It's Friday here, which means its Thursday by you

I'm here in Suva, Fiji's capital city at an internet cafe full of dudes playing weird warcraft games. Just an average evening! We just had dinner at a yummy curry house and found this cafe next door. Half of Fiji's population is Indo-Fijian, descendants of Indians who came here as indentured servants in colonial times. I believe the political tension here is due to the split population thing but our book says not to ask anyone about it because apparently its TOUCHY....so I have no insights. Its interesting though, there are many places in Fiji renowned for Indian cooking and you can see both Hindu temples as well as Indian mosques around.

Today we took a very touristy tour from Nadi along the one road that goes along the southern coastline, we were taken on a longboat to see some waterfalls and went far up the Navua river to see a "traditional" Fijian village. It involved singing and dancing, welcoming ceremonies and many thoughts on my part on the notion of authenticity. I'll spare you the bulk of it, but it is endlessly fascinating to me how not only tourists view locals, but how locals choose to "perform" their culture for tourists. We also had a kava ceremony which is done whenever someone enters a village and is still done in most communities, not only for tourists. Kava is a root that gets crushed up and mixed with water to form a drink, its supposed to make you relaxed and can numb your tongue and lips. We didn't see the rest of the village, it was basically like they take the tourists to this one building to do all the stuff and then send them on. Although we did get a look at the medical clinic which receives donations from tourists and serves around 20 surrounding villages.

When we got off the river Lauren and I arranged to catch a local bus the rest of the way to Suva instead of heading back with the rest of the group. Tomorrow we'll see the Fiji Museum and some of the city before heading back to Nadi, we fly to Sydney Sunday morning. So far we're having a great time and lots of fun....Lots of love to all!