Day 68 Goodbye Fiji, aloha Honolulu
Trip Start
Nov 17, 2009
1
79
99
Trip End
Feb 12, 2010
In The Air Over The Pacific, Kiribati
Sunday, January 24, 2010
- First job after breakfast is to pack
our cases as we fly out this evening to Hawaii and need to vacate
our room by 11am. After years of living out of cases on my annual
cycling trips, I don't need to unpack, I just take out stuff as I
need it and put it back when its washed. Because we were staying in
Fiji for more than a couple of days, Vanda had a big unpack, and
filled the wardrobe, (I couldn't have unpacked anyway, because she
had used all the coat hangers).The benefit of my way of travelling is
that I'm fully packed and now sitting catching up on the blog (and
have been for the last half an hour) whilst Vanda continues to pack.
As I'm up to date, and she isn't yet finished, I am now off to the
patio to read and catch a bit of sun.
Later. Our last session by the pool
(and the four critical seats again secured), but still no internet.
IT man is not to be seen (it is Sunday, but there again he is a
Hindi), but no worries, this is just one of the frustrations we've
had and these will be vented when I meet the Resort Manager later in
the morning.
Young Chris (well young compared to me,
but in his early thirties) is an Aussie, the man in charge and just a
little bit cocky defending the four star status of the place. Not
four star, I said when in our room mould is growing in the shower, no
hot water for three days, a dangerously broken bedside light, broken
fridge, no hairdryer (the most heinous crime of the lot), and despite
repeated reportings to reception, no response to complaints …...
the list went on to also cover problems I'd noted around the site.
Ah, he said, its the Fijians, they are lazy, unskilled,
good-for-nothings; coming from England you won't understand. No it's
not, I said, I worked in Africa for six years, and managing a third
world operation is about training, motivation, discipline and good
management, something sadly lacking here. The chat batted back and
forth for 20 minutes, when he finally offered to write off my account
for all the drinks and trips we'd had over the 6 days, and allow us
to use our old room to shower and change before leaving for the
airport. Not a bad outcome for what was intended to be just some
constructive feedback.
Chris was also insistent that there was
no fault with their wireless internet service (he was an ex IT man,
he said, so he should know). That was until I showed him my new PC
and he realised that his router was not
properly delivering IP addresses, or some such gobbledegook. After
investigating, it turned out that this little piece of equipment was
plugged directly into the mains and not through their Uninterrupted
Power Supply, a gismo that protects
equipment from power failures and fluctuating voltages. Every time
that the mains power played up, said router had therefore failed and
needed resetting. At least my approach had ended up with a positive
outcome as they will now re-route the router.
John and Jean left shortly afterwards
for the next stage of their holiday, so fond farewells before
wandering up to lunch, our last meal here.
Sadly the wind never really got up
after lunch, so we didn't bother to take a boat out. (I can just
imagine the conversation between Vanda and myself, wallowing without
wind a couple of hundred metres off shore, and airport departure time
rapidly approaching ….).
So our last hours at Sonaisali were
spend pretty much as they had been all week – swimming, sunbathing,
napping, and enjoying our last Devonshire tea.
The boat crossing to the mainland and
the half hour drive to the airport were uneventful and we got there
in time to be near the head of the checking in queue …... or we
were until we came to check in and found we were in the wrong line.
When we arrived, the only flight showing was one to Los Angeles, and
as the flight number was the same as ours, I assumed the plane
stopped on the way at Honolulu. No I was told, our flight number is
820, the LA flight is 810. Anyway we didn't have to re-queue: with a
bit of sweet talking , the young Fijian lady booked us onto our
flight, and ensured we had the emergency exit seats as well.
We were now flush with unwanted Fijian
dollars after Chris had waived our bill, and because the flight would
not be until 10.30pm, we had planned to blow it all on a gourmet meal
in the departure lounge restaurant. That was until we saw the
restaurant, or more to the point, the fast food joint, so try as we
may, spag-bol, chicken stir fry, a beer and a glass of wine still
left us with plenty of dollars over. No problem, said Vanda shooting
off to the nearby shop (she'd seen a 'sale' sign as we passed).
Remaining dollars were blown on a Fiji tee shirt (him), Fiji sarong
(her) and half a dozen bars of chocolate (us).
It's funny how the same phrase can have
different meanings to different people. Because the flight was going
to the USA, extra security precautions were in force. Even though we
had passed through the normal security downstairs, two temporary
rooms (male and female) had been set up in the departure lounge for a
further search. Once we had passed through this area there was no
going back, with no loos or shops accessible from the other side. A
stern voice announced this search requirement over the tannoy,
requesting that passengers allowed plenty of time for this “100%
search”. Now I assumed that 100% search meant that every single
passenger would be checked out. Vanda was envisioning a 100% search
of her body, warts and all, so was rather fearful of what was to
come.
Inside the male room, my hand luggage
was re-examined and the usual hands out, feet apart body search seen
in the normal security area was conducted by a Fijian (not an
American as I had half expected) – all very quick and courteously
undertaken. I never did ask Vanda what happened in the ladies room …..
The finale to this tale is that once we
exited these rooms which were designed to pick out the next American
terrorist, we were returned to the same departure lounge that we had
just left, except for a bit of flimsy tape separating us. I just hope
this blog is not read by Osama bin Laden: I could never live with
myself if revealing this system weakness leads to the next US attack
coming through Fiji.
And so without further ado we hit the
Pacific skies heading north to Hawaii.
