Suva

Yesterday we explored the city, each on our own, finding different things. High speed internet is still my favorite! Susan went to see “Cars” at the movies. She and I are going later to a Bollywood movie playing here “Krrish.” The first McDonald’s of our trip has shown up. There’s also a KFC.

Suva sure is inexpensive. The cab ride from the Yacht Club is about $1 USD. Dinner last night cost me about $8 for a delicious steak sandwich and a mug of beer. Everywhere we go we’re amazed at the good prices. Starting out in Tahiti, we had the most expensive prices of our trip. This is a real treat.

Today Susan and I worked on getting some new leaks fixed. Or at least plugging holes we suspect as being the culprits. Only time will tell if we did any good. Steve went off to try and get us set up with a 220V battery charger. The one he got works, but doesn’t properly turn off when the battery is charged. It’s a pain to have to watch it all the time, so we’re taking it back to get a better one that’s more expensive. At the Yacht Club we have electrical hookup and we will in future ports, so, it would be nice to be able to use electricity as much as we want. A phone call to Gerard verified that the solution we’re working on is fine. Update 2020: Notice the parallel parking job Susan did with the boat.

We got cleaned up (the hot showers at the yacht club are just a dribble) and came into town. We hit “The Republic of Cappucino” for some coffee. Then we split up to go shopping on our own. I looked at underwater cameras, which are all 35MM and a bit expensive for what they are. Not everything here is inexpensive. So, I don’t think I’ll buy anything. It’s too bad the other one died, it took some great pictures.

The number of Indian restaurants is lower than expected and all of them are steam table curry houses. I tried the one sit down Indian restaurant yesterday for lunch. It was very good, but the kitchen was terribly slow to make my food.

The Indian-Fijian conflict is very much on people’s minds here. Most of the cab drivers I’ve had were Indian. However, the one Fijian driver complained about all the Indians and gave me hints about how to spot all of them. As if I couldn’t tell the difference. He wants rid of them. It’s not that simple. The economy would collapse without them.

I didn’t bring the CD with photos on it with me, so, sorry, no new photos today. 🙁 (photos added to this in 2020)

It’s after school and the internet cafe is filled with children playing online games against each other as loud rap music is playing in the background. The place is packed. Every computer in use. Most of the kids are Asian. Nobody is wearing the local sulu. Many Fijians wear this traditional skirt. The men in black ones and women in dark blue. The kids wear a light blue one. They wore a very similar skirt in Tonga too, but added an additional layer of woven mat at the top around the waist. This form of dress raises the “kilt question”, but I’ve not been brave enough to ask. Maybe the next Fijian cab driver will know.