The Sigatoka Bus Saga
Today marked the start of our generous four-day weekend trip to Nadi, so we got up bright an early to hop on a Pacific Transport coach at the bus station in Suva. We were relieved to find that the coach was nice and easy to find (there are signs throughout the bus station telling you the destinations of buses leaving from that stop) and there was a little booth where we bought our tickets. We'd allowed tonnes of time, and arrived just before 9am for the bus scheduled to leave at 9:30am. This turned out to be a very good choice, as it set off minutes after we got on!
I don't know if I've mentioned the bus between Nadi and Suva before now, but it's by far the best way to get between the main places on the island. The full journey is about 4hrs, but the coach is air-conditioned, comforable and plays a rubbish film on a TV at the front (this time it was a melodramatic vampire flick). For about $15 it's great value and in theory shouldn't be too stressful.
To break up the journey, we'd decided to stop off at Sigatoka halfway, wander around the sand-dune park, get some lunch and then hop on the next coach a few hours later to complete our trip. Getting to the park was nice and easy- there were plenty of cheap taxis around, and it was a really nice walk.
It's essentially a hilly walk along the coast with some nice views and a bit of beach, which was perfect for us to stretch our legs a bit and get some fresh air. There was a one hour or two hour path to chose from- we went for the shorter option as we didn't want to be in too much of a rush, but even going slowly and taking lots of photos it only took about thirty minutes. Really helpfully, we were able to leave our luggage at a desk at the front of the park, so we didn't have to try and lug it round with us!
Lunch options back in Sigatoka were fairly limited, so we ended up at the least authentic cafe ever, inside a shopping centre clearly targeted solely at tourists. Still, we got a pretty hearty meal and some nice for coffee for a very reasonable price, and were able to kill some time wandering around all the touristy rubbish for sale. There's a surprising number of visitors here- way more than in Suva and even compared to Pacific Harbour. I'm not quite sure why, as there doesn't seem to be vast amounts to do, but never mind!
So far, we were moving bang on time, like a well oiled machine. We made sure to head to the bus-stop a good forty five minutes before our bus was scheduled after our experience in Suva, and were feeling very smug when we saw the bus we wanted to take already parked. And then we saw the crowd. There were way, way more people trying to get on this bus than had got off and we immediately knew there was no way we were going to get on either. It was mainly locals, many of whom were pleading and arguing with the bus driver but to no avail. When we walked past, we tried to ask him when the next bus would be that we could get to Suva, and he told us it could be a few hours. That was not what we wanted to hear, and as we watched as the coach pull off with us very much not on it, we wondered what to do.
Luckily, the group of locals left behind took pity on the three tourists looking very dejected, and pulled us with them into a minibus taxi someone had quickly managed to book. It was a bit of a tighter squeeze than the coach would have been, there was no trashy movie and there was some very loud, unpleasant music blaring out the whole way, but it was very quick (less than an hour) and when we divvied up the cost between everyone, worked out no more expensive than the bus would have been-huurah! We actually ended up in Nadi earlier than we'd originally expected, which was a nice surprise, and pulled in right next to the bus station.
We quickly found a taxi to our hotel (and learnt that here in Nadi, you need to haggle/firmly insist your driver puts the metre on, unlike in Suva!), grabbed some food from the supermarket down the road, and then headed to dinner at a really nice Thai-cum-Indian restaurant on the corner. The food was great and there was lots of it, so we stumbled back to the hotel, tired from a day of travelling, and fell asleep almost immediately.
I don't know if I've mentioned the bus between Nadi and Suva before now, but it's by far the best way to get between the main places on the island. The full journey is about 4hrs, but the coach is air-conditioned, comforable and plays a rubbish film on a TV at the front (this time it was a melodramatic vampire flick). For about $15 it's great value and in theory shouldn't be too stressful.
To break up the journey, we'd decided to stop off at Sigatoka halfway, wander around the sand-dune park, get some lunch and then hop on the next coach a few hours later to complete our trip. Getting to the park was nice and easy- there were plenty of cheap taxis around, and it was a really nice walk.
It's essentially a hilly walk along the coast with some nice views and a bit of beach, which was perfect for us to stretch our legs a bit and get some fresh air. There was a one hour or two hour path to chose from- we went for the shorter option as we didn't want to be in too much of a rush, but even going slowly and taking lots of photos it only took about thirty minutes. Really helpfully, we were able to leave our luggage at a desk at the front of the park, so we didn't have to try and lug it round with us!
Lunch options back in Sigatoka were fairly limited, so we ended up at the least authentic cafe ever, inside a shopping centre clearly targeted solely at tourists. Still, we got a pretty hearty meal and some nice for coffee for a very reasonable price, and were able to kill some time wandering around all the touristy rubbish for sale. There's a surprising number of visitors here- way more than in Suva and even compared to Pacific Harbour. I'm not quite sure why, as there doesn't seem to be vast amounts to do, but never mind!
So far, we were moving bang on time, like a well oiled machine. We made sure to head to the bus-stop a good forty five minutes before our bus was scheduled after our experience in Suva, and were feeling very smug when we saw the bus we wanted to take already parked. And then we saw the crowd. There were way, way more people trying to get on this bus than had got off and we immediately knew there was no way we were going to get on either. It was mainly locals, many of whom were pleading and arguing with the bus driver but to no avail. When we walked past, we tried to ask him when the next bus would be that we could get to Suva, and he told us it could be a few hours. That was not what we wanted to hear, and as we watched as the coach pull off with us very much not on it, we wondered what to do.
Luckily, the group of locals left behind took pity on the three tourists looking very dejected, and pulled us with them into a minibus taxi someone had quickly managed to book. It was a bit of a tighter squeeze than the coach would have been, there was no trashy movie and there was some very loud, unpleasant music blaring out the whole way, but it was very quick (less than an hour) and when we divvied up the cost between everyone, worked out no more expensive than the bus would have been-huurah! We actually ended up in Nadi earlier than we'd originally expected, which was a nice surprise, and pulled in right next to the bus station.
We quickly found a taxi to our hotel (and learnt that here in Nadi, you need to haggle/firmly insist your driver puts the metre on, unlike in Suva!), grabbed some food from the supermarket down the road, and then headed to dinner at a really nice Thai-cum-Indian restaurant on the corner. The food was great and there was lots of it, so we stumbled back to the hotel, tired from a day of travelling, and fell asleep almost immediately.
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