Fiji is a friendly country and basically safe, with the exception of a few hustlers working the larger towns. The Fijian “hello”—bula!—is heartfelt and used liberally. The bright side shines: There are good basic health and education systems, decent roads, new air service, and expanded tourist facilities. Tourism, the number one earner of hard currency until the failed coup of 2000, is bouncing back. 

Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest and most populous island, has its share of sun-and-fun resorts. Inexpensive ferries and flights reach dozens of other beach-rimmed islands that cater to the chic as well as the six-bucks-a-night-thatched-hut dweller. From Nadi (pronounced NAN-dee), site of the international airport, all roads lead to the capital Suva, where Fijian women with untamed Afros mix with sari-clad Hindus. On the outskirts of town, swaths of sugarcane and coconut plantations dominate the landscape.   Rambler instinct usually means escaping the “busy island” in search of adventure. But I resisted that impulse. 

Instead, I ascended into Viti Levu’s craggy mountain interior, traversed her lofty spine, and waterfalled back to the ocean on a bamboo balance beam and found untamed, cloud-misted highlands that are an epoch away from sea-level hotel buffets. 

The real Fiji begins where the pavement ends. 

A Marvelous Trance
At a Nadi bar, drinking Fiji Bitter, I was asking the bartender about visiting highland villages when a stocky man named Severo said he had overheard my questions and introduced himself in the soft tones of Fijians. While not a professional guide, he offered to take me to the interior if I covered his expenses. This amounted to about $10 a day. An invitation from a village chief is required to enter most Fijian villages. It is akin to asking to swim in someone’s pool and receiving a smiling yes. Severo could get me those invitations, and I hired him. The next day we made our steady ascent on Viti Levu using a medley of buses, taxis, injured pickups and feet, leaving the sunblock flock on the beaches behind. 

We reached the village of Navai, which naps at the base of Fiji’s zenith, the 4,341-foot Mount Tomanivi. The British named the mountain Mount Victoria, though it is doubtful that any queen scaled the peak. Fijians overlook that royal reference. Long-needle pines and towering palms loom over traditional thatch-domed, wooden bures, along with a few proudly maintained boxy corrugated-steel abodes. (Hurricane relief introduced the metal structures and they quickly caught on.) 

The whole village blooms like a garden, filled with hibiscus, plumerias and birds of paradise. Flanked by a river and surrounded by misty mountains, Navai is communal peace defined. And, like most Fijian villages, there is no hint of litter; two hundred residents live in 65 newly electrified homes (hydroelectric power fuels lone fluorescent bulbs—listen-to-rugby-on-the-radio bills run about a buck a month) but people still cook over wood fires. 

Fijian friendliness stems from tribal custom. Family and friends—old and new, often one and the same—are life’s greatest gifts. Every child is taught four essential tenets of “chiefly behavior”: respect, deference, attentiveness and humility. A well-rounded person, say Fijians, treats everyone with interest and respect. 

After climbing Mount Tomanivi, I headed to the town meeting hall. I pulled off my mud-caked boots (twice their original weight) and the chief and his entourage greeted me for a customary yaqona ceremony, which centers on the preparation and drinking of kava.   As cool dusk set in, the rite commenced with Severo making a prayer-like presentation to the chief explaining my presence in Navai, and handing over the customary gift of kava. The cocktail, also called grog, was ladled into a bilo, half a coconut shell, and systematically distributed around the semicircle of six men. I took a swig and found the grog tasted faintly bitter, like muddy river water. It slowly numbed my lips and tongue, then everything else, eventually imparting a euphoric grin. Think: earthy codeine smoothie.   My low-key hosts switched between English and Fijian, which reminded me of serene Italian. Each of us consumed a six-ounce bowl every ten minutes—happy hour lasted four hours. 

Sevu sevu was originally a ceremony to settle differences between warring chiefs; the kava got enemies past their anger and in a relaxed mood to discuss the situation. Now it is an archetypal story time, certainly more interactive than barking at Monday Night Football.   “You live in New York City?” the chief inquired.   “I do.”   “Many people,” he nodded.   “Too many,” I agreed, then confessed that I often encounter a thousand people in a day, speaking to no one but myself. I think that’s when they prayed for me. 

During a pee break, I reveled in the cool fog and full moon rising while two grinning children hid behind a tree, encouraging a game of hide-and-seek. To the south an isolated storm cloud steamed over a mountain, a communion of gray and white flaring the high jungle sky with lightning and trailing drapes of rain. I experience a moment of travel-writing schizophrenia: Do I really want to report on Fiji and expose this place further to the world? 

Lifestyles Not Prepackaged Here
I couldn’t hover indefinitely above the clouds. The easiest transport option to sea level was by river plunge. Leaving Navai, I ricocheted across Viti Levu’s high-altitude backbone in a paint-shaking pickup to the village of Naitauvoli. En route, wild horses and pigs moseyed about the wet, dark-green cloud forest of billowing bamboo clumps and willow-like rain trees in the rugged mountains. Sitiveni, the Fijian cowboy driver, used his wide-splayed bare feet on the pedals, as he navigated the savage Monasavu Dam road—I use the term “road” loosely. As we drove, hooting and banging down cliff-edged hairpin turns, I asked, “Ever had a wheel fall off? Trucks ever tumble off cliffs?” After a skidding pivot Sitiveni smiled “yes, twice,” leaving big space for imagination. 

That night, I found myself at another kava ceremony. I was now on a cupped-hand-clapping kava binge. Several members of the Waiqa (pronounced wine-gah) River Band, who periodically float to the lowlands to play local music festivals, had joined the circle. Their voices enhanced the reflective traditional chant that opened the sevu sevu.   No discussions about cloning or euthanasia, but plenty of banter about rain, fruit and family. 

Occasionally, youngsters naughtily peered in. The children have a don’t-speak-unless-spoken-to respect for elders. Experiencing collective pride, respect, politeness and esteem for elders—in what would be considered a clapboard shanty by the US evening news—would be a valuable lesson for fractured families living on Park Avenue.   After two hours of calm communication, everyone slowly focused on me expectantly. I felt a little uncomfortable with the silence.   “Is it okay that I’m here?” I asked. A senior slowly assured me, “You are no stranger here Bruce.” Outside the hut, I stared at the moon lingering next to a pine tree. I introduced myself to an elderly woman sitting on the floor of her home, weaving large floor mats from dried pandanus leaves. I sat down to pet her dog for a few minutes. I lay down on the ground, and the dog and I bonded famously. I asked the animal’s name. The woman didn’t look up from her weaving as she said, “Brown.” I continued wrestling with the dog. Twenty minutes later, still not peering up from her craft, she mused above the silent calm, “Bruce and Brown.” 

Bilibilis and Machete Jugglers
I’ve run risky rivers in a mix of wooden, rubber, steel and plastic inventions, but none produced more hyperventilation than negotiating the Waiqa River after a fat rain on a bamboo bilibili raft. The two gondoliers were Waiqa River Band mates. Elected second in command of one raft, I stepped onto the back end, the senior pilot manning the front, not sure what to do with the ten-foot bamboo pole in my hand. Severo joined his musician/guide on another boat.  Like running the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, there is no turning back. But while rubber rafts bounce off rock walls, bamboo splinters. My companions’ bewildering level of athleticism included using the guide poles to prevent collisions with suddenly appearing rocks and bending canyon walls. They slashed overhead obstacles, such as low-hanging lianas, with a machete, and faced each other mid-rapid to casually clarify navigation. In times of peril, the lead men dived from the rafts (leaving me solo and rudderless), swam to shore and sprinted barefoot along the riverbank over fallen trees and mossy boulders to dive in front of the boat and swim-kick-sway it away from unforgiving obstacles protruding just ahead. 

The trip was routine for my friends until we encountered a massive palm tree that had fallen across the canyon creating an impassable dam. The obstacle didn’t phase the two captains—they just exchanged a glance that I read as, “Jeez, this one’s a doozy.”  Their emergency portage solution would impress a knife juggler. The men separated to opposite banks, one took a machete swipe at the base of a 40-foot rubber tree, the high end falling next to the guy on the opposing bank. Upriver, holding the rafts close to a vine, I watched them share the machete to cut long strips of bark by casually hucking the big glinting blade back and forth across the raging, 30-foot-wide river like playground pals tossing a tennis ball to each other. They systematically cut enough peels of bark to bind into one long piece of twine, used to guide the rafts over the tree. 

The river continued swinging through the rock, the ages, sweet air, droopy green gardens and waterfall drizzles. Sunlight shimmered through mist and lianas.   The meander through the gorge walls diminished into flat open water and plains of palms. No question here about what to do with in-between moments. Words fail. We pulled out at the Waiqa’s confluence with the unhurried Monasavu River. True freedom, far from the planet’s growing array of widening roads.

In October 1991, Fiji became perhaps the last English-speaking nation to receive television, but the two stations shall multiply, exponentially, towing in a boatload of anorexia-inspiring ads, Afro Sheen and processed versions of food that already grows in the backyard. The popular outer islands and mainland tourist centers show signs of tourist-treadmill wear—is there a Hooter’s around the corner? 

Before flying away from these Pacific islands, I merged with one more kava assembly at the airport. Seated in a corner of the departure lounge, a throng of well-wishers bade farewell to a departing friend. Detouring from tradition, the hooch was ladled from a large blue plastic bucket. Before getting on the plane I turned around to glance at the kava-bucketeers for one more liberal allowance of smiles. 

Will Fiji keep the ways of the chiefs? Is there a population race between the Fijians and the Indians to control government? Will the downtown pickpockets snag everything? Not yet. For now, while Fiji’s past and future spar, the smiles reign. Fiji’s polestar is still a beautiful one, shining on a breezy island chain where the future is left to fortuity. It just may be the cradle of the world’s delight.