Family Escapes in Fiji
It's 6:30 pm and day is gently sliding into night. A sea breeze wafts over the beach-side bar where my wife is sipping on a margarita and I am relishing my second beer. All is blissfully quiet. For parents of young children, this would usually be the crazy hour when the kids are charging around like wounded bulls, ducking hands that seek to control and ignoring stern commands to finish their dinner, take a bath, get ready for bed.
But our little prince is nowhere to be seen, whisked away by a matronly restaurant hostess with strong arms and a booming laugh. We have no idea where he is. We don't really care where he is. "Cheers, darling," I say with a sheepish grin at my better half as we clink glasses and gaze out at another mesmerising sunset.
Welcome to Fiji, where shirking one's parental obligations when on holiday is not merely a privilege, but more like an inalienable right. Few places on earth can rival the welcome Fijians bestow on families and the patience they display with the brattiest of rug-rats. While tropical resorts the length and breadth of Asia can generally turn out a half-decent kids club, Fijian resorts – from the humblest collection of beach-side shacks to sprawling five-star resorts – tend to go the extra mile, providing seasoned baby-sitters for a trifling hourly fee who can lull a baby to sleep with a Fijian folk song or take older kids out on a marine safari, allowing mums and dads to re-visit their own childhoods.
In planning our trip to Fiji, there was precious little inspiration to draw from the holidays of my boyhood. Raised by a freelance geologist father with a penchant for penny-pinching, family holidays were generally mixed with business, meaning epic drives through the Australian Outback in a packed station wagon jammed between my two baleful older brothers. Air conditioning meant winding down the windows. Meals featured sandwiches rendered soggy by the merciless heat and eaten reluctantly by dusty roadside picnic spots as swarms of blowflies whizzed in and out of your nostrils and ears. The final destination was, wisely, kept a mystery to us boys as it would invariably end up being a mineral prospect in the middle of nowhere, rather than a beach or a lakeside resort.
Seeking not to pass the sins of my father onto my own son, we booked tickets to Nadi (pronounced Nan-dee), the gateway to Fiji on the Pacific island nation's northwestern shore. First impressions of Fiji’s family-friendly credentials did not disappoint. After groaning as we joined a mile-long queue to clear customs, we were suddenly whisked over to a new queue opened for families only. I smugly glanced at the childless couples sweating in the longer queue, thinking "Who’s your daddy now?". Alas, the jubilation was rather short-lived as the customs official bailed us up for not filling out our arrival cards. Novels have been written quicker than the time taken to fill out Fiji's customs documents and our advantage was quickly lost.
Anation of more than 300 islands, less than half inhabited, Fiji was formed by volcanic eruptions some 150 million years ago and has a similarly turbulent history. Nicknamed the “Cannibal Isles”, sea-arriving guests from Europe steered clear of Fiji until the 19th century, fearful of the warrior tribes and their reputations for dining on their vanquished foes. Diplomatically, Fiji still remains something of a Pacific pariah state, booted out of the Commonwealth after its military-controlled government failed to hold promised elections. But the political machinations in the bustling capital Suva are a world away from the tranquil islands where tourism remains healthy, but has not succumbed to the rampant over-development that has marred destinations like Bali and parts of Thailand.
