post 4, fiji. guided tour 1- sigatoka

i joined two tours with my sister in fiji, and this is the first one that we went on.
we travelled inland to sigatoka, about one hour's drive from nadi town to visit a local village and to go on a jetboat river ride.
gosh, that tour really cost me an arm and a leg. it was more than rm500 for one whole day.

the pick-up van came at 8am and we only reached the hotel at 7pm.

the van brought us to sigatoka, another town on the island. the ride was quite bumpy with unpaved road and construction to pave them. heard that the contact was given to the chinese in exchange for fruits.

in sigatoka, we were brought to this river. is it sigatoka river? i have forgotten.

our jetboat which would make 360 degree turn on our way back and make water splashed on everyone in the boat. nobody escaped dry. that was the fun part.

how serene and calm it was.

a local crossing the river, the local's way. ;)

all of us in the boat.....the passengers were made up of malaysians, singaporeans, canadian, australians, mongolians and fijians.

after about 30 minutes in the boat, we reached the village we were supposed to visit. i read that they alternate the villages so we would not disturb the locals and still give them the opportunity to maintain their everyday's lives.

not many houses in the village eh. there were about 200 villagers all together if i remember correctly.

so once there, we were brought to the meeting hall to meet the men of the village. men were the heads in everything there. even we had to sit behind.

these here are kava roots......time for a drink.

powdered kava root was poured onto a piece of silk.

then water was added and strained producing kava drink.
it is a ceremonial drink in fijian culture and you can see shops selling this drink in town.

as polite guests, we of course drank  bowl of kava offered to us. the taste? well, quite bland at the beginning, then you could feel that you were drinking something made out of roots and it left a slightly bitter taste. but the 'kick' was, it made your tongue and lips slightly numb too. so imagine if you have many big bowls of kava. you will be high man. could someone be stoned by this drink? i think the answer is yes.

the name of the village we visited. try to say it fast ;).

we were brought around the village, listening to briefings about their lifestyles and customs, etc.
lunch was included and we had it in the community hall.

can you see what we had? i could only make out fruits, chicken and some dough thing. that bowl on top right, well, i really could not tell what it was.
the lunch was all right. it was edible and we did not get any food poisoning.

the local kids.

then after lunch, there were some singing and dancing.

let's jiggle together.

after saying our thank yous, it was time to leave the village.
by that time, the local kids seemed to know that we were leaving and they had jumped into the river some time earlier to frolic in the water and say their goodbyes to us.

such happy faces.

the ride back to the hotel was an exhausting one. we were knackered by then and couldn't wait to reach.

sugar cane for those who can't make out what the lorry was carrying. it is fiji's main agriculture.

so was my rm500 worth it? i still feel it was a tad too expensive. i am not sure if one could just walk into any local villages and explore on their own. if that is possible, then i would suggest you to skip this tour and find that cheaper way. the guided tours around fiji are generally not cheap.
well, i guess i did some charity by contributing to the locals. a certain percentage of the fees we paid were channelled back to the villages. so hopefully, they would prosper with our visits.