Vinney: chapter 2.
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- petzi
Chapter 2 uncut. Chapter 3 begins...
Hi,
Last mail was from Santiago airport, Chile, heres the latest...New Zealand was a devastating bore after South America. Auckland is the only
place I had time for (4 days in NZ in total, so no point venturing off). It
was awful. I arrived on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, thinking it would
be more kicking than a 7 legged angry donkey. It wasn?t. Not even nearly.
New Zealand amazingly have the most idiotic licensing law of all time over
that weekend. No alcohol to be sold on Good Friday at all. And none on
Easter Sunday. So everyone flies off to visit family Christmas stylee, and
no one goes out really.So what?s Auckland like?
A super-organised toy town on the outskirts that looks like its been taken
from the (good) film "The Truman Show". Differently shaped neat little boxes
are home to most Aucklanders. Unlike most cities, they don?t really do
apartments in the centre.The brash centre, near the "nice" bay, with its ultra modern everything
feels like a massive soulless Brighton Marina. It is home to (im not making
this up) hundreds of boy racers. They are everywhere. All driving Japanese
imported loud cars, fast. Its not big, and its not clever. Going out of the
hostel to get food or whatever was just like the (poor) film "Fast and
Furious" at times. They thrash round the sanitised and uninspiring centre
like they have somewhere important to get to, ironically though it was only
me, the English pedestrian that wanted to get anywhere fast. Away.Auckland is home to The Sky Tower, a quite ugly tower that?s
aimed at me, the tourist. An utter rip off but worth a visit, its high.I am sure NZ is great outside Auckland, but if you find yourself in Auckland
for the Easter Weekend, good luck to you. Its the first time I felt bored
since I was working in Horsham, honestly.Since I am winging, I could also tell you that it rained a lot, I went to a
comedy club (with an English pillock I couldn?t avoid from my room) which
was cringe-tasticly awful comedy. No smoking too, how ridiculous is that. I
smoked and drank beer at a petrol station in Brasil whilst dancing Samba,
now I cant have a fag in a comedy club? At my lowest point, with no money,
stuck in the hostel because of a storm, I met a couple from Steyning, (Near
my home town), that "like shopping in lovely Worthing because of its great
shopping facilities. Not like that awful noisy Brighton". Not an opinion I
share you see.Now that was Auckland, about the most opposite of Buenos Aires as possible,
(Probably my favourite place to date). So could my next stop be better?
Fiji, had Fiji got what it takes?Too damn right it did.
FIJI:
Re-united with Tom and Mike (Good friends from home), once again. Since I
last saw them in Argentina, I have travelled a lot and they have too, all in
different places so the first few hours were spent blabbing exchanging
stories and chad photos.After spending one night in Nadi (Fiji is the name for all the islands of
Fiji, east of the biggest island, you?ll find Nadi), we ventured to
BeachComber Island, an organised tourist only island with everything
included in one price (GBP25 per day includes dorm accommodation and food,
booze is expensive so we took some cheap crap that we had bought
previously).BeachCombers location is stunning. Sandy beach and turqcoise waters surround
this dessert island. To give you an idea of scale, I walked casually around
the whole island in 13 minutes. Days were spent doing a variety of things in
the consistent beautiful sunshine from wakeboarding to snorkelling. There
was a stunning coral reef, home to some amazing looking fish. Some as
beautiful as nature could make, others looked like John Presscott. Night
time was great, but a little disappointing. The band, who were barely alive
were slower than a two legged centapede with a limp, whilst the bar closed
at a disappointing midnight. Of course we tucked into our own booze every
night till the small hours and one of our 4 nights we stayed up to see the
sun rise over the Pacific Ocean. It was an explosion of colour that
magnified my stoned condition in a blissful way, lying on the beach in the
sand smiling.After another night in Nadi, we hired a car and headed to the capital, Suva.
We stopped at a local house/shack in the middle of nowhere for a cup of tea
and the family were so excited they pulled out the special biscuits and
nearly bubbled over with excitement. Like most Fijians, they have never left
Fiji. Like a hell of a lot of Fijians, they were Indian, Ill explain later.
The heap of sh1t Daowoo we hired broke down in a Suva petrol station which
is where things got weird.The INCREDIBLY friendly locals who were knocking about the petrol station
doing what Fijians do (nothing) helped us call the hire place who came out
to fix it, in the mean time we were brought oil drums and cardboard to sit
on, given joints to smoke, hand-shaken to death, and given Cava. Now Cava is
a drink, made with a ground down root, its non-alchoholic, drunk through
half a coconut that?s dipped into a bowl of the stuff, it looks similar to
dish water, it makes you feel well mellow and if you drink it for years you
become like a Fijian, incapable of giving a straight answer, but amazingly
good at staring deep into your eyes, shaking your hand on a regular basis
and laughing like a hyena on acid about nothing in particular. They really
do have to be seen. The car hire people came out (later than they said they
would by an hour or so) armed with no tools and no torch, they couldn?t fix
a drink. In the end the security guards friends, friend came by in the
typical local dress style, (anything you like and flip flops, although the
traffic police wear sarongs and luminous jackets, seriously) and re-wired
the battery which had come loose. No one had thought of that. On we went,
tiered and incapable of a large night in Suva.Fiji is a really incredible place, it is officially the oddest place I have
ever been, although its quite difficult to explain why. It?s the locals you
see. Firstly, 50% of them (official figure) are Indian. They came over in
their masses a few generations ago mostly, but have been going like bunnies
since. As for the other 50%, the Fijians, well they are just hilarious. They
don?t really mean to be but believe me, they are. Mostly its their pace.
Which by now you will see is slow. Also they just LOVE the Brits. Maybe its
cos Her Maj is still on the bank notes of this ex-colony country.The day after Suva we drove back on the islands main North road, that turned
out to be a massive dirt track over waterfalls and through dense rain
forest, we met locals that insisted on swopping addresses even though we had
just stopped to buy some bananas from their wooden crumbling stall (the only
thing they sold). We saw men, women and babies on rafts cruising the
rainforst rivers and manically shouting BULA!, the local greeting. Mike rode
some of the journey on the roof whilst I drove, (we didn?t see any other
cars for hours so we wernt worried about the police, who wouldn?t have given
a sh1t anyway), all the Fijians thought this was perfectly normal, they were
more concerned in trying to get us to stop so we could have a coconut with
them. One village we stopped at to introduce ourselves were so pleased to
see us they sent one of the local machetee holding blokes (one of about 200
seen that day) up a tree to chop us off some coconuts. We must have had 500
people shout Bula! at us that day, no exaggeration, they were coming from
every angle you can imagine. Shouting it from the hilltops and running out
of their houses. When we arrived back at Nadi at 9pm, 9 hrs late to get the
car back, we had successfully had a large slice of Fiji. We had become
Fijian in our time-keeping, and we had just finished a day I will remember
for the rest of my life, Fiji is amazing, not the touristy bits they?re OK I
guess, the real Fiji, 100%. Very happy with that.So now I am in Sydney, which I will update you on some time, too early for
an opinion yet I guess?. Lets see what happens now huh?Keep up the emails,
All the very best to ya, hope you had great Easter and all is well with you,Take care,
Vinney X
- jevad0
fantastic writing!!
- unknown0
sounds like he's having a better time than me, stuck in the office all day stressing my tits off.
- Lop0
very inspiring! I want to travel now!!!!
- sexypixel0
Welcome to Sydney Vinney, head out to the cross if your out for a few bevies tonight, its always lively down there.
Ive heard Aukland is a bit sterile. Wellington is where its at, and with scenery like The Lord of the Rings i think New Zealand had alot more to offer you. Pity you didnt try and go away. Most people do what we europeans like to do on Easter long weekend, and thats to Get the hell out of the city!!!
keep the reports comming