From New Zealand to Fiji: Our Fijian Experience

We went to Fiji!

When we decided to spend the better part of 2024 in New Zealand, we wanted to travel to other places nearby. This mainly meant visiting some of the other Pacific Islands, like Fiji, or Australia. After a couple months in New Zealand, we realized that we would want to spend a pretty good amount of time in Australia, so that trip is postponed until we have a little bit of a bigger budget. However, we decided that we only would need about a week in Fiji, so we booked some flights for early September, and locked in our trip!

As mentioned, because we were on a budget, we tried to do our trip in one of the cheapest ways possible. To do this, we stayed in hostels and we booked an Airbnb with a family homestay for the majority of the trip. The most expensive part of this entire trip was the flights from Auckland to Nadi, Fiji (which didn’t even include a meal, sad).

Our flight landed around 8pm, and after a short taxi ride, we made it to our hostel. We were both pretty tired, but we still walked across the street to check out the beach. After a short walk, we grabbed a beer at a beachside bar and grill to celebrate the start of our ‘vacation’ before we went to bed. The next morning, we had to figure out how to make it across the island to the village of Rakiraki, which is where we would be spending the next 4 days. We weren’t in any time crunch, just preferably some time before dinner. This would normally be a 3 hour drive, but the rental cars in Fiji would have been almost as expensive as the flights, so we decided to brave learning the bus system. Seems simple right? In hindsight it really was, but before hand, it was pretty tough. There wasn’t very reliable info online, we tried calling a couple of the bus companies but that didn’t clarify anything, we were kind of flying blind.

Luckily, the hostel we were staying at was super friendly, and the reception woman was sitting with us and trying to tell us the best way to get to Rakiraki. She had called for a taxi for us, and disappeared to say goodbye to someone. She immediately came back and informed us that there was someone else who was trying to go to Rakiraki to visit his family. This is how we ended up meeting Luke. Luke was Fijian, but had been living in New Zealand for the last several years as a chef, and was back in Fiji for a quick visit. We got to chatting about where in Rakiraki we were planning on staying and in an insane turn of events, it turns out, we were going to be staying with Luke’s family. So, not only were we all going to the same village… we were going to the exact same house! I know what you’re thinking (probably the same thing my mom thought), you guys just met a serial killer, his real name probably isn’t even Luke, do not go with this dude. But we did, and Luke turned out to be the nicest person we met while in Fiji, and one of the nicest we have met in all our travels over the last year. And I know some people might not believe that this actually happened, fair enough, even we were in disbelief for half the day.

We took a cab with Luke to Lautoka, where we would hop on a bus to Rakiraki town, before taking another cab to the Rakiraki village, where Luke’s parents lived. On this first cab ride, we stopped once along the side of the road (at Luke’s insistence), for some roadside coconut water. We watched the men open up the coconuts for us and we brought them with us in the cab the rest of the way into Lautoka. Luke said that these were not quite ready, and that when we made it back to his parent’s place, he would get us some super sweet coconuts from their coconut trees. We walked around the market in Lautoka for a little while while we waited for our bus, and snacked on some pineapple on a stick (it was delicious).

Thanks to Luke’s help, we easily found the correct bus, the Lautoka to Suva Express Route, which means less stopping along the way. The bus ride was very eye opening for both Eric and I. Over the 3 hour ride, we got to see a good bit of the Fijian countryside. When you think of Fiji, you typically think of white sand beaches with crystal clear water and reefs full of rainbow fish swimming about. Riding on the bus through the heart of the largest island of Fiji, we saw a whole different side. We saw the countryside, the endless sugar cane farms that were burning for harvest, the tiny houses that looked like they were almost falling apart, kids riding barefoot on stocky horses, and lots of cattle tied to a specific spot to graze. I felt it was important for us to really see the country itself, and not just the parts specifically catered to ecotourism, which is why Eric and I decided to do things this way. Neither of us was expecting Fiji to look like this, but to our credit we both stayed very positive about or visit and were very excited to see all we could.

When we arrived to Rakiraki town, we grabbed a quick lunch with Luke and stopped by a store to get some bottles of water. Then we got into a cab to take us to Luke’s house. We arrived into chaos. Luke wasn’t the only one who had come home for a few days, and it was nothing short of a family reunion when we arrived. The family were all super welcoming to us, and we got settled in rather quickly. Luke, as promised, got us some coconuts from their front yard, and they were definitely sweeter than the coconuts that we had gotten off of the side of the road. We really cannot express enough how genuinely kind and helpful Luke was to us throughout the entire stay. Eric and I wandered around the property for a little, checking things out, waiting for the chief of the village to arrive.

In Fiji, it is customary that when you arrive to the village, you meet the chief, and generally gift him with some Kava. This is typically done in conjunction with a Kava ceremony. Before arriving in Fiji, we had never even heard of Kava, so this was all a new experience for us. Kava is the root of a pepper plant, and they make a cold tea from the ground and dried roots. They take a cheesecloth bag filled with the roots, and mix it by hand throughout a large bowl of cold water (in our case, this was their tap water).

The ceremony goes like this: They scoop the Kava into a cup, they offer it to you, you clap once to receive it, you say ‘Bula’* to everyone in the circle (Chief included), they all say ‘Bula!’ back, and then you drink the Kava in one gulp (like a shot), and everyone claps three times. This pattern continues all around the circle, and around and around it goes. Beforehand, we were told that taking at least the one drink of kava water is the respectful thing to do. So both Eric and I downed the first, and luckily, it didn’t taste too bad. After everyone went around once, they offered it to everyone again, so we had a few more. By this time, we gathered that kava should be making us feel something, but we really didn’t feel anything. As we learned later, Kava is said to have calming properties, and to more or less encourage a general feeling of well being and peace when you drink it. After the first round, the kava ceremony gets much less formal, so our host suggested we go for a walk around the property, where we ended up watching the sun set, which was very pretty. We returned and proceeded to drink a few more rounds of kava to see if it made us feel anything (we never noticed any positive effects of the kava).

*Bula means hello in Fijian

After the kava was through, things started to take a turn for the worse. Our host mom made us a delicious Fijian meal, but I didn’t really get to enjoy it because I think my stomach was not agreeing with the Kava we had drank earlier. This continued to get worse as the night progressed until I was, without a doubt, sick. Eric said that his stomach was a little unsettled, but overall he was okay. We had plans to go snorkeling, and to a private island the next day, so I was determined to still get some sleep and be able to make the trip the following day. However, by 4am, after maybe an hour of actual sleep, it became pretty apparent that I would not make it snorkeling. In the morning, with what little strength I had left, I practically forced Eric to go. Eventually, we both agreed there was no reason we both should miss out on that experience.

It sounded like the trip was a lot of fun. Eric got to go snorkeling and see a bunch of different fish in the reefs, and even got to try his hand at spearfishing! He didn’t manage to catch anything, but said it was still super cool to try. Luke, and his brothers came on the trip as well, and luckily, they were able to get a good amount of fish. This was what they had planned to eat for lunch, so it was very cool that they were able to catch it that very morning. Once they arrived at the island, Eric got yet another coconut, and enjoyed some ‘island time’ (basically, just napping and hanging out on the beach). Eric did say that he was a bit bored at the island, but Eric really isn’t a fan of hanging around doing nothing, so that doesn’t surprise me. For lunch, they had their fresh caught fish, which Luke’s family barbequed on an open fire right on the beach, some rice, and some salad that our host mom brought.

Like I mentioned, this was basically a family reunion, and all ~20 people showed up to the beach for lunch (except me, who was still in bed, trying to eat some bread). By Eric’s account, lunch was very good, and he got to try both fresh Red Snapper and Parrotfish. He said that both were good, but Red Snapper is by far the better of the two (Parrotfish had too many bones). Sadly, within a couple of hours of him returning back to the Airbnb, he started to not feel very good. It became pretty clear pretty fast that it was the same thing that I was starting to recover from. Now, while we’re not 100% sure, I’m pretty positive we both got sick from the water*. Both Eric and I agree this was the sickest either of us had been in a LONG time, maybe ever. It got to the point where I was getting concerned that there was no hospital or doctor nearby. I will spare everyone the details, but for a solid 24 hours, neither of us could do much besides have a couple bites of bread and drink some water. I can only speak for myself here, but that first night I was truly thought I was going to die.

*Eric thinks he got sick from either the rice or the salad for lunch.

The rest of this day, and the entire next day, was spent in bed. We made a short trip into town to get more bottled water and food (because by now we unfortunately were both too scared to eat anything that didn’t come out of a can, or drink anything that wasn’t bottled). This store visit was another eye opening experience for us, we were hoping to get some simple stuff like, soup, crackers, granola bars, etc. Sadly, Fiji grocery stores don’t have soup, so we settled for canned spaghetti. Crackers were nowhere to be found, but we did get some granola bars. We weren’t super pumped with our food supply, but we figured a couple cans of spaghetti and 2 boxes of granola bars may be all we can keep down anyways (along with our 6 HUGE bottles of water). All in all, this store visit was a huge success, we were both pretty nervous to go out in the world again after being so sick and still feeling incredibly weak, but the food and water we got was a huge help in our recovery. As the next day was going to be our last day at the Airbnb, we talked to our host, and all decided we would try to get out on the water the next day to snorkel some.

Thankfully, when the morning rolled around, we both felt well enough to go out on the boat. We were both very tired, but our stomachs were finally feeling ok. There were a couple of other Airbnb guests there, who were going to SCUBA, and we more or less tagged along on their trip. When they went off on their dives, we hung out nearby and went snorkeling. It was an amazing experience. They water was crystal clear, and there were so many fish swimming around. We saw an eel, who got annoyed at how close Eric got, and a shark, swimming in the depths farrr below. There were tons of parrot fish, and lots of little blue and orange fish. We found some anemones and clown fish, and the reefs themselves were absolutely breathtaking. I am so glad that I was able to get out on the water and go snorkeling, because that was a huge reason we had come to Fiji.

The next morning we started our journey back to Nadi, where the airport was. Once again, we are so thankful Luke helped us get to Rakiraki, because now we felt much more confident on navigating back to Nadi and to our hostel for the remainder of our trip. We booked a hostel for the last two nights, and to be honest, didn’t do too much. We were both exhausted and still pretty weak from being so sick, so we spent the rest of our trip by the hostel pool, and walking along the beach nearby. Thankfully, there was a store close by, so we picked up some more water and canned spaghetti. I can honestly say we were both missing our little red van immensely at this point, and were so ready to be back in New Zealand.

All in all, Fiji was not quite what we were expecting it to be. Snorkeling was absolutely amazing, and Eric got to try spearfishing for the first time. While I am sad that so much of the trip was clouded by us both getting sick (probably the sickest either of us have been in an extremely long time), I am still glad we decided to see more of the countryside and culture of Fiji, rather than simply going to a resort. That being said, if we go back to Fiji, I think I would like to hang out at a nice fancy resort on one of the Yassowa Islands.