“…an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I was halfway to Fiji when I realised I had no idea where I was going. After an eight-hour layover in Hong Kong’s Lantau Island airport, the check-in counter for Air Pacific had finally opened and I learned that another eleven-hour flight lay ahead. A flight to the east and south actually — to a point just north of the Tropic of Capricorn and pretty much right on top of the International Date Line. Except that it’s an imaginary line, so Fiji sits, officially at least, to the west of it.
Alternatively, the line is real and Fiji is imaginary — in which case there was no telling when I would arrive.
It’s been a week now since I was airlifted back from the South Seas but I’m having trouble convincing anyone of my adventures. I’m not entirely convinced myself. But this is what I remember:
I remember supping with millionaires under a banyan tree on a desert isle. Subsisting for a whole week on a diet of ferns and taro root, chilled lobster salad and seared tuna steaks. Washed down with endless bottles of Hunter Valley Pinot Noir.
I remember showering in a jungle waterfall at noon, snorkelling coral reefs at dusk, wallowing in a jacuzzi at night, and scampering down to wade in the coral-strewn shallows of my private beach at dawn.
Dancing in conga-lines of pink people in floral shirts and dark handsome natives in grass skirts.
I remember being transfixed with primordial lust at the sight of slender hula girls snaking their come-hither hips.
Steering a catamaran through a figure-of-eight in a trade wind, paddling my own glass-bottomed kayak and surfing — ok, web surfing — on a broadband-enabled beach.
Getting high (or maybe low) on a bowl of piper methysticum also known as ‘Grog’ and passing out on a massage table where Cameron Diaz may well have been oiled and kneaded before me.
They say that Fiji consists of more than 300 islands, just 100 of which are inhabited. The rest are more or less imaginary. ‘Castaway Island’, ‘Blue Lagoon Island’, ‘Bounty Island’, ‘Treasure Island’.
You won’t find them on any map — not unless you append the word ‘Resort’ to each.
And on my first morning in the South Pacific I’m on my way to one of these desert island fictions. It’s an appropriately cinematic scene: we are in a rakish white motorboat, scudding across the sea. A large island looms ahead to the left but that’s not it. “That’s Beqa, home of the fire-walkers,” I’m told. “Most of our staff are from there.” Our prow is pointed at a barely discernable em-dash sandwiched between the contrasting blues of the sky and the sea. A lone puff of cloud hovers over it, an absurdly photogenic signboard.
With me on the boat is Grahame Southwick, a tanned and wiry white man who chats relentlessly over the roar of the motors, waving his hands animatedly. He’s a native Fijian, as it turns out: “My ancestors came here from Darmstadt in Germany in the 1800s and settled while the Fijians were still eating each other.”
He’s an old salt, an experienced sailor and a fishing magnate who owns Fiji’s biggest tuna fleet.
It was only later that I stumbled on an old map, which told me the true name of our destination: ‘Ugaga Island’ or ‘Stuart’s Island’. But for the next eighty-nine years (of a ninety-nine-year lease), it’s really Grahame’s island. And he can call it whatever he wants. He’d known the island since his childhood and finally struck a deal with the Chief of Beqa to lease it and make even more money as the Royal Davui Island Resort.
It’s been hard work but it’s gone well. He tells me of Russian oligarchs who come to stay and pay with briefcases of cash. Arab sheikhs who chopper in with their wives and twenty pieces of luggage in tow.
Grahame is a rich and happy man. And the happiness, at least, is infectious. As we chat, the island heaves into view, an astonishingly picturesque confection of coral and white sand capped with a dome of tropical jungle.
As we moor at the jetty of Royal Davui, a boisterous school of clownfish is frolicking and leaping for tossed scraps of bread while a baby reef shark waits shyly for its turn. Reaching the reception area, a large airy pavilion, I’m drenched in the sonic warmth of a choral serenade: the assembled staff singing a Fijian song of welcome in lush harmonies embellished with guitars and ukulele. And minutes later I’m installed in my villa, one of only sixteen on the ten-acre island.
There’s a plunge pool and a jacuzzi. A power shower and above it a vergola that opens to the sky at the push of a button. A bedroom and a lounge, both of which open onto slatted wooden verandas. And beyond them, the turquoise aquarelle of the open sea. There’s a beach, of course, and swaying palms. And not another soul in sight.
It takes a few moments for me to absorb the existential dilemmas of this sudden change of fortune. But I’m a survivor, and soon I’m coolly weighing my options: jacuzzi, plunge pool or sea? Beer, coffee or room service? Should I enjoy the view from the beach, deck, sofa or the bed? In the end I do the only rational thing and try them all.
I should have known by now that I would never really get to Fiji. Instead, I will pass the days resort-hopping in small planes over a kaleidoscope of reefs. I will be garlanded repeatedly, massaged, and serenaded hello and goodbye. I will rub psychic shoulders with the definitely rich and the kind of famous: At the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort, a franchise of the almost-famous son of the legendary seafarer Jacques. At the Namale Resort of the equally famous life-coach and motivational speaker Tony Robbins, where I’m assured Russell Crowe, Edward Norton, Hugh Jackman and, yes, Cameron Diaz have preceded me. Robbins’ resort, which turns out to be incredibly beautiful, offers a particularly seductive sideline: residential courses in how to actually become rich and famous. “Awaken the giant within!” is his spiel. Tempting, except that Tony Robbins is 6 foot 7 to begin with.
But I’m beginning to suspect that a more ancient fantasy is at work or at play here. Maybe what James Mill (the almost-famous father of John Stuart Mill) was talking about when he described the colonial world as “a vast system of outdoor relief for the upper classes”. Or is it R.M. Ballantyne’s boy’s own adventure, The Coral Island, which come to think of it was set in ‘Feejee’. Or maybe Jack London’s ‘The Inevitable White Man’ (another tale of Fiji). For that matter, Queequeg, the wild savage of Moby Dick, was also from the ‘Fejee Islands’. Or is it The Tempest? Lord knows all these resort owners are Prosperos.
One enchanted evening at Namale the fantasy suddenly evaporated, quite literally, in a puff of smoke. I had just had dinner, served in a fairy-lit tunnel of volcanic rock just above the waters of the Koro Sea. I was a little tipsy from the wine as much as the glamour of the circumstance. Feeling like a ‘globe totterer’ as another similarly inebriated guest put it. I repaired to my cottage or ‘authentic bure’, a delightful thatched hut perched in splendid isolation atop a small cliff above the beach and enclosed in a lush garden of palms, crotons and hibiscus. I undressed, slipped into a sarong and stepped barefoot onto my cliff-top deck for a contemplative ocean-view cigarette. A gentle breeze swelled up from the sea and I heard the door click shut behind me…
My cigarette was extinguished almost as fast as my high spirits. I peered forlornly through the plate glass at the comforts of my bure. My clothes, my slippers, my phone, my canopied bed. Electricity. And turned around to face grim reality. Sinister palms creaking in the moonlight. The relentless brutal crash of the tide. A desolate stretch of beach, viciously seeded with serrated coral, shells and pumice. Of course, I was rescued in the end, but not without some ignominy: mincing my way, squealing and swearing, to the next cottage and yelping piteously for help.
Perhaps it was just my wounded pride but I decided I’d had enough of the desert island idyll. Spurning a scheduled excursion to Monuriki island — the location for the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away, I demanded an excursion to the Fijian capital of Suva instead.
We drove along the scenic coastal highway past the picturesque fishing villages from which Fiji’s resorts take their landscaping inspiration. Like the holiday villages they are spread out over expansive common lawns. But real bures, it seems, use tin sheet rather than thatch. Approaching the outskirts of the capital, my guide pointed out a severe high-walled structure. “The Suva Hilton: free rooms, free food but no beer,” he quipped. The jail. I think he was telling me to count my blessings. I visited the national museum, a modest institution that offers a potted history of the island nation’s tortured history of tribal warfare, colonial submission and the sad saga of the ‘Girmityas’ — the Indians duped into indentured service on the islands’ sugarcane plantations. I had lunch at the Holiday Inn, facing the ‘government building’, a small but severe complex of 1930s fascist architecture, which has witnessed the series of coups that have defined Fiji’s recent political history. I was reminded that the country is still run by the naval officer Commodore Frank Bainimarama, an eccentric dictator who has seen his nation expelled from the Commonwealth but who keeps a portrait of Queen Elizabeth in his office and insists he is a monarchist at heart. I heard the well-worn national joke that Fiji is just a ‘Bainimarama Republic.’
I realised that tourist fantasies are a lot more fun than political fictions and returned chastened to one last resort. One day, perhaps, I will visit Fiji. But for now, at least I know what it’s like to be all washed up on a tropical beach. On the island of Robbins and Cousteau.
The information
Getting there
Fiji’s national carrier, Air Pacific (soon to be rebranded as Fiji Airways) and Cathay Pacific offer connections to Nadi International Airport (on the western shore of Viti Levu, the largest island in Fiji) via Hong Kong, from Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The fare is approximately Rs 50,000. Flying time from HK is just short of 11hr but you can expect a layover of up to 10hr between connections. Make the most of it: walk through HK immigration (visas are free on arrival) and take the Airport Express MTR into town — it takes just 35min.
My internal flights were from Nausori airport (near the capital, Suva, which is also on Viti Levu) to Savusavu airport on the second-largest island, Vanua Levu ,and back via Taveuni (the third-largest island) to Nadi. The round-trip fare is approx. $300. Nadi to Suva is about 200km and a 4hr journey by road.
Visa
Fiji visas are also issued on arrival, gratis.
Currency
1FJD = approximately Rs 30.
Where to stay
My first stop was the Sofitel Fiji in Port Denarau, blessedly close to Nadi Airport and a fine place to recover from the rigours of the long journey (from Rs 9,440; sofitel.com). The Royal Davui, which was the unquestionable highlight of my trip, offers ‘vales’ (from around Rs 60,000 a night; royaldavui.com). And you have to be over 16 to stay here. At the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort on Vanua Levu your kids can share your ‘bure’ — these were the largest cottages I encountered (6-day packages start from around Rs 1,50,000 per adult; fijiresort.com). The nearby Namale Resort and Spa also offers bures and does not accommodate children younger than 12 (from around Rs 63,000 a night; namalefiji.com).
What to see & do
Snorkelling, kayaking and Hobie-cat sailing are on offer at most resorts at no extra charge. Scuba-diving will cost you and require instruction if you are not already PADI certified. Try a percussive Fijian ‘Bobo’ massage at Namale’s exceptional spa (also on offer at most other resorts). Kava or ‘Grog’ is the national intoxicant of choice. It’s legal but an acquired taste. Much more palatable is ‘Kokoda’, a dish of raw fish marinated in coconut milk and lime juice. In Suva, the national museum is highly recommended, if only for the sight of one of the last surviving exemplars of a Fijian war canoe, or ‘Drua’, and the remains of the rudder of the HMS Bounty.
Need to know
They use those peculiar Australian sockets! On the other hand, Hindi is widely spoken and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is the top-rated show on national television.