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| This popular “island with three trees” is mostly underwater at high tide. |
Technology is vital to our way of life. It is imperative for us as a means of transportation or a place to live. Without it, we can’t research. We can’t manage our finances. We can’t source entertainment.
Unless, we were willing to do it the “old way” the way it was done in years past when travelers wrote letters or sent telegrams to homeowners in various countries asking if they could rent a room, apartment, or house for a long term holiday.
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| Cross atop a distant rock on the shore at low tide. |
As time progressed, most travel arrangements were often made through travel agencies. But for those seeking a vacation home, one was basically on their own. It’s only been through the magic of the Internet that short term rentals of fully equipped properties have evolved into a major industry, allowing travelers such as us, the luxury of using technology to connect “us” with “them” all the way across the world.
No, we’d never have been interested in this degree of travel by researching the old ways, via letters and static riddled long-distance phone calls. No, thank you. Also, the means of transportation have vastly changed over the decades, making it possible to fly to at least within a day’s car ride to almost anywhere in the world, so to speak.
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| We drove by the runway our plane used when we arrived at the tiny airport in Savusavu. |
Thus, when you read, day after day, our ongoing struggle with attaining a sound Internet connection, please know, it has a tremendous effect on us. Do we spend a small fortune to call our bank when we’re overcharged for getting cash or do we go online, send an email to receive an adjustment within hours? Then again, how would we know we were overcharged? By waiting up to three months to receive a bank statement via snail mail?
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| The backside of the tiny Savusavu airport. |
How would we get cash? Walk into any bank expecting them to hand over cash from our account in the US? Hardly, we’d have to set up special communications between the banks after weeks of waiting to be able to get cash for daily living. Not the case today, with technology. Yesterday, Tom slipped his debit card into an ATM machine to walk away one minute later with FJD $600, USD $283, thanks to technology.
Without this, without technology, our hands would be tied. This life we live requires constant diligence is researching the next phase of our journey, maybe not daily, and at times, not weekly. However, everyday we handle some aspects of our upcoming travels.
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| A large inflatable raft for use of guests of nearby resort. |
Everyday, we look up exchange rates. Everyday, we research numerous web pages to assist us in accurate representations in our posts. Everyday, we post, uploading photos and stories we’d surely never write without technology . Instead we’d be using a paper journal with my scratchy inept handwriting, nearly impossible to decipher.
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| No crocs are to be found in these waters in Fiji. |
Photos would have been a nightmare to handle. Would we carry scrapbooks or photo albums with us all over the world? We take approximately 10,000 photos a year. How much would it have cost to have them printed in those days? Technology. For us, the answer is clear.
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| Far across the bay as we drove on the highway. |
When we continually mention issues with technology, we anticipate our readers may cringe upon noting the post’s topic and say, “Oh no, not again!” For this, we apologize. But, we made a promise when we started this life, documenting our daily lives as we go that we’ll always tell it like it is. No fluff, no embellishment, no painting of an unrealistic picture of pure bliss. Telling it like it is, isn’t always interesting and glamorous.
Yesterday, when we visited the village, we purchased two wifi dongles at the Vodafone store for FJD $88, USD $41.51 including 10 gigs each of data, the local cell phone and Internet provider. When we returned home, we had a strong signal up until around 7 pm.
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| Low tide presents some interesting islands. |
Today is a holiday, Fiji Day, the celebration of the nation’s independence. As a result, Fijians are home for the holiday weekend and getting online on their phones and making calls. The already congested Internet was so poor this morning we had no signal at all. Now, we’re back up, perhaps temporarily, hopefully long enough to upload this post.
We have no doubt that once the weekend ends, we’ll be online again with more ease, using the technology available to us, conducting necessary banking and checking credit card balances, making free Skype calls to family and friends, posting photos and stories and resuming the search for the next opening in our itinerary, as we continue on our journey.
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| We never tire of ocean views. |
So, after today, we’ll put an end to our endless comments about wifi during the remainder of our time on this island of Vanua Levu. If you don’t see a post on a particular day, please accept our apologies and know, baring any unforeseen incident, most likely, we were unable to post due to a lack of signal and we’ll be back as quickly as possible.
Thanks to all of our loyal readers and followers. If you’d like to receive each day’s post in your email, please enter your email address in the box provided on the main portion of any day’s post. You will not be contacted by us or any other entity by doing so.
Have a fabulous weekend!
Photo from one year ago today, October 10, 2014:
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| Waikiki Beach and Honolulu are a photographer’s dream as shown in our photo at sunset one year ago. For more details and photos, please click here. |