Getting to Fiji
Well, here I am sitting in the wonderful Holiday Inn in Suva, Fiji (it’s really not that wonderful, just OK). Let me tell you as briefly as I can about my rather harrowing journey to get here:
I’ll skip over the uninteresting first half of the trip, as the first flight from Bangkok to Sydney was uneventful and just long. Most of us have been on those kind of flights. Then I had to kill 7 hours in the Sydney airport, which surprisingly was pretty nasty. That part was boring too.
Then I get on the Sydney -> Nadi flight aboard Air Pacific. I can tell when I get on the plane that it’s kind of old, and not that nice, but OK. I don’t think twice about it and get ready for a rough ride for about 4 hours. Of course it ended up being the smoothest ride I have had in an airplane for a while! Take off, the flight itself, and the landing were like butter… It was a nice surprise.
We land in Nadi, and I get into the line for transfers, because I’m ‘transferring’ to another flight (right?). This interminably long line forms behind me and a couple other people, and this one poor girl is taking care of everybody and seems a bit overwhelmed. I wait patiently for about 15 minutes, and am beginning to get a little worried because I had a total of 1 hour after I got off the plane until my next flight departed. I’m starting to sweat a little. I get to the desk, and am told that I have to clear customs, get my bag and re-check in at the domestic terminal. It is now 7:30 pm, and my flight is supposed to depart at 8pm (yikes!). I hustle over to the customs/passport line, and my heart sinks; the line is even longer than the one i just got out of! Then I remember one of the great perks of the Foreign Service: diplomatic passport lines! I look to the left, and sure enough, there it is, with one guy in it. I run over there and the lady will only give me a visa for 2 weeks, but that’s another story…. Then I get to the baggage claim, which is predictably swamped.
Positioned at the mouth of the belt, I’ll get my bag faster, which is indeed what happens. Finally, something went right! Then I run to the exchange desk and get some Fijian money, which takes approximately 1 minute and 16 seconds (not really, but it was really fast!) I look at my watch, and it is 7:35 or so. Now I have to find the domestic terminal, which ends up being at the other end of the airport. Thankfully, it’s a small airport, and I run there pretty quickly and find the right check in desk. I get checked in, and wait in this dingy area with a bunch of other people.
They finally make the boarding call for my flight and I walk out onto the tarmac (this isn’t going to be a big plane with a jet engine) I notice a twin prop commuter size plane and start walking to it. Then a guy behind me tells me that “it’s not going to be that nice of a plane.” Ok, I think, and follow him to a plane that I’m thinking must be a cruel joke. I don’t know if my description will do it justice; it was stark white with two propellers, and looked like it had flown through several war zones in it’s very long life. My jaw dropped to the asphalt as I climbed up the steps and saw the rickety seats, 2 seat rows on the right side, and 1 seat rows on the other. There are no overhead bins to put my carry on in, so I pick a seat and hold it in my lap. Other people start to board, and then not 5 minutes after I got on, we’re lifting off the runway! The fastest take off ever. There is no flight attendant, no anyone to tell us to secure our seat belts, nothing. Oh, and I forgot to mention, it’s starting to rain pretty hard, right when i get on the plane. I don’t think I need to tell you that I was just a little nervous…
The flight is actually pretty smooth, thank god. Because it was so cloudy outside, I couldn’t see anything. It was pretty strange to be able to see the pilot in the cockpit actually flying the plane manually, in this day of autopilots and bullet-proof cockpit doors…
So we land at Nausori airport, in what is quickly becoming a downpour. We get off the plane really quickly and run the 50 feet to the baggage claim, which is just a single belt like we’ve all seen going around and around. I failed to see why they had it; it would have been easier to just put everyone’s bags in a few rows on the ground. I get my bag and walk to the taxi line, which is to be the final (and most frightening) leg of my journey.
Probably as a product of sheer exhaustion, I jump into the first taxi I see as I walk out the airport door. This ends up being a station wagon that looks as if it was with the plane I had just gotten off of in those war zones… I get in the back seat and immediately the window starts to leak on my leg, and the dashboard, which in most cars is illuminated at least partly at night, is pretty much dark. My driver is an amiable Fijian-Indian who looks like he weighs as much as my leg; he introduces himself and we take off into the pouring rain. I can pretty much tell that nothing in this car works properly. No dashboard lights, the headlights are really dim, and worst of all, the defrost/air conditioning sucks. This is bad because every single window in the car is completely fogged up. I cannot see anything. It feels like we’re driving down the road with blindfolds on. Did I mention that Fijian roads are not blessed with plentiful lights either? To top it off, my driver insists on going much faster than the crappy car and crappy conditions warrant. My knuckles are white holding on to the seat in front of me; I have to endure this for almost 40 minutes. We whip around tight turns as the driver holds onto the steering wheel with one hand while wiping off the windshield with the other. Finally he figures out that the easiest thing to do is follow other cars that you know, have functioning defrost/ air conditioning and can drive safely. For the rest of the drive, we both are constantly locking our eyes onto any 2 red rear brake lights that are going in the same general direction that we are.
To top off the scariest cab ride ever, we get to the hotel and he tries to double the price! I give him the correct fare and run away from the cab as fast as I can….
My introduction to Fiji has begun. I sure hope it gets better than the first 2 hours.
