Update: We’re sending this blog from Hilo, Hawaii, November 29th All is well.
We began our swing through the Pacific Islands after leaving Australia with Noumea and Ile des Pines. We’ve been to both before and choose to stay on the ship and spend the day relaxing. So we begin the blog with our visit to Lautoka, Fiji. The view from our veranda.
We wandered around one of the largest markets I’ve ever seen; indoor and street side.
Of course we have to look closer at the local wares.
We stopped by Jack’s store. You may remember this photo from our Grand World visit to Lautoka. Same store and pose, different guy. The weapon is called a “Neck Breaker” which they use prior to the cannibal forks.
I offered to take Noreen on an open air tour of the island. For some reason she declined??
Our next stop was Suva, Fiji. Noreen immediately made friends with the local police sergeant in their interesting uniforms. She is holding her hat due to the winds.
We had extensive plans to wander around the town and area until we passed the market. At that Noreen decided she had seen enough of Suva and went back to the ship. You miss the full impact of the market without smell-o-vision.
But in spite of what seemed unusual for a market to us it was really a very interesting place. The people were very friendly and the area clean and very organized. I took some time and wandered around a bit more. A lot of the people that looked like they were living at a barely subsistence level had cell phones.
They also sold live fish.
It started raining and the plastic overhead keep most of the rain out of the market area.
By now you may be asking yourself, “Where are the lush jungles and beautiful waterfalls of the Pacific Islands?” They are on each island. But to get to them it is usually a four or five hour round trip in a rickety old bus with open windows on dusty, bumpy roads; in very hot and humid temperatures. We did some of those trips on our first visits to the Pacific islands. This is our third swing through the Pacific and we’ll be back in a few months so we tend to stick close to town unless there is a very special attraction we want to see.
Our next stop was Apia, Soma on November 24th. It was a raining overcast day. But that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our welcoming committee. Apia is only 100 miles or so from American Soma where we were a few months ago.
We shared the port with the National Geographic expedition ship “Orion.” They usually sail in Antarctica but are conducting some special research in this area.
We hope you you enjoyed this brief trip to some of the Pacific Islands. As I write this we are one day out of Hawaii. We’ll be spending four days in the area with three ports of call. Then we have five sea days back to San Diego so I’ll have plenty of time to finish our last entry for this trip.
Thanks for allowing us to share our travel's with you. Drop us an e-mail, we love to hear from you.
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