Perry Mason's Garden

After arriving in Nadi, I found a reasonably cheap place to stay. The woman who booked me on the bus to get to Nadi wanted to book me into a place that was, in my opinion, overly pricey. I figured there had to be a better option. So I just swung into town and got off near where there was supposed to be cheap places to stay. Right across from where the bus dropped me off, there was a place that was half the price of what I had been quoted in Suva. But that was at a hotel and I imagine they have their network, that doesn't include the cheaper places. So I was set.

Then I planned what to do the next day. I didn't really want to do a day cruise tour. It could have been fun, but they are rather high-priced options in high tourist spots like Nadi. So I opted to check out Perry Mason's garden. It seems Raymond Burr spent a good amount of time in Fiji and had a home and orchid garden near Nadi. Of course, it also seemed that nobody knew who Raymond Burr was or what his connection to the area was. But mention the Garden of the Sleeping Giant and everyone knows what you're talking about. Now Raymond Burr was a fairly big man, particularly in his later years, but the Sleeping Giant does not refer to him. It actually refers to the mountain at the base of which the garden sits. I gather if you look at the mountain, it has the profile of a giant that is lying down. But this is possibly only if you scrunch up your eyes just right, maybe stand on your head, and it might even require the use of some hallucinogenic drug. Or maybe I just can't see these sorts of things easily. But they say it is there. Maybe it's here.

Or maybe it's here. Or it could be somewhere in between. I'm not sure, but I do know I didn't see the giant.

To get to the garden, I asked for some help from the desk girl at the place where I was staying. I guess tourists just don't normally do things like take public buses. Every time I ask how to go somewhere, I seem to always get told about taxis. And even though I told her that I hate taxis, she couldn't tell me how to get there on a bus. I knew there had to be some kind of bus, but I wasn't prepared to try to figure it out with all the time that it would have taken. So, I accepted the offer she made of calling the taxi place to find out how much it would be. The answer came back at 20 dollars. Hmmm... Well all right, I guess I could do that. Grumble, grumble. So she ordered the taxi. The guy arrived. I got in and asked straight away how much it would be. 25 dollars. Huh? But the girl at the desk told me 20 dollars. No, no, it's 25. But she asked the people at your taxi dispatch office and they told her 20 dollars. No, no, it's 25. I suppose that I should have just gotten out at that point, but I didn't, I just shook my head and told him to get going. And almost the whole way he was trying to make it into a tour day. He told me about the mud pools, and a village, and the next town, and a waterfall, and how I could make it a full day of seeing things for the low, low price of 70 dollars. I just kept saying no, I was all right. He never seemed to get it that he lost any and all hope of ever getting me back in his cab when he contradicted what his dispatcher told the girl at the hotel. And, to be honest, he had little hope of any further business once I knew where the garden was anyway, as I knew there would have to be some sort of other option to get to and back. And it became obvious quickly as I watched all sorts of buses headed the same direction. Nevertheless, he made the last attempt to get more money out of me as he dropped me off. He handed me a card and told me to call him when I was ready to leave, and he would come and get me. Hahaha! I almost just handed it back to him, but there is really no reason to make trouble with a local if it's not truly necessary. The outsider can so easily come to grief in that sort of situation. So I just said sure and got out. And I hoped the garden could overcome the latest in that series of encounters with transportation types that just go so badly and leave that rather sour, bitter feeling towards everyone and everything.

But the garden is beautiful. It did the trick nicely.

There are many orchids of many different types. They sit under a canopy that protects them and provides with the ideal growing conditions. They apparently grow very well in Perry Mason's garden. I have no idea what makes them so special, but they are supposed to be special flowers.

And there were many different ones. Like this.

And this one.













Then there was this one.

And that one.

And this one. Hey wait. How did she get in there?

After spending a couple of hours in the garden, I hopped a local bus and headed farther out to see the mud bath and hot pools. I guess the area is still geothermically active and near the Sleeping Giant is a spring that comes out of the ground at about 70 degrees Celsius. And it is hot. I wouldn't want to be having a sit in there.

But then it travels down a stream for a short distance and goes into a much bigger pool, where bathers can sit for a while and be soothed. By the time it reaches the big pool, it is supposedly down to about 40 degrees. Much better. Except that when I put my fingers in, it didn't really feel appreciably cooler than the 70 degree water. I still wouldn't want to be taking a soak there.

Before taking a soak in the natural hot tub, people usually first take a mud bath. Over on the other side of the site, there is another pool with another warm spring, that also brings up some mud. It is apparently quite therapeutic. So people first wash off in the pool, which isn't very hot.

While they are in the pool, their guide scoops out a bucket of mud. The visitors get out and smear the mud from the bucket all over themselves and then stand out in the sun to dry. Then they remove most of the mud, take another dip in the pool and move over to the hot pool. This all costs 12 dollars Fijian (which currently is about 7 dollars Canadian). Not a bad deal really. But you have to have the correct clothing to do it all, and I just sort of wandered over, without much clue about what it was or where I was going, so I didn't have it, and couldn't have a go myself. But that was okay. I'm not much of one for mud baths and hot pools. So I talked to the people who were manning the whole thing. They apparently take turns as villages manning the hot pool area and the money is put into a bank account and shared amongst all the community around the hot pool attraction. That seems equitable.

After checking out the hot pool and mud bath, I decided to walk back to the main road. It was hot and humid. I could have easily made it, but it was hot, and when the guy in the van stopped and offered me a ride, I made the mistake of getting in. But not before asking how much it would be. I made the mistake of taking the guy's word for it in Manila that it was going to be up to me, but I guess I didn't learn from that mistake. I made it again. And I got in when he said it was no problem. He drove me back into town and took my email and stuff, because he just liked to make friends with people from around the world. He wanted to visit Canada someday and would look me up. And then when it was finally time to get out, he wanted money. Damn! Will I ever learn these lessons? It didn't cost as much as the cab ride out, but it still irked me that I could have walked to the road and caught a bus, and it had cost me 10 times more.

Then I spent the rest of the day trying to convince myself that taxi drivers were the same all over and I shouldn't let it sour my opinion of Fiji. I heard a joke about lawyers once, but I think it could be told about taxi drivers just as easily and be just as amusing. What do you call 1000 taxi drivers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!