Fiji

Caro read my last email epic and finished it with a look of both amusement and concern on her face.
 
"You're f*cking mental," she said, but in a very sweet way.
 
It's true.  There's something about writing my experiences.  I go off on a tangent.  You must have noticed.  My concentration doesn't stay on the subject at hand and I end up talking about poo, or Elizabeth Montgomery, or cartoons, or foot odour.  But usually poo, I know.
 
I don't know why.  I do try to adopt a "stream of conciousness" approach to the writing here, but all too often it turns into a stream of something else instead.  Sorry about that.  
 
Anyway, the reason I start this particular email with that preamble is that Fiji was an odd little adjunct to our adventure.  We both went a bit mad in Fiji, which I think was due to the fact that for a week we were pretty much cut off from the world and forced to sit in a room and talk solely to each other.  You learn things about people in these circumstances.  Be warned...
 
We were looking forward to Fiji, because it would force us to slow down, laze around and do nothing but read and lie in the sun.  Now, those of you who have spent time with us are probably already sniggering at this point.  "Jesus, if those two slowed down any more they run the risk of bed sores," you are saying.  Well, I have two things to say in reply to that, the first of which is f*ck right off, and the second is, look I KNOW we're quite lazy people but Australia had been pretty hectic and we were both relishing the thought of being pampered in a proper resort (Club Fiji, no less) with little men rushing down the beach to refill our alcoholic fruity drinks and so forth.  THAT'S my point.
 
As we touched down in Nadi (which for some reason is pronounced "Nandy" - I think they misplaced a consonant somewhere) we had Singapore flashback feelings.  It was very hot and very damp.  There was that moist earth smell in the air.  The airport itself was a bit tatty and as our bags were hoisted into the Club Fiji courtesy bus Caro had a more unfortunate feeling - a 'Nam Flashback.

Fiji is nowhere near as scary as Vietnam, but as we sped along dirt tracks and past the little shanty houses we had the unnerving feeling that maybe Fiji wasn't such a good idea after all.  Come on, by now you know that neither of us are consumate travellers.  I often wonder why we didn't just book ourselves into the Hotel St. Nicholas in Scarborough for a year and save ourselves all the hassle we've had over the past few months.  I mean, we both like seeing new places and meeting people, but we both dislike hassle, and getting ripped off, and pools of weewee on the floor of communal showers - you know what I mean.
 
But we shrugged off such misgivings and checked into our bure.  This is a sort of beach-hut and ours had a huge high ceiling, complete with fans, a fridge, veranda, grass thatched roof and en-suite.  Mind you, first our bell-boy had to find the damn thing.  Back and forth he went, with two of our heaviest bags slung over his shoulder, muttering "Number 17...  Number 17..." his back bent under the weight, like an extra from "Spartacus" or something.  Then he found it, and wobbled gratefully into the hut, knocking things over because he couldn't find the lights.  I felt so sorry for him, I gave him a ten Fijian dollars as a tip.
 
(It was then I looked at the exchange slip I had got at the airport and found out the Fijian dollar was worth only a little less than the Australian dollar and I had inadvertently given him a huge tip.  The Fijian $ is actually worth more than the NZ $.  "We should have a bloody coup," muttered Caro in disgust.)
 
The room was very large with a good sized bed in it.  There were no windows, just screens covered by wooden slats.  There was also a nice couch, comfy chair, warped cupboard and a bloody horrible painting on the wall.  (There is ALWAYS a horrid picture in every hotel room everywhere.  I can only assume that Hotel Decoration is the job given to Interior Designers Gone Bad.)  
 
There was also a huge spider on the wall.  I went right up to it because it was so big it didn't look REAL.  It sat looking at me, bouncing up and down.  It looked ridiculous.  Like a collection of pipe cleaners stuck into a potato.  I would've given it a bit of a poke but it ran way up and sat there smiling down in a when-you're-fast-asleep-I-think-I'll-drop-onto-your-face sort of way.  
 
I wasn't sure whether to tell Caro or not.  I'd kept huge spiders to myself in the past.  I saw one in Byron Bay outside our cube at the Arts Factory one night.  As Caro left to go to the toilet I warned her not to go near the edge of the veranda:
 
"Why not?" she demanded, suspiciously.
"Oh - you know - there might be things..." I tried to reply in a way that implied there was nothing to be worried about don't you know ha ha ha.
 
She didn't ask, but I think she knew.  
 
I decided to tell her about this spider and she took it quite well.  The spider, deciding that she wasn't much fun at all, ran away and we never saw him again.  I had a peaceful night's sleep that night, with no spider attacks and woke up the next morning bright and early and ready for my first poo of the day.