SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS – A
travel without Dipli
March 2008
Deported
from
Tonga
It was
the long way round from
South Africa to Dipli waiting
in Arizona, USA.
We had
been in South Africa for our
grandchild’s first birthday and
could welcome a second grandson
(thus both our daughters had started
families). We also enjoyed some real
“Africa” in the
Kalahari Desert with friends.
A weepy farewell followed our 7
months in South Africa.
Many
hours of flying via
Perth and
Auckland took us to the
Islands of the
South Pacific.
FIJI
“Bula!”
was the “welcome” greeting at the
airport of Fiji. In the middle of
the mundane luggage carousel were
containers of growing pink orchids.
(We soon found out why the blooms
were flourishing as we were wilting
in the hot and humid hall).
Jan
negotiated a good deal on the rental
of a station wagon. The first dirt
track after the airport led into the
jungle. Unused to low ground
clearance, we scraped the underside
of the Toyota. We stopped for a
photo in the tropical forest and it
would not come out of park. We were
hoping that cannibalism had really
ended in 1800…
A
delightful cottage surrounded by
hibiscus and frangipani right on the
shore of the
Coral Coast was ideal for
shedding our jetlag. The restaurant
nearby, decorated with hangings of
beaten bark cloth, served tasty
“talu” fish meals. In the Suva
museum we learned more about
this “tapa” cloth which is used for
exquisite traditional wedding garb
and had been a precious item for
bartering. We saw the double-hulled
canoes which had brought people to
these islands from far away
millennia ago. We reckoned that is
why the Fijians,
Samoans, and
Tongans are such huge
people. Only the fittest/fattest
survived.
After
the 2006 and umpteenth military
coup, Indo-Fijians had fled in
droves; tourists were fewer and the
handicraft market was deserted. One
evening at a beach resort near
Nadi, we watched
fire-dancing on the sand. The
drum beat was intense. The men with
big hairstyles drew designs with the
flames in the darkness. The girls in
grass skirts and coconut
shell tops did hip swaying dances.
TONGA
The sumo–wrestler-types awaited us
at the airport only to say: “we have
to refuse you entry to Tonga because
you do not have a visa.” No
persuasion, argument or appeal to
logic could find a solution. (Our
travel agent in SA had assured us
that we do not need visas for any of
our island stopovers!)
At the
aircraft the air hostess exclaimed
“But you just came off this plane!”
She brought us more of the same
sandwiches but also a bottle of
champagne. Back at the sweltering
Fiji airport we tried to find
an open internet to try to get a
visa for Tonga online... Battled.
Failed. Decided: “to hell with
Tonga” and found a 1 am flight
direct to
Samoa.
We
crossed the
International Date Line and
arrived the day before we left…?
SAMOA
When we
arrived on Upolu Island, the
sun was just rising. We saw rugby
fields and counted numerous
Christian churches between the
airport and the capital,
Apia.
Our
hotel’s terraces had a cooling
sea breeze. We loved the
charming soft-spoken Polynesians.
The waiters wore black wrap-around
skirts with an overhanging shirt.
Local fish and fruit were good and
the Vaillima beer excellent. The
table decorations were tropical
flowers arranged in large
sea shells.
Scottish author Robert Louis
Stevenson, (“Treasure
Island”, “Jeckel and Hyde”)
wrote 13 of his 40 books in Samoa.
His park-like estate is now a
museum. His grave, from 1884 is on
an adjacent hill.
After
researching our Lonely Planet
guidebook, we located Litia Sini
beyond the forested rocky interior
of the island. It was the perfect
white beach fringed with palm trees.
Accommodation was in our own “fale”,
a wooden structure thatched with
woven palms. The balcony was almost
above the lapping waves. Yummy meals
were enjoyed on a deck next to the
ocean. Snorkelling in the warm azure
waters was brilliant from the
shoreline at any tide; with a
variety of corals and colourful
fishes visible. Late in the sultry
afternoons a man would come,
carrying fresh coconuts in a green,
freshly woven palm-leave basket;
calling: “Coconut juice!”
At our
resort the “fafia”-dance show was
more demure. The girls were in
elegant long dresses and the
tattooed men had matching loin
cloths. They wore whale teeth
necklaces while the women were
adorned with garlands and tiaras of
flowers.
Every
Samoan village contains a group of
extended families. The palm-roofed
dwellings are oval-shaped with
wooden posts and open walls, to
combat the heat. Many houses have
ancestors’ graves in the front
garden where the verdant green grass
and red, yellow and orange tropical
shrubs were always neatly trimmed.
COOK
ISLANDS.
We were
on Rarotonga the largest of
the 15 islands, so far apart. The
islands are extinct subsided
volcanoes with coral forming around
the submerged perimeters. Migration
from SE Asia ensued from 4000BC. The
country has been independent since
1965. However,
New Zealand currency is still
used.
From the
capital, Avarua, there is a
coastal road around
the island. We used the
regular bus service, which runs
clock- and anti-clockwise around the
rugged mountains in the middle. On
the bus and even in the supermarket,
women would be out with a flower
behind the ear or a circlet of fresh
flowers on a hat.
The wide
fringing coral reef was far out. We
snorkelled from a
glass-bottom boat. Most
budget accommodation was
self-catering but we enjoyed our
main meal out.
Raw fish marinated in
coconut milk and juice of
lime, was a tasty speciality. The
local
staple food is cassava, sweet
potato and “taro” (calocasia
esculenta) another stodgy root.
The
souvenir shops were filled
with patterned shirts and “pareu”
(sarongs) in vibrant colours. Other
stores specialised in
black pearls. These exquisite
gems are often baroque and
pear-shaped with a dark
rainbow-lustre. Leone could not
resist… They are found in the black
lipped oyster which is cultivated in
deep seas around the Cooks’ Manihiki
Atoll.
The
dance show here had all the
movements, from the slow and
seductive, to the fast and frenzied.
The accompanying music consisted of
a banjo and many different wooden
drums which were carved logs with
hollowed out slits.
Thanks
to first-rate
Air New Zealand, the
long
haul to the USA was quite agreeable.
