Around the World: Nadi

January 5, 1992

Back in Nadi after a fairly uneventful bus ride from Lautoka.  I found a place to stay and gave it a thorough inspection for uninvited six legged flying guests. There are screens on the windows, and I know I'm in Fiji because there is no light in the bathroom.

It is unbelievably hot.  I can't even begin to describe the intensity of the heat.  At the hotel bar, the two ladies tending the cafe joined me for lunch while I tried to find a beverage that would keep me hydrated long enough to actually drink it.  They mentioned a beach, just a short walk from the hotel, down the road and around the corner.  A dip in the ocean.  Sounds like heaven.

Towel and water in hand, I start making the short walk to the beach.  The road I've been instructed to follow bends to the left just up in the distance.  When I arrive at the bend, the road continues, bending to the right.  At that point, the road continues and bends and continues and bends.  I have consumed more than half of the water I brought with me, which is now the temperature of tea.  I'm on an island so there is obviously a beach somewhere, but not here, where it would be most useful to me now.

Disappointed and dehydrated, I walk back to the hotel and straight into my room.  Flip flops, bathing suit and beach jumper still on, I continue straight into the shower and stand under the spray of cold water until I am shivering.  Perhaps a quiet day preparing for the flight to Sydney tomorrow, close to an ample supply of cold water is for the best.

The beds in the dorm are odd.  The four bunk beds are stacked three high, connected to metal poles that are secured floor to ceiling.  There's no conceivable way to get up to the top bunk, no ladder, no steps, no trampoline.  I only hope there's also no giant, bionic bugs.

Yes, these things are actually this big.
Photo by Anastayshere

I'm woken up by a storm pummeling the metal roof.  The rain sounds hard enough to puncture through the structure, if not the island itself.  The ferocious thunder rips through the air, shredding through my body, making me feel like a plucked guitar string.  The lightning is so intense, it transforms the blackness of a small island in the vastness of the Pacific into daylight for several seconds.  In those moments where the room is temporarily lit, I can see the metal pole supports of the beds are all covered with cockroaches.  

• ¤ •

"There are times when fear is good.
It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls."
~Aeschylus

Around the World: Fauna

January 4, 1992

I have discovered that here, in our room, we are not alone. 

It's dark, being very early in the morning, and the curry I had for dinner has other ideas. Jeanette is sound asleep in the bunk below me.  Quietly, I make my way to the loo, only to discover that the bathroom has no light. The only source of light is the incandescent bulb sticking out of the wall by my pillow on the top bunk.  Not wanting to disturb my sleeping room mate, I drape a white bed sheet over the opening to the bottom bunk, which successfully diffuses the bright light that I must now inflict upon the dark room. 

As I'm minding my own business in the dimly lit bathroom, my attention is caught by a long wriggling thing sticking out from behind the shower curtain.  I'm fixated on it, curious.  The tentacle brushes the shower curtain slightly aside and I realize that the wriggling thing is the antenna of the biggest (cursing on all things holy) cockroach I've ever seen!  This thing is easily four inches long.  It suddenly occurs to me that I'm not all that comfortable sharing a bathroom with a bug that size.  Whatever it was I was doing, I'll do later.

I bolt for the brighter lit bedroom and search for an object of death.  I never thought of my big feet as a blessing.  Until now.  How terribly inconvenient for Roachie.  My search for lethal footwear produces a rubber flip-flop.   I had a feeling these would be useful!

This is not your everyday, common North American cockroach.  I've seen kittens that weren't this big.  I don't trust that one hearty whack with a hand held flip-flop will do the trick. I put the rubber sandal on my foot, while I track the bug's progress out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.  Stalking my prey, I carefully calculate my attack... and pounce!

Once it's under my sandal, I give it the obligatory, full-weight squish and twist maneuver, and the crunching sound is most satisfactory.  Unconvinced, the attack also includes stepping out of the sandal and jumping on top of it with my full weight, just in case it's not dead enough the first time.  I kill it again, and again, and again.  Believing that Roachie has been sufficiently murdered, I breathe a sigh of relief, still standing on the sandal of doom.  What was nature thinking when it created that thing?  It's obviously something prehistoric.  Alas, the curry I had for dinner has plans for me now.  I lift up the sandal to inspect the carnage.

There's Roachie, right where he should be.  Flat.  Squished.  Dead.  Roachie is also something else.

Indestructible!

Roachie suddenly returns to it's normal shape and takes off in flight.  Around my head!

Janet Leigh Psycho shower scene
Courtesy Rex Features

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!!

I am witlessly terrified, defensively flailing and flapping at Roachie and in one lucky swat, I knock the Bionic Bug to the floor where it continues to scurry, unphased, under the bed.

Meanwhile, Jeanette is woken up during my flailing to a sound not unlike the shower scene in the movie, Psycho.  She's surrounded in white and believing I am being murdered, attempts to exit the bed through the wall, just as Roachie is crawling up the same wall and is now, a mere millimeters from her face.  Jeanette leaps out of bed, ass first, and lands in my arms.

I'm still holding her when she turns to me and calmly says, "Stop screaming."

Oh, I was wondering where that noise was coming from.

I put Jeanette on her own feet and we stare silently at the very large insect on the wall, which is now sunning itself by the light of the incandescent bulb above my pillow.  I foolishly think that we are working on a similar solution.

"Give me your shoe," Jeanette demands, holding out her hand.

Obviously, I was mistaken. "That's not a good idea!" I respond, "That thing can fly!"

"Just. Give. Me. Your. Shoe."

Well, I tried.

I hand her my sandal and move to the door, preparing the knob for a speedy exit.  By the time my sandal is barely out of Jeanette's hand, I am already out the door.  From within our room, I can hear Jeanette screaming, followed by the thumping and banging of the door as she tries to escape. The crescendo of footsteps in the corridor indicates that Jeanette is not far behind me.

We head to the front desk for help, where we blurt out the words, "attacked" and "bug" and "big".  The clerk disappears below the counter without a word, and eventually reappears with a large can wrapped in plain white paper and a rolled up newspaper.  He asks us to take him to our room.  When we arrive, he instructs us to wait outside.

He enters our room and the only audible sounds from within are the aerosol can spraying, Psssssst!, the newspaper smacking something, Phwap!, and the sound of the toilet flushing.  Phwap! Phwap! Psssssst! Phwap! Pssssst! Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssst! Phwap! Flush...  Phwap! Flush...  Flush...  Pssssssssssst! Flush... Phwap! Phwap! Pssssssssssst! Phwap! Flush... Flush...Flush... Pssssst! Phwap! Flush...  Flush... Psssst! Phwap!

The clerk finally emerges from our room, some 20 minutes later.  The newspaper is bent and tattered, and the aerosol can is dented.  He wipes the sweat dripping from his brow on his shirt sleeve and says, "It's under the garbage can.  Don't lift it up."

What? Seriously?!?  I can hear its footsteps as it races around the rim.  The metal bin moves with each twang of Rochie's body flying into the side.  NASA should build space shuttles out of these things! 

Don't lift the garbage can.... O! K!

I think I'm going to need some liquid courage to go to bed tonight.  Beer!??!?!!

• ¤ •

Never argue with a fool.  Someone watching may not be able to tell the difference.
~Mark Twain

Around the World: Lautoka

January 3, 1992

After an unexpectedly comfortable night, Jeanette and I hitched a ride for 40 cents into town and after waiting several hours in the midday sun at the Rakiraki bus depot, we caught a bus to Lautoka.  On a stop along the way, the bus was swarmed by people trying to sell water and food.  It is sweltering, humid and sauna-like hot, the slightest movement produces so much perspiration, I think I might actually be melting.

The taxi driver at the Lautoka bus depot insisted on taking us to the Cathay Hotel, which charges more than either of us want to pay.  Having been through this just the night before, we insisted he drive us to our choice of destination, and nowhere else if he expected any money.  He tried to convince us that the hotel we chose was $20 more than we thought it was.  We told him again to do the driving and we would choose the destination.  He drove us to the hotel we wanted and escorted us to the front desk.  After I confirmed the $6 price with the manager, who was now livid for the attempt to direct business away from his hotel, Jeanette and I headed to our room while the manager had a very boisterous conversation with the taxi driver.

The place has changed quite a bit since I stayed here.
Photo courtesy of TripAdvisor

The room service crew was just leaving as we arrived, which was comforting.  Jeanette and I dropped off our bags and headed down to the dining room.  It's almost 7pm and the first meal of the day will be tonight's dinner of chicken curry and rice for $4.50.  The only place to get a cheaper meal is in Suva.  Regardless, it is delicious and filling.  Exploring Latouka will have to wait until tomorrow.

It is so unbelievably hot and thick with humidity it's almost painful.  The room has a bunk bed, a light bulb sticking out from the wall just above my pillow on the top bunk, a fan, and a private bathroom with toilet, sink and a massive shower stall.

The shower head is close to 2 feet wide.  While it may be odd looking, it's odd appearance is forgivable as the cool water falling from it is exactly the refreshment I need.

• ¤ •

"How I wish that somewhere there existed an island 
for those who are wise and of good will"

~Albert Einstein