Thoughts on Fiji

This is a hard blog posting to write.  We generally think of our family as being open-minded travelers who are able to see the beauty and appreciate places for their food, people, and culture, rather than their smells or lack of cleanliness.  We have been proven wrong and/or we have been pushed to our limits.  

After spending 6 days in Fiji, we will not be returning for the following reasons:

1. Everyone burns their trash so the air constantly smells like plastic.  Some might say that this was because we stayed in Nadi - they would be wrong.  Everyone everywhere here burns their trash, it’s just more concentrated in Nadi than in other areas because there are more people.

2.  Since everyone burns their trash, there is burnt plastic ash that is constantly blowing in the wind that covers your clothes when they are hanging out to dry, it’s in the pools, on the car… everywhere.

3.  There is trash EVERYWHERE.  It’s all over the ground, in the waterways, in the streets, in the parks, in the gutters, etc.  Everywhere you look, trash.

4.  The food is not vegetarian friendly.  Yes, we could eat Indian food every day, but Indian food is not the healthiest, and it also doesn’t make your body smell very good after awhile.  In addition, Indian and Fijian food doesn’t really include many veggies… we are all in some serious need of something green.

5.  Everything is expensive, but low quality.  This is true of the hotels, food, rental cars, massages, excursions, etc.  The price tag is the same or higher than US prices and what you get is so far off from what you’d expect.  Things here are so janky that they constantly break, are already broken, dirty, missing, not working, or very seriously lacking.

6.  In order to experience the Fiji that you see in books and movies, you have to go to one of the outer islands.  This can be done by either doing a day trip over there, or by staying at one of the island resorts.  Most of the resorts are luxury resorts and are very costly.  Not only that but many of them require you to book your own boat ride there and back which can run you another $200-$400 per person in addition to what you are already paying.  If you do decide to splurge and stay at an island resort, the experience is a fake, manufactured experience.  This is not real Fiji.  This is what rich people want Fiji to be.  The day trips are expensive too with the cheapest one being a half day for $100 per person to a very tourist busy island.

7.  Everything is sweetened.  That’s right, I’m talking peanut butter, sauces, bread, snacks, juice… everything has sugar added in.

8.  We were told not to drink the tap water in Fiji, so that means that we have to buy plastic water bottles.  Not our favorite thing to do when we know that the bottles will just be burned outside our hotel each night for us all to inhale.

9.  Massages are relatively cheap but they are not great.  This could be that we just haven’t found the right place to get a massage yet, but so far, this has been our experience.  I hate to compare places, but in Bali, the massages were super cheap (less than $10 USD) and they were awesome almost every time.

10.  Roads, if paved at all, are riddled with potholes, gravel dump areas, parked cars due to accidents that no one seems to care about, cars stopped on the sides of the roads that then pull out in front of you with no warning, random unpaved areas, people walking down the lane who don’t seem to care  if they get hit.  We will all leave here with spinal issues.

11.  Dogs bark 24/7 and locals do not seem to mind it.  We still aren’t sure what to say about this because we cannot understand how anyone could be ok with it.  There’s one barking as I write this post outside my window.  He’s been barking nearly nonstop since we arrived 6 days ago…

12.  It feels like everyone is constantly trying to scam us or find ways to take our money.   Everything we pay for seems to have things that should have been included in the price, but for some reason were not.  And just to be clear, it’s not because we are idiots and can’t read and/or frequently misunderstand. We are being taken advantage of, which is a horrible feeling.

We are so done with this place, that we drove to the airport to find out about hopping on an earlier flight.  Unfortunately, our tickets won’t allow for changes, so we’d have to book new return tickets for more money than we spent on the original round trip ones.  So, we stay… and wait for Tuesday to come when we can board our plane for home.