2nd Day in Suva
John organized the "self-guided" City tour for us today from the Fiji Lonely Planet guide. I was limping most of the day. The dancing from previous night had re-awoken a knee injury, I think I still have a torn miniscus in my knee cap that gets irritated when I pound it too hard. We started at the marketplace, which was a bit overwhelming. How can there be so great a variety of food in the market and so slim a choice when you go out to eat? Still don't understand that... I felt a bit frustrated seeing all the food but not really knowing how to cook or use any of it. Later in the day I made a bold move and bought a bunch of bananas (13) for $0.60. I think I ate all but three or four before they went bad. They were quite good, though the skins look pretty sketchy on the outside.
There was a huge cruise ship, the Pacific Sun, in the harbor. Most of the vendors and taxi drivers thought we were part of that group. I guess I should have taken that as quite an insult. Me, a world traveller, being mistaken for a plush cruise ship aristocrat? LOL (Laugh Out Loud)
At one point it worked to our advantage. A pushy taxi driver asked if we were on the 5 or the 6 o'clock boat. I told him the five so that he didn't try to sell me any of his personal taxi tour ideas.
We had lunch at a local food court. John's meat-bearing rice plate was from the buffet table. Because mine was vegetarian, they had to make it fresh. It was much better! I gave him a lot of my rice. They had given me a huge amount.
We made it to the Fiji Museum. It was quite interesting and not too big. Part of it was had A/C, thankfully. A lot of the Fijian history isn't all that pretty. They were originally cannibals, who made things out of the leftover human bones. They had a fork specifically for eating human flesh. They built huge ships, called Drua, some up to 300 feet long and rolled them into the ocean using the bodies of human slaves as rollers. I think they're a lot friendlier than that these days.But when eating with Fijians it's always wise to be aware of what type of fork they set at their own table setting.
They also had a piece of the shipwreck of the ship the Bounty of "Mutiny on the Bounty" fame.
They had a botanical garden as well that had fallen into pitiful state of neglect. The trees themselves were astounding. Huge with multiple species growing amoung the branches. But everything was overgrown and labels were tattered or completely missing. We were entertained by a mongoose who inhabited a tree in the garden.
It was hot after touring the garden and the predatory Indian taxi drivers were everywhere. They would slowly trail us as we walked and point out how very hot it was and didn't we really want a lift in their taxi? We opted to walk to the main road to get a taxi. A taxi U-turned to pick us up. We negotiated some, but still ended up paying more than double what we should have. I didn't realize how very close we were to where we were going. The taxi who picked us up didn't have a meter. We paid $4 for a ride that by the meter should have been $1.50. Not a big loss, but a learning experience for the future. Note the split in culture between the Indian Fijians and the native Fijians. The natives set a price, usually reasonable, and most often stick with it and refuse to negotiate. The Indians generally propose an outrageous price and then may bargain with you to something more reasonable.
That evening we ended up watching a quirky, Indian love story Bollywood movie. It was quite entertaining and actually caught us several times with clever plot twists that we didn't predict. It was on one of the four channels available in Fiji. One appears to have a lot of Indian programming, two are sport channels, and the last plays a wide variety of international programs and has the local Fijian news.
John organized the "self-guided" City tour for us today from the Fiji Lonely Planet guide. I was limping most of the day. The dancing from previous night had re-awoken a knee injury, I think I still have a torn miniscus in my knee cap that gets irritated when I pound it too hard. We started at the marketplace, which was a bit overwhelming. How can there be so great a variety of food in the market and so slim a choice when you go out to eat? Still don't understand that... I felt a bit frustrated seeing all the food but not really knowing how to cook or use any of it. Later in the day I made a bold move and bought a bunch of bananas (13) for $0.60. I think I ate all but three or four before they went bad. They were quite good, though the skins look pretty sketchy on the outside.
There was a huge cruise ship, the Pacific Sun, in the harbor. Most of the vendors and taxi drivers thought we were part of that group. I guess I should have taken that as quite an insult. Me, a world traveller, being mistaken for a plush cruise ship aristocrat? LOL (Laugh Out Loud)
At one point it worked to our advantage. A pushy taxi driver asked if we were on the 5 or the 6 o'clock boat. I told him the five so that he didn't try to sell me any of his personal taxi tour ideas.
We had lunch at a local food court. John's meat-bearing rice plate was from the buffet table. Because mine was vegetarian, they had to make it fresh. It was much better! I gave him a lot of my rice. They had given me a huge amount.
We made it to the Fiji Museum. It was quite interesting and not too big. Part of it was had A/C, thankfully. A lot of the Fijian history isn't all that pretty. They were originally cannibals, who made things out of the leftover human bones. They had a fork specifically for eating human flesh. They built huge ships, called Drua, some up to 300 feet long and rolled them into the ocean using the bodies of human slaves as rollers. I think they're a lot friendlier than that these days.But when eating with Fijians it's always wise to be aware of what type of fork they set at their own table setting.
They also had a piece of the shipwreck of the ship the Bounty of "Mutiny on the Bounty" fame.
They had a botanical garden as well that had fallen into pitiful state of neglect. The trees themselves were astounding. Huge with multiple species growing amoung the branches. But everything was overgrown and labels were tattered or completely missing. We were entertained by a mongoose who inhabited a tree in the garden.
It was hot after touring the garden and the predatory Indian taxi drivers were everywhere. They would slowly trail us as we walked and point out how very hot it was and didn't we really want a lift in their taxi? We opted to walk to the main road to get a taxi. A taxi U-turned to pick us up. We negotiated some, but still ended up paying more than double what we should have. I didn't realize how very close we were to where we were going. The taxi who picked us up didn't have a meter. We paid $4 for a ride that by the meter should have been $1.50. Not a big loss, but a learning experience for the future. Note the split in culture between the Indian Fijians and the native Fijians. The natives set a price, usually reasonable, and most often stick with it and refuse to negotiate. The Indians generally propose an outrageous price and then may bargain with you to something more reasonable.
That evening we ended up watching a quirky, Indian love story Bollywood movie. It was quite entertaining and actually caught us several times with clever plot twists that we didn't predict. It was on one of the four channels available in Fiji. One appears to have a lot of Indian programming, two are sport channels, and the last plays a wide variety of international programs and has the local Fijian news.
posted by Chris at 11:00 PM
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