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Time:
Because of the International Dateline, if Los Angeles time Is 1 P.M. on Monday, Fiji time is 7:00 A.M. Tuesday.
Money & Exchange Rate: Your money takes you further here: 1.00 American Dollar=1.8904 Fiji Dollar Flights: Air New Zealand offers non-stop flights between Los Angeles and Fiji weekly on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Air Pacific also flies 4 times a week non-stop from Los Angeles to Fiji, as well as from Honolulu and direct from Vancouver. Flying time is approximately 10 hours from Los Angeles. Language: English is the official language of Fiji. Fijian and Hindustani are also common. Travel Documents: Passports are valid for at least three months beyond intended stay. 31 day entry visas are granted to North Americans on arrival in Fiji. Weather: South Seas climate, warm with cooling trade wind breezes. Temperatures can reach up to 96 degrees Fahrenheit in Summer (December-February). Clothes: Casual, informal dress. T-shirts or golf shirts with shorts and slacks are appropriate for men, as are sun dresses, skirts, slacks, and blouses for women |
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Romance, Fiji style all starts with your bure, a grass hut that is elegant in its simplicity, romantic in the extreme: straw mat on the floor, a low-slung bed covered with a floral print spread, a slowly spinning paddle-fan suspended above. Beyond it stretches the shining sea, never threatening, always beckoning. You can wade out hundreds of yards, hand in hand, letting the darting radiant fish flutter around you. For the ultimate romantic escape let the hotel drop you by speedboat on a deserted islet. A half a day, a picnic lunch, lapping waves and wind-batted palms: just the two of you with hours to kill under a shapeless sun, and only a passing frigate bird as witness. In the lovely Mamanuca island group west of Viti Levu, your rendezvous may be on tiny Monoriki, the very island where Tom Hanks learned to cope with his marooned solitude in the movie "Castaway."
Honeymooners descend on these gentle islands from all over the world, but there is romance waiting for anyone who wants it. Fiji is truly yours for the taking. If you've ever had the urge to have an island to call your own (and who hasn't?), Fiji has the next best thing: small deluxe resorts that function as the only accommodation or operation on a tiny atoll or islet. Some are but a 15-minute run from Viti Levu, the main, island by speedy water taxi or small plane, and all provide a splendid palmy remove from civilization with every convenience and diversion you could want. They’re also the perfect romantic day trip getaway. Later, back at the bure, you'll dress for dinner in something cool and informal. Slacks and floral shirt for him, light shift for her. Shoes? Sandals or sockless loafers will do, and you'll probably kick them off after taking a table for two by the water. Dine by the light of flickering torches under a brilliant arc of south Pacific stars, set in their strange Down Under alignment… |
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Cruising through a string of islands like the Yasawas just northwest of Viti Levu might just be the most luxurious way to embrace Fiji. You glide in and out islands you can only imagine in a dream, living aboard a luxurious white motor yacht for four days to a week. The sleek boats are fitted with 20 to 36 spacious air-conditioned staterooms and all the conveniences of a modern hotel suite: dining room, bar, well-stocked boutique, two large sundecks. A wrap-around rear-boarding platform means easy access and outlet when nudged up to a sandy isle.
You cruise for four hours a day, leaving loads of time to stroll untracked beaches, fossick for shells, visit native villages, snorkel, swim or kick back on deck and watch the world glide by. The staff is Fijian friendly, the food Fijian delish (spicy curries, chicken done in a south seas lovo or earth oven). Nights you will take in Fijian dance and songfests under that arc of starry velvet. |
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A nature lover’s delight, Fiji has an unspoiled, unique environment of extreme beauty and tranquility. Adrift for millennia in splendid isolation in the blue of the South Pacific it has escaped the evils of industrial progress, the incursions of dangerous animals, poisonous snakes, spiders and pestilent diseases such as malaria. It awaits your discovery.
Across this sweep of green islands you'll find every variety of outdoor sport and exercise, offered at all levels of expertise. These include snorkelling over shallow reefs close to shore, diving—which offers a full range of underwater experience, riding in a jetboat, trekking in the tropical rainforests, swimming in the crystal clear waters of a rushing river, and even visiting a sacred cave. In a week-long excursion around the major island, you can pilot a raft through raging rapids, sail through the magnificence of the Yasawa island chain or safari into the highlands to see rugged peaks and remote villages.
Shark feeding, sunken ships, even a World War II aircraft…scuba diving in Fiji offers the full range of an underwater experience. Famous as the soft coral capital of the world, the crystal waters of Fiji's virgin reefs and magnificent lagoons offer unmatched visibility for the underwater explorer and photographer. Fiji is world renowned for both scuba diving and snorkeling, and almost everywhere that land meets sea, you will be able to push off in a dive boat, or swim out in the gin-clear shallows and fill your eyes with wonder. Hundred-foot walls with pinnacles and huge coral heads are a 10-minute spin from shore; scuba and snorkeling gear are eminently available so don't schlep your own. One sure ticket to Fiji's unlimited sports menu is an adventure cruise on a towering schooner. A meandering junket starts on the south shore of Vanua Levu, the second largest island, with kayaking up a tropical river. You'll pass Fijians in their bilibili bamboo rafts and view village life up close. Another day you wake up anchored off nearby Taveuni, Fiji's "Garden Island," with a chance to dive at the famed Rainbow Reef or White Wall. On the island of Koro, halfway between the two major islands Vanua Levu and Viti Levu, adventure looms round every corner: hikes to waterfalls, visits to historic ruins, coastal bike treks, with stops to get acquainted with coorful parrots and medicinal plants; kayaking, swimming, snorkeling. Fiji's rainforests are unique in that they have no harmful animals or insects. Here one can enjoy serene contemplation of nature in complete safety. Multi-hued birds flit from the trees, and if you are lucky you may spot several varieties of Fiji's tiny wild parrots. While the forest can be thick and impenetrable, you will find pathways used by the Fijians who know the jungles as well as you know your own living room. Because of the mountainous nature of the islands, there are numerous streams and waterfalls, often with a cool pond in a rocky basin beneath the falls. One of the most famous is the sacred Bouma Falls on the Island of Taveuni, seen by the world in the motion picture "Return to the Blue Lagoon". Here you will also find a natural waterslide, also featured in the movie, where local residents have enjoyed themselves for centuries. Fiji has no leeches or crocodiles, and wild streams and brooks are crystal clear and unpolluted. |
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Beaches are no small part of Fiji's physical bounty. The best are small, intimate, secret; coves and bays and powdery slips backed by stands of palm and flowering shrubs. Fiji's beaches front the resort hotels on Viti Levu's exciting Coral Coast, and they wait with in mystery and silence on islets only reached by boat. Then there are beaches like Natadola, 20 minutes from Nadi, a sweeping two-mile crescent bay, one of the finest beaches in this arc of islands. Hire a horse from a local villager and canter the entire length, dive into its shallows, stroll it at sunset.
Your bure is your castle, and all your needs are a stroll away. Swimming pool set back in a sunny glade, dining room and bar open to the air and sea, a water-sports shack with a seasoned staff ready to hand out scuba and snorkeling gear, sailboats and windsurfers, maybe a tennis court and basketball hoop, of course a gorgeous powdery stretch of beach with chaises and hammock and umbrellas, and always that gentle, luminous Pacific beckoning for a dip. On a private island the schedule is loose; you set your own limits. |
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Fijians will hail you on the streets of Nadi and Suva and towns and villages in between, they will invite you to their native villages, and they will welcome you to their churches where song and music ring out above all else--for Fijians are nothing if not musical). On busy streets, in village markets, at home in their villages, many will be dressed in traditional garb. It is no show; it is the daily wear. Of course there are rousing events that tap into the culture, such as the kava ceremony in which you down a cloudy liquid to cement your welcome, but this is just as genuine. If you come to Fiji to throw yourself into the culture, fine; if what you most want is an exotic escape, a posh version of the deserted life Tom Hanks led in the movie "Castaway," which was filmed on a deserted Fiji island, then you've also come to the right place.
There are native villages scattered all across the islands. It’s an edifying experience, whether you are traveling as a couple or as a family, to pay a visit to at least one of them. Most villages on the main roads announce themselves with a series of speed bumps reminding you to slow down (80 kilometers, or about 50 mph, is the speed limit in Fiji). Organized tours can be arranged, but it may be just as satisfying to meet a Fijian villager and be taken home on a personal visit. At some, you'll be able to buy hand-woven baskets and mats. Here and there are villages of traditional thatched cottages. The noblest structure--high peaked and set back from the others, on a village green--is occupied by the village chief. If you are admitted to his house for a kava ceremony or a short tete-a-tete, by all means accept. After ducking through the low door, you may be asked to sit down on the straw flooring opposite the chief. Talk as you would to any friendly respected personage, and don't forget to greet the chief with a hearty ‘Bula’. |
