Perry in Paradise

“We’ve got sunlight on the sand; we’ve got moonlight on the sea.”¹

When I was a kid, the South Pacific was portrayed as paradise, especially since the war had ended. Some of our dads were there and they stressed the positive. Movies like South Pacific and all the Hawaiian films (yes, I know Hawaii is not in the South Pacific) made it seem like paradise. On the Jersey Shore, especially in Wildwood, a form of art and architecture known as “doo wop” featured exotic motifs including the South Pacific with motels named “Bali HI,” “Kon Tiki,” and “Castaways.” Motels featured tiki lights and plastic palm trees. Tiki bars were the rage. Jimmy Buffett before there was Jimmy Buffett. It was the longing to take the family somewhere exotic on a 1950s working class budget.

“Well, our fathers fought the Second World War/ Took their families to the Jersey Shore.”²

Then there was Robert Lewis Stevenson. Of course, as a kid I was interested in visiting the southern isles, even after reading Somerset Maugham later in life. In “Little Stories from the South Sea Islands” he wrote:

“It is an empty desert: and presently the emptiness fills you with a vague forboding.”³

He writes about mosquitos getting inside his bed net, the oppressive heat, and the incessant rain in Pago Pago.

This is our fourth trip to the South Pacific. While I’ve enjoyed some of my experiences, great big stone heads on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), snorkeling in Bora Bora and attending Sunday church in Niue, with Polynesian choral singing and ladies in big flowered hats, my impression was more Maugham than Stevenson, sweating in oppressive heat with high humidity interspersed by torrential rain. We’ve visited mostly in the hot rainy season so that colored my opinion.

But yesterday was the type of day that could change my opinion. We called at Lautoka, an industrial port that serves Fiji’s sugar industry. The day was hot but not oppressively so and not overly humid. A breeze made it feel cooler; the sky was blue and the day perfect.

We took a cab to see two attractions, and here is where Perry, Perry Mason, comes in. Raymond Burr, who played Mason, in the long running TV series, loved the south seas islands. He had a place that, after he died, became a boutique resort, and had a passion for orchids. In 1977 he bought fifty acres at the foot of Sleeping Giant Mountain so he could raise orchids. He turned it into his own botanical garden. The garden goes from a valley, up through rainforest with winding paths. It has fifty different varieties of orchids so there are some for each season of year. It is stunning.

When he died in 1993 the gardens transitioned to local management. The garden hosts weddings, corporate events and retreats as well as welcoming day visitors like us. It was the perfect day to stroll the paths soaking. And while the paths are not barrier free, some guests in wheelchairs had guides who helped them up some of the shallower steps and steeper inclines as part of the service included in the 30 Figi dollar (US $13) entrance fee.

There is a rumor that spread around the ship that McDonalds has purchased the gardens. Not true. They’re owned and managed by a non-profit organization. Marc McElrath owns the McDonald’s franchise for Fiji, is also the managing director of the non-profit that runs the gardens.

After spending time in the gardens and enjoying a fruit punch in wicker chairs in the shade we set out for the Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple in Nadi, a town about 45 minutes’ drive from Lautoka. There we had made a rookie mistake. We had to remove our shoes when going into the temple but neither of us were wearing socks. The walks around the temple were paved and hot. One of the guides advised us to stay on the lawn around the temple, but we wanted to go inside so we moved very quickly across the concrete and marble stone to the shaded area in the temple itself. One of the swamis noticed the amulets around our wrists and asked. We told him they were from India and blessed by the Dali Lama (a gift from our friend Nancy.) He said “Travel well.”

Fiji has a large South Asian population. They were imported as indentured workers by the British when they set up the sugar plantations. So now there are Hindu shrines and mosques for the decedents of Indian and Bangladeshi workers who have been in Fiji for four or five generations.

This situation has caused friction between Indo-Fijians and Indigenous Fijians leading to three separate military coups since independence in the seventies. The coups were triggered by the election of an Indo-Fijian prime minister and reaction by the indigenous Fijian military. The military was organized by the British along traditional Fijian social structures with the officer class made up by the chiefly class which had interest in maintaining the social and political structures. Since independence, the Indo-Fijian population has dropped from half of the population to around a third because of discrimination against South Asians. Many Indo-Fijians have moved to Australia and New Zealand. The current constitution prohibits discrimination, and 2013 changes eliminated voting by racial categories. The goal is to create a multiethnic Fijian identity. Our cab driver, Rajiv, is a South Asian Christian.

On the drive I noticed several rail crossings. The tracks had a very narrow gauge, the type I have seen only on kiddy rides in amusement parks. Rajiv said they were fifty centimeter gauge tracks used for taking sugar cane from the fields to the factory in Lautoka. Fifty centimeters is a little over nineteen inches. He told me if I were interested, we could look at the train yard. I was. The engines are big compared to the gauge track gauge. This gauge was first developed to haul coal from mines but has been adapted for other industrial uses and is also used on some tourist trains.