Monday, January 29, 2007

Ni sa Moce, Fiji! (and a few favorite recipes)

[that's: Nee sa mothe, Fiji - Good bye Fiji]

Hello all! This is probably going to be our last post from Fiji - we are leaving Savusavu this Sunday for Lautoka, a city on the western side of Viti Levu, the main island, where we will spend the last 3 days before our flight to Auckland next Wednesday. We are leaving Fiji 3 weeks earlier than we originally planned because - well, we feel that we've pretty much done all there is to do (that is in our budget, which excludes diving, helicopter tours and spa treatments). Even tropical paradise gets old, if you can believe that. We are tired of the heat and dust, of the constant battle with insects, mold and fungi invading our house, clothes and bodies. We've trekked through the bush, played doctor in a village, and gone native in more than one place in Fiji. In other words, we are ready to move on.

Our next stop is Auckland, where we'll meet up with an old friend, Matt, upload more Fiji photos (the Internet connection in Savusavu is also on Fiji time) and start looking around for some work.

I'm sure we will miss Fiji very much. It's been a blast. We've gotten used to long conversations with Hans about Fiji's future and its "democratorship," and watching the sunset as the geckos bark and fruit bats fly overhead. We'll always remember the Fiji smile and warm hospitality. Oh yes, and the food! But at least we can take some of the recipes with us and here are a few of our favorites in case you're feeling a little adventurous:


Kokoda [Kokonda]

(A delicious appetizer made from raw fish)

1.5 lb (600g) white fish, firm, not too many bones
1 cup lime/lemon juice
1 1/4 cup coconut cream
1 small fresh deseeded chili (red or green)
salt
tomato slices
onion rings
chopped dill or chives
lemon/lime slices
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1. Remove bones from fish and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2. Place in a bowl, cover with lime/lemon juice and leave in the fridge for 2 hours (the citrus juice cooks the fish)
3. Strain fish and discard juice
4. Mix coconut cream with onion, tomatoes, chili and salt to taste, then pour over fish
5. Garnish with vegetables and fruit



Dhal Soup

(Indian yellow split pea soup that goes great with curries and roti)

1 1/2 cups dhal (dried yellow split peas)
6 cups water or broth (vegetable or chicken)
6 cloves garlic
1 medium/large onion
1 small fresh chili (optional)
salt to taste
1 tbsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp mustard seed
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1. Wash dhal, cook in broth or water for about 1 hour (or until very soft)
2. Add 3 whole cloves garlic, 1/2 of chopped onion and chili
3. Continue to cook on low heat, skim off froth and discard
4. In a pan, heat oil/butter and fry 3 chopped cloves of garlic and the 2nd half of chopped onion until golden
5. Add the spices and stir over med. heat for another 2-3 minutes (create a sort of paste)
6. Stir spices into the dhal, add salt and simmer for another 10-15 minutes

(Dhal soup should not be very thick and it's best eaten with roti bread)



Fish in Lolo

(Fish in coconut cream)

white fish fillets
2 cups coconut cream
fresh spinach leaves
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
salt, pepper
1 small chili (optional)
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1. Rub salt and pepper into fillets
2. Fry garlic, onion and fish until golden
3. In a separate pot, cook spinach in coconut cream until very soft, add chopped chili
4. Pour coconut and spinach over the fish and simmer for another 5 minutes
5. Serve with taro or potatoes


Enjoy!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Tripped Out from Labasa

A quick reminder: a few clicks on the above Google links won't hurt and might even help our cause. Thanks y'all! :)

Healed from our sunburns, brown and thoroughly peeled, we are happy to report that we survived our latest side adventure: a trip to the northern-shore town of Labasa [Lambasa].

Labasa, with its 25,000 inhabitants, is the largest town on Vanua Levu and the 4th largest in Fiji. It is almost famously unremarkable and known only for its sugar mill and a complete lack of tourist appeal. That's why tourists almost never go there - except, of course, for the ones who like to venture out "off the beaten path" and endure probably the most arduous bus ride in the South Pacific. The only reason to visit Labasa is not the town, but the trip itself, since the two bus routes that take you there are famously picturesque and worth seeing. There is the "short" and paved route through the central part of the island, which is relatively comfortable and harmless, and then there's the "long" route that takes you along almost the whole eastern half of the island and upon completion of which you deserve a medal for bravery and patience, especially if you ventured to take this route for pleasure and not out of sheer necessity. But I'll get to that in a sec.

So, we took the short bus route to Labasa first. It took us along the Savusavu Bay and into the mountains of the interior where the bus would creep laboriously up the steep inclines and then roar down them dangerously. Sometimes, the surrounding hills were so steep that we saw waterfalls falling vertically off their sides without trees even obstructing the view.

As soon as we got through the mountains, a green plane opened up in front of us - the first flat land bigger than a football field we've seen in almost 3 months! The vegetation in the north of the island looked familiar, but strangely out of place in Fiji: we saw patches of pine forest, green meadows and fields of sugar cane. Completing the botanical confusion were the occasional massive bamboo bushes and coconut palm groves. Seeing the conifers reminded both of us of the northern climates we come from and, I must admit, made me personally long for a whiff of cold winter mountain air.

Labasa wasn't entirely bad - it was just another busy, loud and oven-hot Indian market town. The mid-day heat was lethal and air-conditioning scarce, so we sort of hopped around different shops looking for a hard-to-find item for Hans (a rotating can opener, more specifically) and then we went to check out the nearby sugar mill, which was closed for the season, unfortunately. In the evening, we went to see the only movie playing in the only theater in town. Alas, it was a Hindi movie, and though we swore before that we'll never see another Bollywood production again, our movie theater withdrawal was too strong and we couldn't resist.

The movie Baabul was, like probably all Bollywood movies, a simple and overly sappy love story that dragged on so slowly that it seemed to unfold in real time. (And the movie covered a few years!) Ryan was writhing in mental agony next to me, while I was getting a kick out of the cheerful dance sequences and the male protagonist's stylishly trimmed beard. There was a bit of a drama and social commentary in the last ten minutes, but by that point we were ready to escape into the streets!

Thus we exhausted pretty much all that Labasa offers in terms of activities, spent a night in the Riverview Hotel, from which we had no river view, and the next morning we were back on a bus to Savusavu - this time the one with the "long" route.

The first part of the trip lead through more sugar cane fields and was mercifully paved. Within 2 hours, though, the tar gave way to a bumpy and dusty back road and we started climbing ominously higher and higher into the thick bush again, getting swallowed by the overgrown jungle, from which we would emerge only on precariously steep climbs with sweeping views. On some of these inclines, it seemed that the bus was on its last legs - spewing clouds of black smoke and creeping up the hill so slowly that it seemed it would roll back any moment and hurl us down the mountain. But, miraculously, the extremely rugged Fijian bus never failed to get up on those hills or brake on the way down and we didn't get stuck by the road side 4 hours away from the nearest phone. (Only once did we have to coast down the hill in reverse to get a better running start up the hill.) And since the bus, like most Fijian buses, didn't have any glass in its windows, it was a breezy, safari-like ride, with clouds of dust and an occasional branch penetrating inside.

All along the way, we rode through villages so remote that the daily passing of the bus looked like an event in itself. Groups of locals were gathered at each bus stop, either sending off or welcoming people, or just sitting around, waiving at the passing travelers. And everywhere we stopped people would load countless pieces of luggage, rice bags filled with taro* and other crops through the windows and stuff them wherever they would fit them - on, under or between the seats. (Grabbing and loading other people's stuff is a part of the unwritten Fijian bus-travel etiquette and we were involved in the ritual a few times, as well. Just grab the stuff people hand to you through the window and give it to someone behind you who will stow it away.) Since Ryan and I sat in the back of the bus, we were eventually completely boxed in into our seats by loads of bags, rolled up mattresses and bunches of kava root.

*note: Taro and other crops are the only things freely available everywhere in Fiji, yet the locals always have a need to bring their own supply wherever they go, perhaps just in case the other town/village ran out...?

We rode forever - until the shadows grew longer, our spines felt impacted and every single pore on our bodies was covered with road dust. The views from the bus were sometimes quite beautiful, but overall, the ride was fun because it was so unbelievably out of the ordinary - and so Fijian.

And since Ryan and I were the only 2 people who stayed on the bus for the entire 8-hour trip, I really believe that we deserved some sort of a "Completed-the-most-arduous-bus-ride-in-the Pacific" medal.

We haven't done much after recovering from the trip. The sun and heat are back on and they don't allow doing much during the day. The sunset is too short to do much except for snorkeling to the one good coral reef nearby that we've already seen dozens of times. We've met some weather-beaten yachties at the yacht club and seen many movies on our DVD. After 3 months in Fiji, we're definitely missing the cold and can't wait to get to New Zealand.

I'll end with that. Be back soon with some delicious local recipes.

Friday, January 05, 2007

The First Sunrise in Taveuni

Happy New Year!

We hope you all had wonderful holidays and are fully recovered from the New Year's celebrations.

We just got back from a "vacation from our vacation" on the neighboring island Taveuni, the 4th largest in Fiji and only 8 miles distant from the shores of Vanua Levu. We went there because the 180th meridian runs right through the middle of Taveuni and we thought it would be cool to say that we were among the very few people who saw the first sunrise on Earth. (The 180th meridian is accessible only from very few places since it mostly runs through the Pacific Ocean.) Plus, everyone told us to go to Taveuni for New Year's eve, so off we went.

We were hoping to do some fun New Year's eve partying, meeting other funky budget travelers, lying around on a beach (we have no real beach in Savusavu) and discovering the natural beauty of this tropical island. But even though we eventually did all of this, by the end of our 4 days in Taveuni, we were exasperated, tired, broke, irritated and happy to go back to the comforts of our little bure in Savusavu. The truth that no travel book told us about Taveuni was that it is not set up for budget travelers - and that it really isn't an ideal place for New Year's celebrations.

But here's what happened...

We got to Taveuni on the last day of the year and settled down at Beverly's Campground, the only budget accommodation on the more touristy northern part of the island. On the map we saw that this part of the island is littered with resorts, so we thought this would be a good place to find some people and entertainment. The campground itself is idyllic - sitting directly on a patch of fine sandy beach and shaded by large trees. It had a bit of a run down feeling to it, with cobwebs hanging from the tents (the owner, Bill, provides his own tents) and ants running amok everywhere, but the beach and the waves crashing on it were beautiful. However, we were astonished to hear that we were the only people staying at the grounds for the night. So much for meeting other funky budget travelers. On the upside, we had the whole beach to ourselves!!

Another surprise came when we walked out to find some place to eat. Again, the map informed us that the area is littered with restaurants, but we didn't see any! Famished after a long, bumpy trip from Savusavu, we walked for 30 minutes in the blazing heat and found only one promising place, The Coconut Grove, a tiny restaurant owned by an American woman, Ronna, who was apparently the only person in northern Taveuni with enough business acumen to be open on Sunday AND New Year's eve. Because as we found out later, her place was the only one open for business on New Year's Eve in the whole area. We thought that with all the upscale resorts around us, we only had to walk out of our campground in the evening and walk into the first resort bar that we heard from the road.

But no such luck. To our second astonishment, northern Taveuni was absolutely dead on the last eve of the year. We walked in the moonlight for half an hour on the same road, passed all the resorts and heard not a stir. We couldn't believe it. Eventually, we had to go back to the overpriced Coconut Grove -not only was it open, but they also accept credit cards there and we had no cash on us, since the only ATM on the island was out of order when we arrived. We had a bottle of fine Australian wine there and were overjoyed to hear from Ronna that she's going to a private party at the Maravu Resort and that we are welcome to come with her. We were thirsty for another drink and some company. So off we went.

Smuggled into one of the most expensive resorts in Fiji as "guests" of Ronna, we landed at a pretty sedated party populated by some resort guests and many locals, all of whom were quietly sitting around, sipping their drinks, seemingly without much interest in actual partying. The DJ was playing mellow Fijian pop and two or three 'eccentrics' were attempting to dance to it. We struck up a conversation with 3 Japanese students who, as they told us, were studying English in Nadi, Fiji, and were in Taveuni for a short break. We immediately noticed that all 3 were in a dire need of some English conversation practice, so we were helping them with that until midnight.

Midnight came without much fanfare - no champagne popping, no fireworks and no joyous collective hugs. The only thing that happened was that, all of a sudden, all of the party guests (by now there were more of them) woke up from their slumber and with an unexpected zeal all rushed to the dancefloor! The Dj now finally switched to some dance music and the party finally began - as if now everyone was trying to make up for the first part of the night with very enthusiastic dancing and drinking. Within two hours, most of the resort guests disappeared and the locals were stumbling and puking all over the place (Fijians can't hold their liquor very well.) But it was a fun party and we were there chatting to some British, Australian and New Zealand ex-pats until the closing time at 3 am.

We had welcomed the year 2007 10 hours before Deni in Bulgaria, 11 hours before my mom in Slovakia, 17 hours before Ryan's dad in New Jersey, 19 hours before Ryan's mom in New Mexico and - basically, before just about anybody in the world.

We stumbled back across the street to our campground, cooked up some 2-minute noodles in our open-air beach-front kitchen and laid down on the beach to watch the brilliant stars and Milky Way filling the pitch-black sky. We promptly passed out.

I thought that what woke me up was a crab crawling over my foot, but it couldn't have been. There was no crab in sight when I sat up. All I saw was Ryan sleeping soundly next to me and, all around me in a very pale shade of grey - there it was: the first sunrise of the year 2007 on Earth. I watched the foamy tide creeping back toward us for about a minute, scratched my numerous bug bites - and passed out again.

We spent the first day of the year recovering and, generally, not doing much. We sat around the beach, cooked more noodles and went to bed early after admiring the beauty of a moon-lit beach at low tide. The following day, after we found where Bill hides the paddles to his kayaks, we went out for a daring sea-kayaking voyage over the reef and out into the sea. We were out there for 2 and a half hours and came back fully roasted and red like lobsters. No sunscreen in the world could have protected us from the intensity of sun that day! In the afternoon we went to the nearest town Wairiki and discovered the "most remote cinema in the world" (at least according to the makers of the documentary "Reel Paradise"), the 180 Meridian Cinema, which must have been built back in the colonial times and was now definitely shut down.

The next day, we took a bus to the Bouma National Heritage Park and cooled our blazing sunburns in the cold water pools under 2 massive waterfalls. We were hungry, without cash again, spending more money at the Coconut Grove because we had to use plastic and we came back to find some more backpackers at the campground: a couple from Sydney, a surfer from New Zealand and a chiefly Fijian. Very fun people to share stories with, but the sunburns, bug bites, ever piling sand and expenses were starting to get to us. On Thursday we had to wait around all day because of the ever changing and unexpectable schedule of the ferry we were going to take back. Its original departure time was 2pm, but of course, it didn't leave until 5pm. By this time we were itching to go home, shower, groom and relax - and stop spending so much money!

The last astonishment of the trip still awaited us: as we were getting (or, rather, struggling) off the boat, we had to retrieve our backpack, which we had to leave on the car deck when we arrived. You can imagine the shock we got when we saw a heap of luggage 3 meters high and our backpack buried somewhere at the bottom of it! With people pushing all around us, we spent 30 minutes throwing around dozens of bags, boxes of bananas and rolled-up mats to find our poor bag. Out on the wharf, we got soaked again in the rain (we got soaked getting on the boat, too), walked for 20 minutes in mud to find a taxi and - before midnight, we finally got back to our clean, comfortable bure.

It was fun to see Taveuni, but next time we'll do better research before we take off for another expensive and inconveniently laid-out island.

Happy New Year again!