The Other Side

South pacific—Fiji had never occurred to me. I guess it conjured up images of coconuts and elaborately patterned shirts, but so did a lot of places. I’d never planned on going there until a couple of days before my flight from New Zealand to LA, the airline rep told me I could stop over for no additional cost.

“In Fiji? ”

“It’s very nice there,” she said.

At this point, though — having just spent over a month in Australia and New Zealand, mostly working — I was looking for a particular kind of nice. I wanted to relax before returning to North America, but also to feel like I was actually on the other side of the world. Oz and New Zealand felt too much like home, only warmer.

By the time I touched down at the international airport in Nadi, I’d learned two things about Fiji: it consists of about 330 islands, and it is hosting an ongoing military coup. But I was tired and had decided, for four nights and five days, to quit being a journalist.

“I’ve only got a short time,” I told the woman at the airport information booth. “I want to go somewhere close yet secluded, beautiful yet inexpensive.” Fortunately, Fijians speak subtle forms of English and don’t mind a challenge. She put me in a taxi that drove half an hour to a dock with a waiting boat. We crossed the water. The sun was setting as a small island came into view.

It was postcard lovely. Beneath a giant palm frond roof, between the buffet table and the bar, a smiling young woman greeted me with a sunset-layered drink. “Hi. My name is Maria,” she said. “Welcome.” I asked about the accommodations. “For $100, you can be in an indigenous beachfront bure. They are very comfortable and private. Or you can stay in the communal bure for only $40.”

That was about $25 Canadian, but I liked the idea of my own place and told her so.

“Yes,” she said. “But, well, you’re the only one here.” And that is how, within an hour of arriving in Fiji, I’d acquired my own private island: a large, air-conditioned beachfront house with six beds, two bathrooms, and hammocks out front; a crystalline swimming pool by the bar; a buffet table filled with food, just for me. And then, once I was fed, the staff of eight boarded a boat back to the mainland — leaving me alone on the island, but for Big Killy.