Dee Plane, Dee Plane

Livin' on Fiji time is a 7,000 mile journey. You could drive it, but you wouldn't want to. At least 4,000 of those miles would test a car's buoyancy for sure.

 Air travel is a cursed thing. But, no one seems to have a better alternative. Being in a pressurized tube, crammed like chickens on a Semi on their way to give their lives for Truett Cathy, is not a fun ride. Flying to Fiji over the fifteen to sixteen hours it takes to get there requires some determination and a high tolerance for discomfort. Your feet and hands swell like balloons, your back aches from the narrow curvature of the seats, and your bladder is always hyper-active at 37,000 feet.

Finally landing in Nadi was a lot like being let out of prison. The air was fresh, the sun was bright and intense (the ozone is non-existent there), and the people were as friendly as ever. Making it through customs took all of ten minutes. Soon, we were in the van and on our way to the hotel.

 Rewind... Back to the air travel.

 Over the course of the four major plane changes we made, I met lots of interesting folks.

There was "Steve the yankee." Steve is a Vietnam vet who has blood cancer as a result of Agent Orange exposure. Steve and his family were on their way to Maui for two weeks of scuba diving. This trip to Maui was just one of the things on his bucket list, he said, before he dies - which is supposed to happen sometime in the next year, according to his doctors. I also saw a criminal in handcuffs being transported to Samoa with Sky Marshall escort. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. I sat behind the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, who was being escorted to Honolulu by his top commander of the Solomon Islands police force.

I sat next to a young couple with a two-week old baby. They were going to their ancestral island home for an annual family reunion. I, unfortunately, sat very near to a young Jamaican man who had Rasti deadlocks, and an obvious intestinal malady (that he was freely and frequently sharing with all his fellow passengers). They should have locked him in the toilet for most of the flight. Finally, I met a great guy named James in the Honolulu airport who is a veterinarian. James said that he works primarily with exotic sea animals. He had been in Hawaii on a contract job for a few days. This poor fellow-traveler of mine had a broken leg and was on crutches. I helped him board the plane with his heavy backpack.

The flights, as always, were long, the food was underwhelming, and the conditions were not always as cool and relaxing as the commercials say. But, the airline crews were as hard-working and accommodating as ever. I have great respect for what they do. Few other people in life can make the claim of doing their jobs while traveling through the air at 400-500 miles per hour, walking a narrow aisle pushing a heavy drink cart, fighting just to stand up during sudden bursts of turbulence, and dealing with sometimes impossible-to-please, grumpy passengers. Whenever I see these folks at work, I always think of the old book on flight attendants (or "stewardesses" as they once were known) entitled, "Coffee, Tea or Me?" Not one of the flight attendants on this Fiji run were typical of the hot-to-trot image portrayed in that book.

The most pleasant surprise of the plane rides was on the Atlanta to Honolulu leg of the trip. They now offer a choice of movies and television shows, individually selected by each passenger. No longer is everyone subjected to the same boring movie that nobody ever heard of. I had at my fingertips the choice of sixteen movies and television shows. At least a couple of these movies I had wanted to make it to the theater to see. It was great to have something to watch that I actually wanted to see. This helped tremendously in passing the long nine hours spent in the air.

Livin' on Fiji time is worth every mile of the agony of the air travel it takes get there. Plan on two full days of flying. If you plot the course just right, one of the stops along the way is a little island called Oahu.

And, that ain't a bad layover at all - I don't care who you are.