You’d never know if from looking at me, but I once was betrothed to a Fijian princess.
You’ll probably think the kava was to blame, but I believe it was my crush on Emily. In 1989 I started a round-the-world journey and one of my first ports of call was the island of Viti Levu, in Fiji. It was there that I met Emily.
Emily was a tall, elegant brunette with the most luminous and sad eyes I’d ever seen. But it was probably the warmth of her smile that I found so compelling. Whatever the source of my infatuation — erotic or romantic — I was keen to see what might develop between us. On our second day in Fiji, she discovered that a village on the island of Beqa was taking in travelers to raise money for their church. This sounded like an adventure to Emily, who had just finished a master’s in anthropology, and she wanted us to go. She could have asked me to go bare-assed snorkeling with tiger sharks and I would have said yes.
Read the rest of this short travel fiction here…>