Sunday, January 25, 2009

What to do in Fiji - offbeat travel experiences

Some cynics might say that a visit to Fiji itself is an offbeat experience, but these four really are:
Rise of the Balolo (nationwide): Dawn after the full moon in October sees thousands of Fijians out on the reefs with buckets to snare the wiggling balolo, a coral worm that comes out to mate only then. Actually, the rear ends of the worms break off and swim to the surface, spewing eggs and sperm in a reproductive frenzy lasting only a few hours. Fijians consider the slimy balolo to be their caviar.
Sliding Through a Jungle Canopy (Pacific Harbour): Sliding along cables strung across a rainforest canopy in Fiji strikes me as offbeat. You can do just that with ZIP Fiji
Jet-Skiing to Your Hotel (Taveuni): You can get to your hotel by taxi, ferry, boat, plane, seaplane, helicopter, even on foot, but only at Paradise Taveuni will you have the option of riding a jet ski.
Living on a Copra Plantation (Taveuni): The first successful industry in Fiji was extracting the meat from coconuts and drying it into copra, from which the oil is extracted for cooking, cosmetics, and other products. In the 19th century, Europeans created large copra plantations, many of which are still operational. You can actually share one of them with the descendants of the original English

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