Part of the joy of travelling is the experience of encountering and experiencing things. Things that you’ve never seen, smelt, tasted, heard or felt before.
And in that respect, Fiji ticked all those boxes.
New sights
I’d never seen a cava ceremony before let alone heard of it until I went to Fiji.
So what is it? It is a ceremony that is performed by a village to welcome guests into it. It is believed that once you are welcomed into a village you are family. Then to seal this, you partake of a cava drink. This is made from dried, pounded cava root mixed with water.
I’ve been told it tastes like chocolate milk. I can assure you it doesn’t taste anything like that. It isn’t sweet, bitter or salty if you are wondering. It is bland and chalky. But, if you go on a village tour, you are likely to encounter this and it would be quite rude not to participate.
I also saw some beautiful carvings that are unique to the Fijians. There were animal carvings of which the shark, dolphin and turtle were the most popular. There were also carvings of axes they would use in battle and urns of all shapes and sizes.
Another popular item you might find in the tourist shop are personal care products made from coconut oil. They do smell and feel really beautiful too.
Then of course, there were the amazing and beautiful underwater world of fish, coral, sea anemones and also shark, turtles, snakes and manta rays. I did see a shark in my time while snorkelling alone – but that’s another story for another time.
New smells and tastes
I think these two go together – smell and taste. Because that would be the case for the Fijian curries that we had for breakfast on Mantaray Island Resort. There were also semi-familiar tastes of mocktails made up of coconut milk plus some other refreshing fruit blends as well.
I also had the experience of drinking freshly grated and squeezed coconut milk straight from a strainer made from a fibrous part of the coconut palm trunk. You could not get coconut milk any fresher than that!
New sounds
I loved the Fijian meke – their cultural dances and songs that we had many opportunities to see. I loved how they enacted their history and traditional practices through such energetic and beautiful dances and song. It is a wonderful way of keeping the stories of one’s roots alive.
My ears were also exposed to the Fijian language. There are quite a number of Fijian dialect but the official one is Bauan. English and Tamil are the other two official languages in Fiji. Because of this, it is quite easy to communicate with the Fijians even if you speak only English.
Bula! And Vinaka are the two most often used phrases. The former means Welcome/Hello while the latter means thank you. Bula is usually said with great enthusiasm. So don’t be taken aback. We were told during one tour that if our Bula wasn’t loud enough, we might not get lunch! (I’m sure our guide was just kidding! But I don’t know what the Fijian word would be for ‘just kidding’!)
New textures
Now this one is a ‘cheat’ – because it is not actually a true texture as such but bumpy pimple sized raised blisters and bumps on my arms and legs from sea lice stings I incurred while snorkelling! No one had told me about these sea lice but apparently, they are well known by the locals. They were super itchy and it took quite a few weeks to completely heal up. If you want to know more about these, you can read it on my blog post on it.
Another new textural experience was jackfruit sap. That has it’s own story and you if you are in a reading mood, you can read it here. But suffice to say, it was sticky and sappy and pretty difficult to remove.
Snapping and mapping
And as a local guide, I did what most would do when they are out and about visiting new places – take photos, do edits, reviews and add new places. Although, how does one change the name of an island that has been renamed by its new owner? If you do find out, do let me know.
What new sights, smells, tastes, sounds and textures have you experienced as a local guide recently?
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