Bus riding

MP3 track in the day: Hot in the city - Billy Idol

Weather: Hooooot!

Having a lazy morning I got to the bus station and boarded a bus to Tavua, which is about 1/3 of the way to Suva along the kings Road. Once I got on the bus an Indian lady chatted to me; she offered me a traditional Indian sweet (which tasted good … no idea what it was made out of, but good all the same) before explaining to me that her daughter was at university in Suva and could she have my email address as her daughter likes to make friends internationally (I bet she does). I reluctantly gave her my email address ( I can always delete unwanted emails) and then we chatted a little more. It's quite sad actually; she has three children (one married, one is a carpenter and the youngest is at university) all living in Suva. Her husband died last month and now she is alone in her village here near Lautoka; she has therefore decided to move to Suva to live with her children (maybe I might reply to any emails sent). The culturally interesting thing about our conversation was that when I said I had two brothers and a sister she immediately asked if they were married, not what did they do for a living (That actually never entered the conversation).

As we traveled along the north of the island, looking inland, I noticed that it was completely different to the southern part; scorched land covered the mountains instead of tropical greenery. The reason is due to the mountains that are located in the center of the island; basically any rain clouds that pass over are pushed up by these mountains and the rain falls before it hits the northern part. The odd thing is that this part of the island seems to be Fiji's economic heartland with trucks full of, what looked like, wooden poles all the way along the highway. With all these wooden poles, I was expecting to see trees from which these poles were cut from, however, with hardly any trees around, the only logical conclusion I could make is that the long grass crop, which lines the roads here covering the landscape, must actually be a small tree of some sort. These must be where the wooden poles are coming from but I'm still not completely certain. Then it kind of hit me; maybe these wooden poles are actually sugar canes, Lautoka is the suga refining capital of Fiji so that would make sense.

We went through Ba (no not him) and then after another 45 minutes we got to Tavua. I said goodbye to the Indian lady as I got off the bus; both Ba and Tavua have less to look at than Lautoka, so I just crossed the road and got on the next bus back to Lautoka. This time I concentrated looking towards the coast and even though it was a little greener, it was still not the same as the southern coast. As I continued on my journey I could see small tropical islands off the coast, making me think about the next leg of my Fijian experience, island hopping.

At around 12:00 I got back to Lautoka where I headed to my hotel for a spot of lunch. With not a lot to do, I went into 'Fiji Time' and chilled watching a little TV (BBC news … catch up on what's been happening in the rest of the world) before heading to the cinema once more. The film this time, 'Scott Pilgrim Vs The World'; from the makers of 'Sean of the Dead' (I think … well one of Simon Pegg's films anyway) it looked quite funny when I viewed the trailer at the cinema the other day, and it wasn't bad. The film is a comedy about a boy (Scott Pilgrim funnily enough) who wants to date this girl but in doing so, he has to defeat her seven deadly x-partners. If you get cheap tickets (Like me, £1.60 to see the film) then it's worth going to see it.

After this film I was determined to have something to eat; not feeling hungry at all today I had only eaten half a packed of biscuits and most of a tube of Pringles therefore, conscious of not eating enough, I went to a restaurant and ordered spaghetti … but couldn't eat it all (and I felt a little rough after eating … maybe I'll listen to my body next time).

My final act of the night was to remove another cockroach from my room. I don't know if Winston had returned (all cockroaches look a like to me) but I did improve on my all time record of 'removing a cockroach from a dorm using only a coat hanger and two pieces of laminated paper' from 45 minutes down to 8 … get in!

I'm looking forward to leaving Lautoka; it's been okay but there is very little to do and the food is awful here. However, more importantly, this ends my time traveling around the mainland. For my final week I shall hopefully be island hopping a little before returning to Mango Bay. I've thoroughly enjoyed this part of my trip as I've seen a lot of 'actual Fiji', where Fijian's live, work, shop etc. However it has at some points been quite a mission and the fact that only five out of my fourteen nights, I've spent in Fiji so far, has seen me share a dorm with someone else has meant it's been quite lonely too. I'm looking forward to island hopping but I am under no illusions that this part of my trip will show me the dream world of Fiji and not what the people of Fiji actually deal with day-to-day.

Toodle Pip!

Cinema Tastic

Tuesday 21st September 2010

MP3 track of the day: common people – Pulp

Weather: Hot, so what else is new?

Again another early night meant another early start and I was out in the center of Lautoka for around 8:30am. It didn't take long for me to see the town; this being Fiji's second largest town there really is nothing to do (and I'm here for two days!). After a spot of breakfast (a glass of Mango juice and a chocolate muffin) I headed into Lautoka market (which is a slight upgrade to Nadi's … at least the food is on tables instead of the floor) for a quick look around before going to the bus station to see where my bus departs, in two days time, for Nadi. I also noticed buses to Ba (pronounced Bar) and I thought tomorrow I might go for a bus ride to the north of the island. After this I went to a few supermarkets to have a look around; I didn't buy anything as I was slightly put off by seeing shelf stackers dusting the products.

It was 10am and I was at a total loss of what to do; I was just about to head back to my hotel (to check my guidebook for help) when I saw the local cinema … why not I thought. There wasn't really anything I wanted to see but there were two films I thought I could watch; one was 'Resident Evil: The Afterlife' and the other was 'Take'.

I went for 'Resident Evil' and I purchased my ticket ($4 … £1.30, bargain) and then some popcorn and a drink ($7 … £2.30, total cost £3.60, bargain). Once inside it was nice and air conditioned and there was only five people watching the film. The film however was rubbish, more American action rot with little plot, but it did kill two hours.

At 12:00 I left the cinema feeling full of popcorn (which was salty, not sweet … yuk) and looked at the time for the showing of 'Take', 15:30 … for £1.50 I might go and see that too. I walked back to my hotel and got my guidebook out to see if this town had anything else to do; “... the Laukota botanical gardens are superbly kept...” my guidebook stated. Umm that sounded good and so I toodled off there.

Now I'm not sure what my guidebooks writer was smoking when he said 'superbly kept' but the botanical gardens consisted of about six trees, a bush and three park benches. As you can imagine it didn't take me long to look around and so I was soon back at my hotel to get changed and then I headed out to the cinema.

'Take' was a much better film; it's about a robbery in LA which had a couple of twists and tuns and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once again as I left the cinema I had a look at the film times for tomorrow as I might go back again. Finally I found a restaurant and had tea (which wasn't that nice) before heading back to the hotel.

So after having nothing to do with my day, it actually went quite quickly; hopefully, with a bus ride to the north of the island and a another cinema showing, tomorrow will pass along nicely too.

Toodle Pip

Laundry, buses and cockroaches

Monday 20^th September 2010

MP3 track of the day: Stan - Eminem

Weather: getting hotter the nearer I got to Lautoka

I didn't sleep very well at all last night; images of me walking to the launderettes whilst Fijian's passed me wearing my clothes haunted my dreams. No surprise I got up earlier than I wanted to and so I thought I would get to the launderettes around 6:00am.

What a shocker, it was shut; I waited around for a little while before a local said that the launderette didn't open until 8am (damn and blast). I therefore decided to head back to the hotel, have a shower, pack my bag and then head back out for 7am … if they opened at 8am then surely someone would be around earlier. This was now a show down; British bulldog 'not taking no as an answer' versus Fijian time and I wasn't going to loose.

I arrived back at the laundrette's around 7am, went across to the local corner shop for supplies for the journey (they were open … in fact the fast food restaurant was open too) and then waited. Actually I didn't have to wait long as the owner came at about 7:20am. I picked up my washing (and checked it … all there and they had done a good job too … and for less than they said previously, only $8) hailed a cab and went back to my hostel to pick up my bags and check out before getting into another cab to take me to the bus station … the time … 8:05am, made it! British bulldog 1 – 0 Fijian time.

Actually the bus didn't leave until 8:30am where as my timetable said 8:15am … doesn't matter, I was on the bus and now I would head north and finish my loop around the island before arriving in Lautoka … but the driver had other plans. Instead of heading north the bus went along the southern coast line … the same road I had taken to get to Suva. I couldn't believe it; instead of seeing parts of the main island I hadn't seen before I ended up going past the Pacific Harbor (AGAIN!), Mango Bay (AGAIN!), Sigatoka (AGAIN!), Nadi (AGAIN!) before going past the airport and into Lautoka. This bus didn't even have a TV playing films and so I was forced to look at the view outside (AGAIN!).

Well when I say forced it wasn't really much of a hardship as the scenery around this part of the island is stunning. One thing I did notice is that as we went further west the greenery became less and less dense, until the mountains were scorched with dead grass and the soil turned to sand. I also noticed that the heat was building up the further west we went; I know the day at this stage was starting to get to it's hottest but still, the heat was quite a big difference from Suva or Mango Bay.

We arrived in Lautoka around 1:30pm (an hour earlier than the timetable stated … I'm going to chuck this timetable away) and, being the hottest part of the day, I hailed a cab and went to my hotel (The Cathay Hotel). The place is nice and cool and my room is fairly clean (a few holes in my sheets but apart from that). I explored the hotel a little before I found the common room and there I watched a little TV (BBC world news … catch up on whats happening in the rest of the world).

Finally the time had come to venture out into Lautoka. It's an okay city but I found it difficult to find any decent facility (internet café or restaurant). Once I had been on the internet and had something to eat (which wasn't very nice) I walked back to my hotel. I was pretty sure I was heading in the right direction but when I got to where I thought the hotel should be it wasn't. It was now pitch black and so I did the sensible thing and hailed a cab to take me back to my hotel. Turns out I wasn't very far off at all, I had basically gone one block north too many (and the taxi ride only cost $2 … 66 pence so no real loss there).

It was only 8pm but after the day I'd had, and the lack of sleep the previous night, I decided to go to bed. Again I was pretty restless and so I got back up at around 9pm and turned on the light … only to find something scurry under the bunk bed to my right. I'm pretty certain it was a cockroach (I named him Winston) and there was no way I was going to share a room with one of those. During the next 45 minutes furniture was moved, towels were thrown and bits of paper was wafted until I managed to get Winston out of my room and heading for freedom (didn't want to kill Winston as that would attract even more bugs). During this 45 minutes I had seen most nooks and crannies within my room and I was happy that Winston was travelling alone. I therefore, finally, settled down to sleep.

Toodle Pip!