December 1974 and a naive 19 year old arrived in Fiji on her first overseas trip. What an adventure for my 19 year old self in a time when overseas travel was rare and almost unknown for teenagers to achieve. Christmas in a tropical island faraway from my home city of Adelaide, I was the envy of my friends even though they knew I had worked two jobs and very long hours to save the money.

Travel agents wrote "snail mail" letters to make bookings with. Overseas bank drafts were obtained from the bank and posted. Telegrams were used for any urgent communications. 

 You had to specify non-smoking, as smoking was the norm in hotel rooms AND PLANES - can you imagine!  People sat in their plane seats and smoked, blowing smoke towards the non-smokers who were the minority.

Whilst in Fiji in 1974, Cyclone Tracey hit Darwin where my sister and brother-in-law lived. I read it in the newspaper several days later but did not know what to do to find out the extent of damage and if family were OK. No mobile phones, no internet, no easy way to make a phone call and certainly no cheap way to make a phone call. Overseas calls were all "operator connected" and required booking in advance. Forty years may have gone by, but I still clearly remember the knock on the hotel room door and opening it to find a yellow envelope with the large black type "Telegram". With heart pounding, I tore it open to read the typewritten words, "Rosemary safe love Father". My parents had my itinerary and had to go to the Post Office and pay per word to send the telegram - hence its brevity! 

40 years on and I am back on Fijian shores and really I don't find it that much changed from my memories. A lush green mountainous country with beautiful beaches and thriving commerce in the cities. An edge to be felt to their happiness politically, then and now, and the men still wear those skirts! Business suited men walk the streets with a tailored skirt (sulu vaka taga) to the suit rather than trousers and the Police look very dapper in their skirts. All wear sandals with their skirts.    

Right now for us, it is a very important place to be as in all our many world travels together I have been one country ahead. We needed to even the score before the momentous 100 countries and so here we are via the soft, but cheap option of a cruise.

A city orientation tour of two and half hours, purchased outside the cruise ship area (1/4 price paid for cruise ship shore tour of same content and time) gave us a good overview of Suva. Our guide was charming and full of wit, and being a Sunday, labelled the many evangelical church goers we saw and heard as "happy clappers". We learnt that Australia has reduced foreign aid due to political instability (elections since have confirmed the current rule though) and Fiji is looking more to China for their future.The flag still has the Union Jack in the corner though British rule ceased in 1970.

Of course a cruise ship limits the time you have to discover and learn, but it was a great day ashore and the wonderful cossetting nature of the cruise ship was calling us back again, to move on over night to our next Fiji location, Lautoka.