From my short time here, I can already tell that there are many differnt sides fo Fiji, and only one of them comes to mind when the average foreigner thinks of the country. Although Fiji's economy is largely centered on tourism, the problem with the industry here is that tourists are ushered into the country, and, with the exception of backpackers, spend all of their time in resorts. So the rest of the country doesn't benefit from their spending as much as it should--there aren't really restaurants or night clubs (or at least not as many as expected) because the tourists are holed up in their resorts. And with that comes the dual image of Fiji: tourists think of the country as beautiful lagoons and tourquise seas, palm trees and sand, when in reality it is much more. In fact, much of the landscape doesn't even fit that description (the Eastern side of the island is wet rainforest, the West is dry bushland. From what little I've seen, Fiji is brightly painted corrugated tin houses surrounded by haphazard flowers and lines of laundry, whitewashed mosques, hand-painted signs, buses withought windows blaring reggae music, boys schools playing rugby in crisp white skirts, streets lined with hitch-hikers and grubby children. But last week my family and Taiwanese guests went to one of the above described inclusive resorts and it was, nevertheless, absolutely beautiful. Here's a picture of the ocean.
1 comment:
That's exactly what I thought when I was in Tahiti. We were on a really nice plane flight where they gave use flowers after dinner and where we we surrounded by newlyweds with honkin big diamonds. When we got off the plane all those big diamonds were wisked away in airconed buses and we got into a grimey little hatchback and went to a little pension. I didn't see the Tahiti eveyone talks about except on the plane.
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