Home » Fiji » What's on the Menu in Fiji?

Nadi, Levuka, Suva, Nananui Ra

What's on the Menu in Fiji?

Theinversespoon
2005-11-10 18:04:21

Displayed times (last time: )

My usual forward planning left me wondering what to do with my time on the island of cannibals whilst I lay by the pool of the Nadi Bay Hotel acquiring the taste for Kava. Kava is the national drink as close to the Fijian heart as Ouzzo to the Greeks, Raki to the Turks or Vodka to the Russians.

Whilst considered to be a mild narcotic (illegal in Germany), you could easily mistake the distinct earthy taste for that of the very last bucket of the foulest borehole water, with a chalky twist. And for the first hour or two, has about as much effect. Until... simple games like coinage or 'Celebrity Head' start to seem as much in your grasp as that slippery little 'world hunger' problem. Finishing a sentence becomes a darn side easier than starting the sentence, simply because you don't care, can't remember or can't fathom having ever clapped eyes on the person you're talking to... who incidentally has just fallen off their chair and doesn't appear to be the least bit concerned about getting up. It's how I would imagine a handful of Valium to take effect, and this stuff carries you well into the next day. It's the kind of thing I dream of slipping into the drinking water of the 'White House' at times like these.

But in Nadi, Capital Hill is about as real as the tooth fairy and less real than Peter, the pumpkin eater. Instead of pumpkins, the Fijians could probably better associate with Manu, the man-eater. The cannibal legacy turned out to be simply that, a legacy of their past and I encountered nothing but "Bula"'s (hello's) and smiles.

The closest I came to cannibals were a bunch of expat 'twin otter' pilots having a buck's party where escape proved futile. It reminded me of one evening in Maun, Botswana – more pilots than you could shake a propeller at. Like true cannibals they raised the temperature of the water, picked my brains, took strips off of ...