that if there weren’t significant commercial fishing?). The fire walking ceremony is performed there once a week and is definitely worth catching. However, the most remarkable thing for us about Marlin Bay was that we met more people there that we enjoyed than anywhere else in our many years of traveling. The Marlin Bay staff is also remarkably thorough. They immediately know you by first name, and tailor everything to your needs (we’d walk in for a lunch or dinner and have our much earlier ordered lunch or dinner brought to us, right every time). Leaving Marlin Bay was a surprisingly emotional experience. They even had us taken back to Viti Levu very early (at our request), and contacted driver about it without our knowing. Therefore, the driver was waiting when we docked. Incidentally, we had a subtle impression that mentioning our going to the legendarily posh Wakaya while at Marlin Bay and at Laucala (the island after Wakaya) had a slightly intimidating effect on the management of those other resorts. It’s something we avoided mentioning to anyone, but at times it was necessary (“Please take us early to Viti Levu so that we can connect to our next flight.” “What is your next flight?”). Marlin Bay was also the largest dive location at which we stayed. They had about a dozen bures (less than 30 guests). However, they are expanding.

The private plane for Wakaya is a well-maintained BN Islander, and Brett, the Aussie pilot is first rate and drop-dead gorgeous, as was the flight over. Since we arrived at the airport early, Brett took us to Wakaya earlier than scheduled. Greetings at the air strip were warm and professional (assistant manager Robin is super, having come to Wakaya eight months earlier from the huge, fancy Sheraton, where he had been training director), and immediately impressive. Then it got much better from there. We knew right away why our travel agent suggested that we try to do Wakaya last since everything else would pale by comparison, but there were advantages to the other resorts as well. The dive master (Robin’s cousin), Robin and the serving staff were all remarkably super. The only hint of less-than-super was a very slight impression (and perhaps incorrect perception on our part) that the manager just goes through the motions and may not particularly like people. But since Robin is really the visible portion of management, it was no problem.

Wakaya has fine diving and is one of the only places one can see a black ribbon eel (if we even mentioned something we’d like to see, dive master George would almost always find it). Since George is a PADI instructor we felt safe before going diving and had ample opportunity to confirm that feeling. Wakaya, though, is not really a dive resort, which is for the most part ideal. Consequently, few of the guests dive, and we always had George and the dive operation to ourselves (another, less experienced couple dove at another time each day). The only downside to this is that if there are other divers of a significantly different level of experience (and therefore not diving with you), Wakaya’s having but one dive master limits the number of dives that one can do. But that is relatively minor considering the positive aspects of the operation.

With the exception of their meke (traditional Fijian barbeque, which was very good), their food is superb. And they stock extremely good New Zealand and Australian wines, and the bottles of Tattinger Brut Reserve are endlessly available. One bottle was waiting in our IMMENSE bure, in an ice bucket, and the wet bar was stocked and mysteriously restocked with premium everything, including fancy nuts and chocolates. There were only eight or nine bures on the island, each bigger than some homes we’ve visited in the US, and bigger than the first house Stu bought in the 1970s.

The choir at the church is as good as you’ll hear anywhere, which is all the more remarkable when one considers that there is no choir director, and all of the harmonic parts are in perfect balance. The choir members are staff members at Wakaya, and they sang the traditional Fijian farewell for us when we were leaving (and Robin made a statement during a hummed chorus). It was indescribably beautiful, and very emotional for us (as it is now just writing about it).

The downside? They could use at least one more private beach (they will take you to a private beach, and abandon you there with your food, drinks, and radio to summon them). They presently have two, but they could be booked solid. The immense spider that was in our bathtub disappeared. We believe that it was removed during the evening turndown. For most people this would have been positive, but we’re weird, and had even named the arachnid Peter Potter, after the secret identity of Spiderman. We expected the guests to be stuffy, which they were not (we enjoyed but we did not connect with them the way that we did with the guests Marlin Bay).

As Barbara wrote in Wakaya’s guest book, “If God is in the details, then this place must be holy.”

We were lucky (on somebody else’s misfortune) flying from Nandi to Laucala. We only had a half hour wait rather than two- and one-half hours. A guest at Laucala broke his ankle and needed to be airlifted to Suva. We rode the plane to be used in the “airlift” out to Laucala, an island owned by Forbes Magazine, and established as a resort by Malcomb Forbes.

Even though the bure was primitive compared to Wakaya, it was very nice. However, it missed in many details (Here’s a typical example: the bathroom mirror was offset, away from the sink rather than placed over it, making mirror/sink related actions – such as shaving – a bit messy and annoying). The food ranged from very good to just palatable. The wines were at best only fair, but the manager claimed they were good, and that no other good wine was available in quantity in Fiji. We suspect that the food and wine are indicative of the organization’s not being profitable, and possibly of local management liking the chef personally. But the meke was better than at Wakaya, seemingly more authentic, and being truly better.

There was one negative to this resort. Before going we determined from the operation that they had adjustable fins and dive booties as well as the rest of the equipment that we would need but would prefer not to carry with us. The only fins they had were full foot fins to be worn without dive booties. This is not only colder than using booties, but it makes for a less precise fit since the fins are not adjustable. Poorly fitting fins leads to foot leg cramps and foot blisters. Barbara could not find full foot fins in their inventory that were small enough for her, and Rick West, the co-manager, tried to convince Barbara to use much less powerful snorkeling fins, which are unsafe to use diving in currents. When we persisted in trying to find other fins he made us feel as though we were in the wrong. He stated that no dive equipment rental operation had booties and adjustable fins (Marlin Bay and Wakaya did, as did several other places we’ve been to previously), and that we were putting out the owner of the personal adjustable fins that he begrudgingly loaned to Barbara. This made us feel guilty and spoiled our checkout dive. Later we learned that he had loaned us his wife’s fins, but we were not “putting her out.” We learned that she never has time to dive and based on the fact that she was always very warmly dressed in several layers, it’s unlikely she would have dove in the unseasonably cool waters. Even beyond the “fins” incident we felt that Rick’s behavior was often inappropriate and egocentric.

Other than that, Lauccala was wonderful. It has enough private places (beaches and Malcolm’s house) that nearly everyone staying there could simultaneously have a place to themselves. The staff was even more accommodating than at Wakaya, if that’s conceivable. The dive staff is first rate. The woman assigned to our bure (cook breakfast, arrange flowers, clean, turndown, bring and setup our lunches if we took them in our bure or at a private beach) was super. The space between bures was so great that privacy was assured even on the main property.

For our last night in Fiji, we were booked into the Sheraton near Nandi airport. This gave us an opportunity to see what Conde Nast readers rated as the 1996 best resort in the South Pacific. It was fine for us for the purpose, but it confirmed our impression that we have little in common with Conde Nast readers. We can’t imagine going all the way to Fiji to spend most or all of our time in a very well-appointed likeness of a U.S. tropical resort. But Fiji was a wonderful mixture of rest, relaxation, pampering, great diving, local culture and neat people.

We flew the next morning to Auckland, and settled into a lovely B&B, the Ascott Parnel, owned and operated by a lovely and accommodating Belgian ex-pat couple. The neighborhood of Parnel is fun, funky and “happening” part of town with interesting restaurants, shops, and a HUGE all wooden gothic church which had been moved across the road to its present site just a couple of years earlier. Should you go to Auckland, The Brass Goat is a good place to eat. Its food, décor and service were first rate. We were astounded once more by the Maori collection at the War Memorial Museum. Early the next morning we went to Devonport and enjoyed a few of hours there. We returned to the main part of the city, had fabulous sea food at the Harborside restaurant upstairs in the ferry terminal building, and toured some more. We figure that we walked about 15 miles during those two days.

The day and a half in Auckland allowed us to revisit this charming city, to rehabituate ourselves with cities and shoes, and to connect with our frequent flyer tickets home. On the way home we had a six-hour layover in Los Angeles, so we were able to see Stu's daughter and her new apartment - she had moved out to L.A only three weeks earlier. All-in-all, a great holiday.