First Day in Fiji: The Nadi Debacle

We went downstairs to talk to the travel advisor about snorkeling.  She recommended a trip that would take us to a private island and that included free alcohol (which she emphasized over and over).  After we paid, we asked her if there were any restaurants nearby and she told us that we should go into the town of Nadi (the capital city—pronounced Nani).  Since the cab was only 10 Fijian dollars (6 US dollars) each way, we decided that this would be our best bet.  She also assured us that Nadi had plenty of shopping. 

What we imagined

Upon arrival, I simultaneously felt overwhelmed and underwhelmed.  I was overwhelmed because every single shopkeeper was trying to drag us into their shop.  I was underwhelmed because this was not at all what I had anticipated. 

Reality.

Truthfully, it was run down and there wasn’t much substance to it.  We picked a direction and started walking and we magically stumbled upon the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere.  It was incredibly colorful and decorated with plenty of small details.

However, the main reason that we had come into town was because we were hungry, so we decided to walk back the way that we came, but this time on the other side of the street.  Kelley decided that we should go to “Chicken Express” which sounded just fine to me. We both ordered chicken sandwiches with fries, and while Ke$ha’s music blared in the background, the worker asked me what I wanted to drink.  “Water,” I replied.  Both her and the other worker stared at me blankly.  “So you don’t want anything to drink?” she asked.  “Umm well could I just have some water?”  More blank stares.  “On second thought,” I said “I’ll just have some Sprite.”  She seemed to understand this and I was promptly given a glass of Sprite—too bad I don’t drink pop. 

Yum.

After getting out every single ice cube from my Sprite, I gave it to Kelley and she gave me all that was left of her Diet Coke—ice.  We decided that Nadi wasn’t really where we wanted to be that afternoon, so we got a cab and hightailed it back to our hotel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool reading and getting some sun. I went swimming for about 2 minutes, but the pool was chilly (it is their winter right now) and the thought of catching a cold deterred me from spending more time in there. We got dinner at the hotel, a pepperoni pizza (that came adorned with Maria’s favorite food: peppers), and then went to bed.