Fiji

Author : Nur Shairah Ishak

Role : Admin Manager/ Co Founder of Koalabelang

Credit to : My Personal Blog

Special entry for this vacation as Fiji is the 40th country that I've been to. Alhamdulillah. One word to describe, exotic! Why Fiji? Because it's a rare destination. Not many people choose to go to Fiji but Koalabelang is dare to take the challenge to expand our market to Fiji apart of Australia & New Zealand. So why not? Come and join us!

Alhamdulillah, while drafting this blog, we got a great news, check this out. Huih, dah dekat 10 bulan cuti bersalin, pejam celik pejam celik, Raudhah pun nearly 10 months :D

http://www.fijisun.com.fj/2014/07/17/big-resort-project-on-nacovi-island-begins/

Pictures are available here: Koalabelang Facebook Page Album [FIJI ISLAND]

Summary of Fiji in short.

Airport :- Kinda an old airport but sgt menarik bila masuk je airport lounge we were greeted with their traditional songs. And of course the word BULA!!

Custom :- Awesome as you can bring everything from Australia including milk, cheese, fresh meat BUT not fresh chicken and veggie. Frozen is OK. So tak susah lah nak masak

Road :- Hmm maximum national speed limit is 80km/h. Yes 80 sahaja! Lol. But Fiji tak de traffic lights in most of the places. Traffic lights or cameras can be counted. Setiap kali lalu villages you will see a board showing the village name and 95% of the villages will have Hump Road for safety (driving in and out the village). One thing we noticed, each village has their own decoration or setup. But lucky those villages if the Westeners sponsored them of education or welfare projects ie Australia. New Zealand and Korea. One unique thing Fiji roads, there are no lights on the road and you will see a lot of Fijians walking in the dark without you noticing until you are very close to them. So kena berhati2. Lucky us pergi masa Ramadhan, kalau tak memang confirm duk ingat ada hantu! Serious no joke.

Weather :- Winter with temperature around 28-30 during day time and 18-20 during night time. We love this so much! Not humid not sticky not too cold not too hot! Just nice. Fiji has 4 seasons and the time zone is GMT +1200 :). The weather is also heavily impacted by changes from NZ weather. Since there are 333 islands in Fiji, Fiji is divided into few sections , Western. Central. Eastern. Northern.

People :- Nice and they always welcome tourists. No wonder Fiji is all year long the hot spot of holiday! English literacy is not a problem.

Culture:- To my surprise, Most of the population in Fiji is made up of Fijians and Hindi people. Plus Fijians practice FIJI time a lot so don't get mad when they take ages to do something. IE Fiji time for a shuttle ride from Nadi to Sigatoka for boat transfer. They said it's around 45 mins FIJI time. Means it will take around 60-90 mins. Very laid back compared to Aussie haha.

Currency :- Fijian dollar is Pretty high than Malaysia. 1FJD : 1.75MYR / 1FJD : 0.60AUD

Religion :- Mainly Hinduism. Islam is around 20-30%. The rest Christian, Sikh. Masjid, markaz or musolla are everywhere. Kena pandai cari aje.

Food/Groceries :- Very expensive! 1L of milk is around FJD 3.30. So cooking is the best way.. we are also lucky sebab memang kitaorg stock up food from Sydney - Frozen Paratha, Mackerel, Kicap, Tomato etc etc

Touristic Areas :- Fiji ada 333 islands and the island is divided into few regions. Yang famous ngn tourist are the Central region (Nadi, Racci Racci, Suva, Pacific Harbour) and Western region (Mamanuca - pronouced as Mamanudha & Yasawa)