There is a land, beyond the sea, and you're all so goddamn lucky, as I almost just wrote a poem. You might consider this versive salvation, pardon the pun.
This is a tale of paradise islands, undersea exploration and warm, clear seas full beyond imagining with incredible creatures and fantastic natural visions and even a teeny tiny bit of adventure, too, although it will please you to hear that I still managed to have a terrible time on one of them. It's these assurances that I have an understudy called misery that keep you lot warm at night, I know.
So after a brief and easy two days in Nadi (which is pronounced Nandi in Fijian, the letters d and g are always sounded with an invisible n- beforehand, the latter much like the initially off-putting Vietnamese tendency to start nouns with Ng-, as with Nguyen, the immensely popular surname equivalent to our Smith) I boarded a small 18-seater plane and we took off for Taveuni, the third largest island in the Fiji group although a midget next to the first two.
We actually weren't to be on Taveuni at all but another island that can only be reached by boat, which I took to be a good sign. It was, as the beach and locale for our first stay was close to being perfectly idyllic. I later learned, however, that we had spent those 6 days on the second, large island after all, just on an almost inaccessible little bay on its Southeast coast that was only practically acheived via Taveuni.
So from the little airstrip where our plane (of the type Twin Otter, a fellow passenger volunteered when I interrogated him. He looked as if he'd done this sort of thing quite a lot) set down in glorious tropical sunshine, a car met us and took us to the boat and, after a little break for Fiji Time to fully be satisfied, we crossed the channel and arrived, wherever the hell it happened to be in the end.
The Fiji Time thing is taken very seriously here, which rather defeats the whole point but there you go. It's doesn't even seem that things are simply relaxed, more that there HAVE to be small delays in everything, as if it was some kind of code all true Fijians live by or that they all insist on doing it to humour tourists. I know there was absolutely no reason to delay getting on board that little boat and crossing the water, for example, but still we were sitting around for half an hour after loading our bags and being fully ready to calls of `Fiji Time!` and big broad smiles from all around. So it goes. It was pretty early in the day still anyway, so it hardly mattered.
Anyway we arrived, were greeted on the beach not just by the owners but by what seemed to be every other guest - all three of them - as they rushed to take our bags and shake our hands n that most excellent of Fijian traditions: supreme hospitality. It runs out that two of those who met us were training for further rather advanced dive qualifications, those of Divemaster which is about as impressive as it sounds, and had been there for about 10 weeks or so. They were a Swiss couple and were friendliness itself, as were, in fact all those present including the crowding masses that arrived a day or two later (at one point later we had as many as 10 people eating at the table, including the owners. Being so cramped up together in that airy paradise was a tough ordeal, I can tell you).
And apparently we had come here to Scuba dive, or so it didn;t seem for the first day or so because I only just about managed to snorkel that first afternoon and could not for the life of me get my head underwater or dive. Water is a scary old thing, after all, as anyone who has nearly drowned will tell you. It might be said in my defence that I had not been swimming for 6 months and had not been snorkelling for a little over 10 years, and it was terrifying then as that was the first and only time I had ever done so, so my experience of masks and breathing with one's head underwater and, in fact, the sea in general is very limited. I'm just not a water person, you see.
Thankfully the next morning I went out for a Discovery Dive with Roland, the co-owner and head instructor honcho and being very calm, very helpful and absolutely professional I was happy to do it all and, three days later I completed a Scuba diving course and you are now looking at (but of course you're not, just play along) a PADI-certified Open Water Diver, having completed it under a certain amount of pressure because we had to go after 4 days and I had to finish the course there or not at all, and then we had to go earlier (although we didn't really, calculation error and for once it wasn;t me 
) as it was thought we were the victims of an early flight on the Wednesday, so getting over my fear of drowning, fear of deep water and fear of being eaten by things with pointy fins and pointy teeth, I did it in a little under 3 and a half days altogether (fairly quick in anyone's book, I believe) and, to my great surprise, didn't get a single thing wrong on the written test or during the practical.
Yes, I'm wearing my smug pants again. I deserve them 
The underwater world - woah, what a sight! What a place! Fiji is famous for its soft corals, those that sway in the current and generally don't threaten concusion or laceration should the unlucky diver come into them at speed - althoguh this of course is a cardinal sin as the reef should never be touched. We'll never trodden on anyway, lightly touching many corals is fine although, and this kind of goes witout saying really, you really ought to know exactly what it is you are touching. There is a very good little saying in the diving world that covers many underwater thrills and dangers and beauties: If it's either very pretty or very ugly, or doesn't run away from you, don't touch it under any circumstances.
Good advice for all of us, perhaps 
Among the things I saw in 4 open water dives and three or four `enclosed` dives - actually just taken in the sea straight off the beach rather than out in the channel from a boat - were thousands of fish of all kinds that I couldn't possibly begin to recount, except perhaps the elephant-nosed fish that I tried in vain to get pictures of in Melbourne Aquarium, and have now seen for real; a large purple sea star (starfish); a huge rock lobster with waving antenna maybe two feet or more in length; vast anemones covering maybe half a square metre; purple frilly corals; corals that change colour when you touch them (making sure to get the right ones); a real genuine stingray; a good-sized tuna of maybe 50lbs; a huge wrasse or maybe 200lbs, mercifully a good distance away as like the groupers they are stupid and occasionally take dimly casual chunks out of divers; several moray eels in their caves, an amazing sight for me although apparently incredibly common here; and of course gigantic panoramic reefs swarming with thousands of fish and with an unbelievable display of colour and life and beauty.
Most incredibly I managed to do it all and love every minute of it, even though getting into the water from the boat (seated back roll entries, just like in the movies one sits on the edge of the boat and falls backwards into the water with all the gear on) were at first pretty scary - I just don't like falling over backwards without looking, and some of that fear of open water came back pretty strong for a minute - they were actually a tiny thrill in themselves in the end.
And of course no mention of this place - called Dolphin Bay Diver's Retreat in case you fancy looking it up - would be complete without a line about the dogs, one of which was large and evil and we were all warned against stroking him before we had even got off the boat - he is the guard dog, and will cheerfully streak up the beach growling like a meat grinder (which, essentially, he is) at any new arrival to the island if they are not also greeted by the existing residents. He has yellow eyes of ure malevolence, althoguh I did feel sorry for him near the end because the poor guy never gets any affection or attention from all the people. All that is saved for Boxer, a smaller and immeasurably cuter little mongrel, although of good average size he is somewhat dwarfed by boxer, and so he makes up for it by being friends with everyone.
He has the world monopoly on puppy-dog-eyes I reckon, there's just nothing you can do when he sidles up to you in a chair and casts his eyes upwards and soulfully transfixes you, thereby instantly granting him a full ten minutes of ear-scratches and belly rubs, the cunning devil.
Still, he was a lovely old thing and the ideal kind of dogfellow to have on an ultra-relaxed secluded private tourist beach.
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Rather less than fluffy is that I had, as mentioned, to go a seperate way from Lisa as we just got on each other's nerves after all my hopes for an easy stress-free trip. I have learned an important lesson about traveling with other people though - make sure a) that your travel partner is equable and open-minded and b) agree that if one of you leads, they lead. If they wanna swap, no worries. Traveling before with Greg for what must have been about 8 or 9 weeks altogether, one of us would be in charge of the plans and the other could pretty much relax without needing to know much of the details. It usually wasn't me because the Yankee was generally keen to get on, and anyway, he had the guide book. Whether you do this or share the responsibilities out it is important to work it out before you go, and avoid any problems down the line.
As a result we both got to the second island, Ovalau, after three flights in the same day, and I elected to peel off and go to a different hotel. Still just about speaking to each other we parted ways, and as it was I felt much more at home in my choice of residence rather than a lovely but decidely crummy hostel as mine was a genuine surviving colonial hotel - indeed the only such place left in all of Fiji - with the atmosphere and architecture to match, both of which fantastic in their own way.
We were set down after a bumpy twilight ride from another remote and miniature airstrip in the old capital of Fiji, a town called Levuka on the eastern coast of Ovalau that was formerly one of the roughest towns of British colonial times, a sort of Wild West-by-the-Sea with architecture to match, much of it still preserved, to my delight. The Royal Hotel is a marvellous place, even if it is under-lit and the service can only be described as idiosyncratic. The challenge is first to find any member of staff with which to check in, or maybe even mention the idea in passing, to see perhaps what they thought of the concept, because the whole hotel is vacant and its vast wood-panelled and ornately ballustraded rooms appear to see less activity than the Pope's pants.
Once done and a room has been cracked open and dusted down for your repose, you are confronted with a polite and slightly weary insistance on doing things their way, or not at all, which isn't exactly odious, it's just a bit strange, such as when you order food and take a table in the otherwise deserted dining room only for it to be served at another table across the way. The Ladies of the Royal will put food where they think you should be eating rather than where you think, and with a gentle "Eat over here" or something similar you will bemusedly take your meal wherever their whimsy dictates. Sometimes you are served food in the lounge when you are actually sitting in the dining room, not five feet from the counter although that counter is, of course, devoid of employees, begging the question of how exactly the Ladies expect you to eat or whether this food is for cunsumption at all, or maybe whether they are simply a few coconuts short of a palm tree.
These minor distractions aside, the difficulty of getting what you want when you want it arises most times when you go to the office - if you can find it - for things like a voucher for the internet or some soap for the bathrooms or, if the worst comes to the worst, a member of staff.
It almost became annoying although never quite got there as you just cannot be angry with a Fijian, so far in my experience. Finding out as much does get close to taxing though; a small passage leads off from behind the check-in desk (deserted around the clock, naturally) and through a small garden, takes a detour through what looks like a maintenance area and the office door, unmarked of course, stands closed on one wall next to some nondescript and inevitably obscured windows.
On the serious plus side though they have a full-size 12-foot long by 6-foot wide snooker table, and the cloth runs beautifully. Better yet, there is an antique coin-operated contraption for the lights and there was even a full set of cues including a timeworn but still serviceable 8-foot-long cue and rest for reaching over the huge table. And the cool thing? All of it except the balls and the baize on the table are over a century old. A genuine antique, and it still plays like a dream.
Unfortunately the Royal Hotel is about the only thing in Levuka worth seeing, unless you are diving which, with one thing and another and not wanting to risk a murder after being around Lisa all day (mine or hers) I could not do. The cost as well was grating on me, as I had somehow failed to do my accounting properly and was desperately short of money, not wanting to use up reserves unless absolutely necessary. It has now become very necessary to use at least a bit of them, but diving on Ovalau would have cost me another £700 or so and I could well imagine a lot of arguments thrown in free of charge would have somewhat tainted the experience. Plus, the weather was rather shit for the first three days, a total contrast to the beach off Taveuni where I had just been, and while it matters not so much under the waves there would still be more in the way of strong currents than usual (and the surface weather affects undersea conditions more than you might think in this relatively shallow coastal water) and the outside world was a pretty dismal place to start one's day.
My mood was not helped by the fact I felt terrible in myself almost the whole time I was on that island, with being disappointed things didn't work out with my former travel buddy and coming down further with the cold being constantly tired as a result, most of my energy apparently going towards unceasingly manufacturing bucketfulls of unseemly goo to be issued forth from the various holes in my face.
Personally I find it quite difficult to see value in anyone after travellin on my own for a while, and find it hard to meet people because, well, because I've become a terrible snob and very often can't see any reason to invest any time in anyone any more. Maybe this cold (still here, funny story, I'll tell in a minute) is getting me down a bit, maybe I have just graduated to another level of cynicism and am about to bond with the lingering spectre of Diogenes or something weird likie that, I don't know. All I know is that to be my friend this week you gotta be pretty fucking spectacular, that's all I'm saying
But my, that cold thing with the diving and the ears and the bursting and the pain with the stabby-stabby sharpness and owwey! oysch!! (Professor Frink rides again). Yeah, it wasn't that bad for diving in the end despite a couple of painful descents and due ascending correction procedures, but the upshot basically was that I was deaf in one ear for about 8 days including the whole diving course, and the fact I can still de-auralise one side of my head at will even now just by twiddling a finger in my ear, suggests to me it could almost be permanent, for all I know. It hasn't fully left me in about 12 days now, which could be improved given the run of an ideal world (and has no-one perfected one of these yet? Lazy scientists...).
It is a bit of a bugger being around people a ot of the time althoguh I'm feeling vastly more sociable since getting back to the mainland and this new, ultra-posh backpacker's resort and my complaints seem to have moved internally as I simply feel sick and unwell all day now. At least I am talking to people however.
Perhaps the illness and deafness are fuel for my arrogant social policies at the moment, because I sometimes cannot hear what folks are saying, to me or anyone else (bit of a drawback on the dinner party circuit) but a great deal of what I hear these days seems to be meaningless twaddle anyway. There are only so many times you can listen to the same set questions and not go a little bit mad: where are you from; where have you been; what do you do back home; where are you going next: as if everyone who is traveling about wants to go over the same little story again and again at every place they go to!
I have begun, in my head, compiling definitive lists of answers to these, one designed to charmingly ward off any further enquiries while not really answering the questions, and one is a do-not-fuck-with-me,-pal set for when I'm feeling particularly antisocial and ill, designed to ward off any further speech lest murder happen.
`I'm from the south of England. Can't you tell by my plummy accent?` *affect even more plummy accent*
`I've been around a fair bit of Asia, Australia and New Zealand.`
`I worked mostly in a small company in the construction trade, it's hard to explain and you'd be bored by the time I did anyway!`
`I'm in New Zealand for the next year working, doing anything that pays!`
or if they seem to deserve it:
`I come from the farthest reaches of the universe and I'm basically here to kill you all and take your planet. Eat laser.`
`I have been to India, Sri Lanka ( ), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Borneo, Java, Bali, Malaysia ( ) Australia, New Zealand and now Fiji. Before that I went to the Czech Republic, Italy twice, the Netherlands and Greece, and many many more places in England, Scotland and Wales. Would you like a list? Would you like it carved on your forehead?`
`Back home I did many things, mostly I killed people like you for pleasure because just couldn't take any more stupid, but somebody actually paid me to exploit rich people and sell overpriced goods that were poor in quality through the medium of appalling service and almost completely lacking in accountability, and the funny thing is that many people, being morons, like you, absolutely lapped all this up and came back for more again and again. Would you like some old bricks, perhaps a mouldy piece of timber? Don't hesitate to give me your credit card details, you can trust me.`
`Oh fuck off. Actually next I'm going to your Mother's house....`
I hope not to have to use the latter set too many times Actually this place is rather nice, if totally artificial.
More soon.
