3 months ago
10
Opinion
December 3, 2025 — 5:00am
“Welcome to Fiji,” says the cabin supervisor as we taxi along the runway of Nadi Airport. “Where the local time is…”
There’s a pause. Then a longer pause. The woman seated across the aisle leans over and says, “island time”, and everyone laughs.
It’s the perfect introduction to Fiji and to five days on a small tropical island resort off the south-east coast of Viti Levu for a family wedding. I, too, have trouble adjusting from my normally hectic, clock-watching lifestyle, to a slower, more laissez-faire pace. It’s just not natural.
Take the bure. The first time we leave it to go snorkelling, I ask my wife: “How on earth do you lock the front door?”
“You don’t,” she says.
Wearing a watch starts to feel a little silly, when breakfast, lunch and dinner are heralded by the rapid beating of two wooden sticks on a log drum known as a lali. It takes me three days to stop asking “what’s the time?” assisted by friends and companions who answer helpfully: “10 minutes to kayaking,” or “half past a massage”, and once, memorably, “right now, actually”.
As for the phone, I barely have to recharge it because no emails, Wordle, or Google Maps are draining its power.
At breakfast, the activities director comes by to talk about what’s on that day – a snorkel trip, a cruise to a nearby island, nothing too taxing. He doesn’t talk times, he talks tides. The best time to snorkel today, for instance, is at high tide. I look out over the tidal flats, where fellow guests are playing a nine-hole round of squelchy golf. Okay, so that would be this afternoon, then.
The sun wakes me and the wind becomes a white noise that makes sleep inevitable. There is no air-conditioning; just revolving ceiling fans that are so effective I have to ask for a blanket for the bed.
Every now and then, the odd coconut or a nut from the dilo tree falls onto the pitched roof of my bure with an almighty crash. The first time is terrifying, but like everything else, it just becomes part of the natural rhythm of the day and night.
Like the welcoming bula greeting, and the graceful vinaka thank you. The sight of Jack, the local parrot, daintily nibbling a chunk of fresh coconut. The joy of being present as my son marries his bride, barefoot on the sandy beach, under palm trees plaited with palm leaves, fronds and flowers.
The small, four-hectare island of Toberua has been privately owned since 1968, and is the essence of “old” Fiji, before the tourist precinct of Denarau Beach, before the jet-skis and adults-only clubs. The smiling staff are mainly from the two villages on the neighbouring island of Kabu. A weekly kava-fuelled crab race raises funds for the schooling of their children.
It’s a mistake to think that life is simpler on an island – or a mountain top, or in the middle of a vast desert – but my short stay helps me soften into a more patient and less privileged state.
I thought that I would be busting to get back to “civilisation” and immerse myself once more in the buzz of restaurants and bars and my so-called sophisticated life. But even an overnight in the capital, Nadi, with its honking cars and teenagers with necks bent and eyes glued to their devices, left me with a poignant sense of regret. If only we could all be on island time.
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