Lautoka: Half-Day Garden of the Sleeping Giants, Market and Temple Tour

To of the stops were not quite worth the effort. The temple was under periodic restoration and mostly closed off. The market was really not anything to write home about. What was interesting was to note the cultural differences between the Suva day before and Lautoka sides of the island. Suva is much more Fijian while Lautoka is a MISB-mash of Fijian, Hindi and Muslim cultures. The whole Lautoka area was preparing to celebrate Diwali which is a traditional Hindu feast.

I received directions of where to meet the guide with my name waiting for me and was there ten minutes prior to the arranged meeting time. No sign of anyone. A very nice Fijian Tour Guide from another company rang Fiji Eco Tours and was told the driver was by the port gate. I walked all the way down there - still no sign of him. Another very nice Fijian guide also rang the office and stayed with me touring the port until we finally found a driver some distance outside the port gates. The guy was an Indian driver, with a tatty old mini bus with no air con who rarely spoke to me and I had to ask questions all the time which often he could not answer. The market was awful and anyway I could not take food back onto the ship. The tour was partially saved by a very interesting guide at the temple and the beautiful gardens. Not a trip I would recommend from my experience.

I went on tour to get the historical information about the island. what I got was taxi service. If the people cant give the history of the place they shouldn't be giving tours. call it transportation around the island not a guided tour

The trip was only an expensive Taxi service. When I pay for a tour, I expect the person to give me historical information ot the places not take me to the place just to say I went there. I could do that locally for a lot cheeper.

A tour to forget. We ended up in a group of 7 and were directed to a dirty, beat up Tarago Van where we complained about the tight seating and were told they would fix this when we got to the Hindu Temple 30 minutes later. By fixing they simply provided an additional beat up van which fixed the squeeze but it was also unclean with a small spider walking around the floor. They also had no rear seat belts with driver intent on using mobile whilst driving and tail gating the car in front. There was no commentary on first leg - just silence. Temple was OK but had to dress in a sarong and remove all footwear. Again, little or no guidance provided. Markets were cramped and dirty nothing like the picture! but the guide in the second van did try to provide some commentary and was OK overall. Gardens were nice but again, no guide provided nor liquid refreshment we were offered a banana or a guava - that's all.

Mike our guide knew everything we asked about. He took us for a tour of the market explaining all about the Fijian special fruits and kava. Our tour of the Hindu temple was enlightening! Also time in the Slleping Giants garden was very interesting and relaxing. Mike was very friendly and easy to get on with.