----- New York -----
I leave Boston on 20th September; Greyhound to New York where I catch up with Conor. It's only 9 days after the World Trade Center attacks, yet to me New York seems the same as usual, all hustle and bustle. According to Conor and Sheila (his sister) things are only now returning to something like normality. We stay with Conor�s brother Brian, and from his Union Square apartment we can see the glow of floodlights from "Ground Zero".
----- California -----
On Friday we fly to LA and make our way to Venice where we�re greeted by our host Sharkey, an old friend of Conor�s brother. �Welcome to the hood, boys�. It�s a crowded house as also visiting Sharkey and his roommates Danny and Martha are Gerry and Catherine who are on their way to honeymoon in Hawaii. We head down to O�Brien�s in Santa Monica in the evening, but I�m so shattered from my early morning flight that I fall asleep on my feet; hopefully not a sign of things to come, as there�s plenty travelling to be done!
On Saturday we get the Shark tour of LA. A drive through Downtown, up to the Griffith Observatory to see the Hollywood sign (neither Conor nor I have film in our cameras!), a stroll along Hollywood Blvd to see the stars on the pavement and the Chinese Theatre, a visit to Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills and a drive along Santa Monica Beach.
At night we�re all invited round to the neighbours (Nelly, Kristen and April) for dinner. This is a great plan � we can start where we mean to continue by eating with the locals and finding out about the traditions of the area we�re visiting. Unfortunately it turns out that the girls are from New Jersey, so they tell us all about Bruce Springsteen.
On Sunday we head down to Venice Beach for a stroll and some lunch. You�d think that LA in September would still be beach weather, but in fact Conor is wearing his fleece. It seems that while most of LA has sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s, the beaches are lucky to be hitting 70 with hazy skies. Apparently this is quite typical. Venice beach is an interesting place (or at least the promenade is �cos there�s nobody on the beach itself) with lots of stalls and tables with people trying to either sell you stuff or tell you stuff. My favourite stall was the one with the guy handing out the �Stop circumcision� leaflets.
Sunday night we go up to the Pasadena Rose Bowl for a Major League Soccer game between the LA Galaxy and the NY/NJ Metrostars. This was the site of the World Cup Final in �94, and yesterday there were 100,000 here for a UCLA college (American) football game. However, today I reckon there can�t be more than about 12000 in the stadium. It�s actually not too bad a game and finishes 1-1.
On Monday Conor and I hire a car and head down to San Diego for a couple of days. It�s an OK place, but just another American city and not a patch on Boston. We go down to the Gaslamp District to check out the nightlife and of course there�s not much happening on a Monday night. Conor is delighted to find that there�s a bunch of Irish pubs here; I am less impressed. But we both jump at the chance to go into the Field for a couple of pints of Harp. (At this stage you could be forgiven for thinking we�re back at our old local in Cambridge, but you�d be mistaken - we always drank Stella in there!) On entry to a rather posh establishment called The Bitter End, the bouncer asks Conor to remove his baseball cap. Little does he know that it is concealing the David Beckham-style shaved mohican that he�s been wearing for the last couple of weeks! (Conor later shaved off the mohican as he was worried that he would become a role model for the children of the South Pacific!).
On Tuesday we go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park � sort of like a zoo, except that many species of animal are mixed together, with a lot more space than you�d expect in a traditional zoo. It�s an interesting day out, and reasonably priced since it�s a non-profit organization. At night we go back to the Field at 8pm for the 8:30pm pub quiz� and it�s already started! Perhaps the Gaslamp District is an hour ahead of the rest of San Diego?
On Wednesday we go to Seaworld as Conor is desperate to see Shamu, the killer whale. I can�t help thinking that this place is a bit of a con � it�s double the price of the wild animal park just to see dolphins and whales doing tricks. We even saw elephants doing tricks yesterday (but at a slightly slower pace). Then we hop into the car and spend 4 hours driving back to LA, half of it stuck in freeway traffic, with our destination being Dodger Stadium for a baseball game between the LA Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. It�s a nice stadium (nicer than it looks on TV), and we have tickets in the third tier of four in line with 3rd base. Great seats for $15 � I�m sure this is cheaper than the cheapest seat I had at Fenway this year. The Giants win 6-4; Barry Bonds doesn�t homer, but we later heard that he hit 73 for the season, breaking Mark McGwire�s record.
On Thursday, after running some errands, we say thanks to Sharkey and head to the airport for our flight to Tahiti. As the newsagent shuts before our plane leaves, I spend our last $8 in duty free on a box of Lindt Swiss Thins. Conor gets on the plane wearing a vest-top, shorts, sandals and a baseball cap on backwards. The Air New Zealand steward tells him �Sorry sir, we have a dress-code on this aircraft�! I think I might enjoy the NZ sense of humour. We settle down in our seats to eat our chocolate; this backpacking business might not be so bad after all.
---- Tahiti ----
OK, let�s start with some terminology. Tahiti is actually the main island of French Polynesia, although the name �Tahiti� is often used when referring to all the islands in the group. We arrive on Tahiti itself on Friday 28th September around 5am. We get �le truck� into the capital Papeete. �Le truck� is the local bus service � it�s essentially the front of a small lorry (truck for those in the US) with a wooden carriage attached to the back which holds around 20 people. Even at 6am our truck is jammed with kids on the way to school and when we arrive in Papeete we see that hoards of them have already arrived. We can�t get into our hostel straight away so I go for breakfast. It seems quite expensive here, so I have a Croque Monsieur which is the cheapest thing on the menu at 350F (around $3 US). I�m then shocked when my bill comes to 880F � that was a rather expensive glass of orange juice I had with it.
You may have noticed that there�s a bit of a French language thing here, and indeed the French influence is very marked. Language, food, you name it.
We get into our very small room in Teamo Hostel around 11am, ready for a good sleep. However, we are right beside a very noisy building site, and the 2.5 walls we have round our room are not likely to keep the noise out. I sleep anyway, although I�m continually woken by banging, shouting and singing, as well as a rather heavy shower of rain.
The next couple of days are very lazy. There�s not much to do in Papeete, and it seems awkward and/or expensive to see the rest of Tahiti. Maybe we should have hopped straight onto the boat to Bora Bora, but another 8 hours travelling just did not appeal. Each day is marked by a heavy shower around lunchtime. On Saturday night, our new next door neighbours are Fiona and Julie, both from the Glasgow area. We hang around with them quite a bit the next couple of days, having dinner down at the harbour at �les roulettes�. These are mobile food vans which at home would serve fast food and not much else, but here there is good quality food, and it�s relatively inexpensive. The girls are coming to the end of their travelling, and they give us good advice (we hope!) on India, Oz and NZ. They also tell us to get our backsides in gear and get off Tahiti where it doesn�t even seem like you�re in the tropics. They�ve just been in the closest island Moorea, and they advise us to go there.
When the girls head off on Sunday we give them the remainder of our chocolates from LAX. I must keep a mental note that girls will do anything for chocolate (in this case Julie and Fiona gave us their half-used phonecard!).
On Monday we take the 30 minute catamaran journey across to Moorea. The bus trip round to the other side of the island to our hostel at Chez Nelson shows us scenery we hadn�t seen on Tahiti. This really could be a tropical paradise! The sea is bright blue, the palms are swaying gently in the breeze� yeah, yeah, you get the picture. I don�t take any photos �cos we�ll get them tomorrow rather than from a moving bus. On arrival at our hostel we sit down for half an hour just to chill out. It starts raining around 11am� the lunchtime shower has come a little early today we think. By 3pm, we wonder if the rain will ever stop. Eventually I decide to get the waterproof out for the first time on the trip and go and explore. I go for a paddle and the water is amazingly warm, but it�s not quite the same when it�s raining is it? By night-time the rain has eased, but it�s windy and quite chilly. Conor has brought a sleeping bag with him that is so thick it should have a temperature rating on the Kelvin scale. He was expecting not to use it until later in the trip, but he needs it tonight.
On Tuesday it looks a bit brighter, and we decide to rent bikes to cycle round the island. There seems to be a bit of a bike shortage so we decide to go for a walk instead and it starts raining again. It rains on and off all day, and by the time we get back home we�ve covered 27km. I didn�t even have my hiking shoes on, and my trainers are dirty and soaked through. As recommended by the girls we have dinner round the corner at Cocos. I have the Sashimi which they�d told me was a local dish and very nice. It turns out to be raw tuna � not bad though. We drink 3 very nice Mai Tais and then are given another on the house. French Polynesian hospitality at it�s best?
On Wednesday it�s time to get the boat back to Tahiti. It�s raining again, and I still don�t have any decent photos! As we�ve got all day to kill before our flight out, we splash out on a car (nearly $80) to explore Tahiti. We drive round the island and discover that there really isn�t anything to see here, except for a blow hole and a couple of waterfalls. Perhaps we should have splashed out even more on a 4WD tour. Afterwards we dig in at the airport in advance of our 4:55am flight to the Cook Islands.
---- Cook Islands ----
We arrive on Rarotonga (the main island in the Cooks) early morning Thursday 4th October. A nicer welcome this time � we get picked up by Lily who takes us and others to Tiare Village hostel, very close to the airport. This place is like night and day compared to Teamo in Tahiti. In fact, I imagine we won�t stay at a nicer place for most of the trip, certainly not at $10 US per head. We have a twin room with our own kitchen and bathroom, and we�re right beside the pool (OK, it�s only about 4m across but it�s still a pool). After a quick sleep, Lily makes us a cup of tea and then gives us a lift into Avarua (the main town) so we can look around. It�s immediately obvious that everything is a lot cheaper than in Tahiti. As it�s a 30 minute walk back to our hostel we hire bikes for the week for roughly $12 US each. I haven�t been on a bike for years (primary 7 might not be far off), and am a comical sight as I try to figure out how to ride it.
Again we have a lazy first few days, partly because we�re getting rain showers every day. We have a good night at the dancin� at the Staircase in Avarua on Friday along with Seamus and Christina (from Ireland) and Lorena (from Mexico). There�s a nice mix of tourists and locals and Conor gets a dance with Mama Josie � an older woman who organises nightlife tours of the island. (Apparently she is also president of the Rarotonga netball association). On Saturday we have our first real contact with the locals when Conor, Lorena and I have dinner at Paulina�s Polynesian Restaurant (I have steak, eggs + chips�). We�re joined at the table by two older men; Tulau (dunno how it�s spelled) and David (I think I got that one right). Tulau has only about three teeth and at first I think that�s why I can�t understand what he�s saying. But perhaps it�s because he�s drunk! David on the other hand is definitely drunk, and a little on the pushy side. He tells me that Scotland are terrible at rugby, and he is actually having a go at me. He tells Lorena that in the Cooks women don�t talk while the men are eating, but she�s happy enough to keep out of this conversation! We make a quick exit when he goes to the toilet.
On the way up the road, Conor and Lorena quite commendably on a trip like this are interested in finding out about other cultures. Conor asks me �Davie, do Protestants read the Bible?� and �Davie, do Protestants celebrate Christmas?� Obviously Conor is taking the mickey, but Lorena seems genuinely interested. Back at the hostel we find that there�s a set of Edinburgh monopoly and of course have to have a game. Conor wins; I should never have let him have Tynecastle.
On Sunday morning we go to church. Yes, that�s right, I said church. We go to the Cook Islands Christian Church in Avarua. It was built in 1825, and was formed from a combination of Church of England, Methodist and something else which I�m afraid I can�t remember. The singing, both before and during the service is fantastic, but somehow the hymns themselves aren�t sung with so much gusto. Strange. The service lasts 90 minutes. I�d like to blame the seven christenings for this, but I get the feeling it would have lasted this long anyway. Opposite us on the other side of the balcony are a group of around 50 youths visiting from a local Catholic church. I�m amused that they are all dressed in green, white and gold shirts� even in the Cooks they�re jumping on the Henrik Larsson bandwagon! Interestingly our friends from last night Tulau and David are in church. They don�t appear to be nursing sore heads. After church there�s tea, cakes and sandwiches for all the visitors in the hall.
In the afternoon, Conor and I cycle round the island. I have become an accomplished cyclist now, but my knees are agony afterwards. On Monday we keep up the active lifestyle as Seamus, Conor and I play a round of golf. It�s a nice day for it, but again we get showers during the back nine. Seamus wins easily, and I bring up the rear with 126. The highlight of my round was a par 3 at the 7th.
On Tuesday we�re really on a fitness drive as Seamus, Christina and Lorena join us for the cross island walk. It�s supposed to be quite easy, but in my opinion is anything but! We hike up a steep ridge to the base of the needle, one of the high points on the island. The views are not bad, but the low cloud and rain spoil things a little. Although the hike up was steep, it was relatively easy as there were plenty of tree roots and branches to help us out. However, on the way back down for large parts we don�t have the benefit of these, and the mud is making things very slippy. With the exception of Conor we all struggle on the way down, taking around 3 hours (it only took us about 40 minutes to get up there. At the bottom, after battling the mud and crossing a stream umpteen times, I�ve only gone on my backside once! On the way back I pop into our local shop for a refreshment and discover that the owner is a Hearts fan from Edinburgh! I think that I deserve a reward for the hike, so Conor and I head into town and have dinner at Trader Jacks. This is a rather fancy seafood restaurant, and very nice too. Quite possibly it�s the nicest meal we�ll have for a while!
Our last night in Rarotonga is spent having a meal with Seamus, Christina and Lorena, followed by a couple of drinks at the karaoke. Mama Josie is here, and singing. Is there no limit to her talents? She doesn't seem to remember Conor though. We bid farewell to Seamus and Christina - hopefully we'll meet up with them in Sydney in a few weeks. Next morning it's another anti-social departure time for our flight to Fiji.
---- Fiji ----
We arrive in Nadi, Fiji at 9:30am on Friday 12th October � we lost a day crossing the international date line. Up to this point our trip has been pretty much a holiday, and we�ve decided that we should really make more of an effort to get to know Fiji a little. So, we book on a 3 day/2 night trip into the highlands of Viti Levu (the main island of Fiji) to visit a traditional Fijian village. Lorena is still with us at this point, and decides to join us in the village.
Before departing, we have lunch in Nadi (pronounced Nandi). My sausage and chips costs 1 Fiji dollar (less than 50 cents US), so we�re already a bit worried that we�ve overpaid for the village trip (Fiji $230). We�re then driven up to the village on dirt roads. The trip takes about an hour, and the tour group uses 3 people to take us up there in a jeep. Perhaps that�s why the trip is so expensive!
On arrival at Uto Village we are taken to a bure (small thatched building made of bamboo), where we present a bundle of waka to the village chief � Vilive. This is a symbol that we have come as friends, and in accepting it he is welcoming us to the village. The waka is pounded to form a drink called kava, and along with our drivers and the chief we sit cross-legged (it�s considered rude to point your feet at anyone), to sample this local �delight�. To be honest, I don�t like it too much, but I down a few anyway in case I offend anyone! Kava is not alcoholic, but has some narcotic properties. The only affect it has on me is to temporarily numb my lips and tongue.
Our drivers leave and we are met by our host � Watisoni, a man in his early forties. He takes us to his house and introduces us to his family � his wife Eseta, sons Driu (17), Waqa (14), Iliesa (13), Vuki (7) and daughter Adi (3). The house is made of tin, as most of the houses in the village are, but they assure us that the traditional bures are making a comeback. The house is very basic � the living room has essentially no furniture and everyone just sits on the bamboo floor. We�re served dinner of soup, tapioca (pronounced tavioca � it�s a root vegetable) and bread fruit (I�m really not sure what this is!). Everyone has tea to drink, although Eseta makes me lemon tea especially as I�m not really a tea drinker. As there�s not really too much to do and there�s no electric lighting, we�re early to bed, although not before a visit to the outside toilet in pitch darkness! Conor, Lorena and I are all sleeping on the floor in a small bedroom, but I suppose this is comparative luxury because all the kids usually share this room!
Next morning the family are up very early. When I get up it seems like there�s been noise for a couple of hours, yet it�s not even 7am yet! Before breakfast we�re outside playing about with a tennis ball, and this breaks the ice with the kids, who really never said a word before. In fact, we discover that they can all speak English to a certain extent. Breakfast is Indian-style bread (almost 50% of the Fijian population is Indian, so there are certain influences even in the village). It�s filled with some sort of curry and is very nice. We also get some scone-like things, and tea again.
After breakfast, Watisoni takes the three of us on a hike to the next village, pointing out where the tapioca and bread fruit is growing on the way. It takes us about 90 minutes to get there, and even though we�re juts passing through, we present some powdered kava to the chief, and have a quick drink. We make our way to a waterfall, stopping on the way to dig out some tapioca which we�ll have for lunch. It�s becoming obvious to us that Watisoni�s family is a big landowner; we�ve walked for over an hour, yet we�re still on his land and so can grab some vegetables no problem. We arrive at the waterfall after a little climbing over boulders. On the way, Watisoni has been catching prawns from the stream with his spear. We collect some firewood and prepare to cook our lunch. Both the tapioca and the prawns are roasted in the fire, and the tapioca seems to taste much nicer this way. After lunch we�ve got the hike back to Uto, and it seems a long way in the heat (the rains of Tahiti and Rarotonga seem long ago now).
Back in the village we play (or attempt to play) some rugby with Waqa, Vuki and a couple of their friends. We�re running around barefoot on grassy/stony ground and it�s hurting my feet, but of course it�s no problem to the locals. The kids are rugby daft, as is everyone in Fiji it seems. Conor is often asked if he is a rugby player, but for some reason nobody asks me the same question! Once it gets dark we play some cards with the kids and their friends, and this helps break down the language barrier which exists with the younger ones. Dinner tonight is just sandwiches, although there�s the usual tapioca thrown in for good measure.
Next day is Sunday, a quiet day in the village, and the family is going to church. Conor thinks he can get out of going to church by saying he�ll go for a hike up a nearby hill, but Watisoni gets Driu to take him up and back before the service! After breakfast of bread and curry again, I get dressed for church. Watisoni gives me a sula, effectively a skirt, and a shirt to go along with it. I�m not sure what the underwear-code is when wearing a sula, so I decide not to be a true Fijian! On arrival in church, we sit down cross-legged (my knees and feet are getting really sore with all this). Waqa is a couple of rows in front of me and he motions to me to keep my knees covered with the sula. Conor and Driu arrive a few minutes into the service. Conor is wearing a sula along with his �Push out the jive� T-shirt, perhaps not traditional but it seems to work. When he sits down there is absolutely no chance that his sula can cover his knees, much to Vuki�s amusement. To be honest, the service is very boring as it�s all in Fijian. The sermon goes on for ages, and I�m sure everyone who can understand it is bored as well! After church everyone comes up to shake our hand and say �bula�, Fijian for �hello�.
Sunday lunch is our last meal with the family, and it�s rather nice - fish cooked in coconut milk and (you�ve guessed it) tapioca. For desert we get papaya. At this stage it�s important to note that our meals have always been slightly nicer than what the kids are eating � we always seem to get something extra, and while they encourage us to eat some more, they�ll get the leftovers. So when Conor devours a plate of papaya all by himself, we�re treated to that traditional Fijian chorus �Who ate all the papayas?!�
After a bit of a sing-song, it�s time for us to leave the village, and it�s quite a sad farewell as we�ve got quite attached to the family, especially Vuki who is a real character. I give him a present of my playing cards� not really much of a wrench as they�ve been through a lot the last couple of days!
The tour company takes us back to the airport to pick up our luggage, and then they ask us for $5 to take us to our hostel. We�re very stubborn at this point and decide that we don�t want to give them any more money, so we wait around the airport for a couple of hours for the free bus service. We bid our farewells to Lorena at this point as she is heading off to New Zealand and go to our accommodation at Mana Rose guest house at the beach near Nadi. It�s fantastic to be able to have a shower and shave.
The next few days are relatively relaxed. Our evenings are spent in the bar/restaurant of a nearby hostel, chatting to our dorm-mates Sarah and Lizzie, and being entertained by the barman OJ, who does card tricks and the like. As you can tell, the bar isn�t too busy! In the daytime, one day is filled with a round of golf. I�m disappointed to go round in 23 strokes more than I did in Rarotonga with a 149. No threat to Colin Montgomerie at the moment I�m afraid. The other two days are spent with a visit to the Sigatoka sand dunes (to the south-east of Nadi), and Lautoka (to the north). Both days are unremarkable, apart from the bus journeys there and back. Going to the sand dunes we are on an express bus taking about 45 minutes. On the way back we�re on a local bus, which goes right round the coast road through all the small villages there. The road is basically a dirt track, and the bus is a rickety old thing, so you can imagine that the journey is rather uncomfortable. Amazingly enough though, Conor manages to fall asleep, as he seems to do on every journey we undertake. On the bus to Lautoka, we�re surprised to find that there is a video showing, while on the way back the radio is playing some loud music so Conor christens it the �disco bus�. On this journey, a local boy tries to strike up a conversation with me, although it�s a bit difficult because of the music. Conor thinks he�s looking well cool with his shades and shaved head, so I�m amused when the boy points to him and says �your father?!�
On our last afternoon in Nadi, Conor becomes a hard-nosed shopper, bargaining with a shopkeeper to get (hopefully) a good deal on a couple of wooden masks and a T-shirt. He�s also sort of interested in buying a black pearl, but when he manages to negotiate from $2700 down to $50, decides that he�d be better buying a black piece of plastic! He even manages to negotiate in a restaurant, getting a chicken curry for $8 when it was $15 on the menu! And then we�re at the airport early again for our 1:45am flight to Australia