I Voted Saxon!

The next port of call was Port Denarau. This was a quiet day, I didn’t go on any tours, I went by myself, so basically I just wandered around the little village, took footage, listened to the band and just relaxed. I’d love to go again and properly check the place out, or get drunk at the Planet Hollywood. Looked very nice

Other things I remember

1 – MOUNTAIN DEW!! – This may sound odd, but there’s some silly Australian rule that says only cola flavoured soft drinks can have caffeine in it. So our version of Mountain Dew over here is nice, yet tame. You don’t drink it to get buzzed. On my trips, when I had a moment, I’d stop in different stores and see if I could find a bottle. First stop was Noumea. While my uncle and crew paid through the nose for a couple of drinks at the deli right next to the port (suckers) I paid something like 1.50 or something for a 600 ml 7up (no MD was found yet). I spent half an hour just looking at all the French versions of different foods and drinks over there. Twisties were really popular over there. Don’t ask me why. I could be wrong, but I’m SURE I saw Arnott’s Shapes as well. Being an Australian food, this is pretty surprising for a French colony…

Anyways,

Yes, found some in Port Denarau, and had to take a photo of it as well I’m surprised how much caffeine they pack into those bottles, actually! I’m a pretty steady coke drinker, and I’m sure that had more of a kick than your standard bottle of Coke. Maybe it was the lack of soft drink on that trip (mainly cause I was drinking beer 95% of the time) but I could of sworn that was more of a Red Bull like pick me up. Anyways

2 – Rich area. I mean RICH RICH. After visiting places like Suva, and even Noumea which was very commercial, still had its points of poverty (like most cities), this place was nothing but expense. Looking at the map a few minutes ago, I honestly thought (until now) that PD was actually a small island not connected to mainland Fiji, so no doubt a ten minute drive down the road would show you the rest of the place. Even so, If I had Bill Gates like wealth, I’d certainly pick up a place there for a holiday pad. WOW

This was one of the more interesting days. We didn’t have plans and took a little site seeing tour with one of the worse vans I have ever been in. In Australia, this thing wouldn’t pass inspection. The guy kind of ripped us off at the end of the day, but It was our fault not asking before how much it was going to cost. Our trip to Vanuatu we made very sure.

It also happened to be one of the busiest days of the year for them. They had their annual carnival on, and the streets were packed. We also discovered later the Rugby finals were also on. Teams from all of the Fiji islands came over to play, where the winning team would get over 2 grand in prize money – quite a lot for some of these people…

It was a very rainy, yucky day but at least cleared up a little by the time we got to the falls. That was gorgeous. We didn’t stay for long, but they had this nice little cafe up the top that would of been great just to sit and relax for an afternoon or something…

The funniest thing I noticed on the drive (which you can kind of hear on the video) was the music. Many different cultures co-exist on these islands, so the music ranged from top 40 pop, your typical reggae music you heard everywhere on the trip and Indian Bollywood music from the latest hit film that hit their shores. At one point the DJ was complaining about how she couldn’t get twitter on her mobile phone as she didn’t have an iphone and her current phone didn’t have a data plan. Somethings are the same the world over….