Via Fiji

When it came time to book our tickets from LA to Sydney, I (Matt) was on the verge of throwing down for a direct flight on Qantas or V Australia. Suddenly, however, I was struck by an urge to make this journey special. I wanted to exploit this opportunity for all it was worth. Greedily, I began to ask myself, "What else can we get out of this?" And so I began searching for stopover destinations. At first I was set on the idea of New Zealand. Annie seemed ambivalent about this possibility, and I quickly realized that it would involve purchasing one of the more expensive one way tickets--not to mention the amount of money we would spend in NZ. I went back to the drawing board. Actually, I just went back to kayak.com and kept searching for the cheapest one way flights. One airline came up with the cheapest flights over and over--Air Pacific, "Fiji's International Airline". Making a snap judgment based entirely on the image formed in my mind by a certain water bottle, I decided that we would have a two day stopover in Fiji.

And so Annie and I left Phoenix on December 28th, destined to spend all of December 30th and 31st on the beautiful tropical island of Viti Levu. We bragged to our family about how our move was going to be punctuated by a lush layover on white sand beaches. They were jealous; we felt pretty cool. As the time drew near to depart, I started to have some sneaking suspicions about the whole thing. You know that feeling you have when you are off to take an exam, or to attend an important meeting, and you have scarcely prepared? I felt a bit like that. I had no idea what Fiji was actually going to be like, and I had done little to no research before hand. I simply booked one of the cheapest hotels I could find, and figured that when we got there we would sit on the beach with tropical drinks in hand, while being massaged next to the sparkling blue Pacific.

We arrived in Nadi, Fiji at about 5:30am local time. We stepped off the plane to a burst of humid tropical air and the chirping of strange birds. Our flight had been consistently turbulent so that it was hard to do much sleeping, but otherwise uneventful--our flight was well-staffed and on time. We did not realize until later that this was an anomalous occurrence! After a short wait in the customs line we were officially granted entry to Fiji. We were immediately met with an immense amount of hospitality--we were promptly whisked away to our modest hotel, the Novotel Nadi, which was a mere 3km from the airport. We spent the rest of December 30th lounging, walking around the city of Nadi (which was definitely average and located squarely between the first and second worlds), and figuring out what we were going to do with our December 31st.

We decided to go on a Captain Cook day cruise to Tavua Island, a tiny private island about a one-and-a-half hour boat ride from Nadi. So we cruised out to this amazing little island, replete as it was with white sand and beautiful foliage, and surrounded by coral reefs that teemed with bright fish. So there is some truth to those water bottles after all! We had a tremendously good time marinating in the lukewarm ocean water, our bathing punctuated by trips to the bar to fill up on Diet Coke and cold water. We also took part in a one hour snorkeling session, wherein we were bedazzled by the bright blue starfish strewn across the ocean floor, and the myriad of tropical fish that darted in and out of the shadows of the coral forest. And lunch on this splendid day consisted of fresh grilled fish and chicken, and an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables. It was the perfect island fare. This splendid day trip was nicely capped-off when we met a couple of our Aussie contemporaries on the way back to the main island. We struck up a great conversation with these Sydneysiders, and they were quite interested in getting together once we get settled in Sydney. We gladly exchanged phone numbers.

Our dream day in paradise lost some of its luster just as we realized that our own bodies had gained a bit of their own. We arrived back to our hotel to discover that despite diligent application of SPF 50 sunscreen--purchased at a hotel premium, mind you--we had just received the worst sunburns of both of our lives. When it comes to two people who spent a lot of their lives in Phoenix, AZ, that is saying quite a lot! Here we are two days later and our burns are still aching quite badly. Apparently paradise has its downside.

Back at the hotel, we ate a tasty dinner and quietly winded down for the evening, falling asleep to the sound of various New Year's celebrations. We looked forward to a smooth, short flight from Nadi to Sydney, something which should only really take about 4 hours. But things work differently when you're on "Fiji time". We discovered this as we lined up to board our flight at 8:20am on New Year's Day. As the queue swelled to the tipping point, a voice came over the loud speaker, nonchalantly informing us that our flight had been delayed thirty minutes because of the fact that most of the crew had not showed up for work this New Year's morning because they, "had a very happy new year". I was surprised at the honesty of this admission, and only mildly annoyed by the expected short delay. But things just went downhill from here. A thirty minute delay turned into an over two hour delay. Every twenty minutes we would get an update on how many cabin crew workers had been rounded up, and how many were still to be found. Finally, the airline offered to bribe 35-45 passengers to give up their seat and fly out "maybe tomorrow or the next day". We were informed of the repercussions if not enough volunteers turned up: the upper deck--on which we were to be seated--would be canceled automatically.

Thankfully, the airline was able to get enough desperate people to volunteer for the indefinite delay, and we were then boarded on to the plane. "Alright", we thought, "we are finally on our way to Sydney!!!" Not so fast. After a tedious silence, a voice came over the intercom and informed us that we could not leave yet because eleven bags belonging to the aforementioned volunteers had not yet been found among the stowed luggage. We were quoted another thirty minutes, which, of course, turned into another two-plus hours. Finally, after an insufferably long delay, our four hour flight from Fiji to Sydney was in the air. At this point, I half expected the plane to crash. It made sense to me that the maintenance couldn't be much more sound than the logistics department. Thankfully, the plane did not crash, although our pilot did manage to put the plane down on one wheel, leaving us all in breathless suspense for some three seconds as the entire AirBus teetered and tottered. Thankfully, things quickly evened out and the drama was over.

Annie and I learned from all of this that there's just no such thing as an easy stopover. Tropical islands are incredibly nice once you're there, but it sure takes a lot of time and effort to get to paradise.