Christmas in Fiji

Coming back to the main island and Nadi was like returning home. Shops, buses and restaurants. We had not seen any of these for nearly 4 weeks.

Next day we had decided to catch the bus into town to try to get the camera repaired. Whilst waiting at the bus stop a girl came running up waving, It wass Anja who we mentioned in our last blog. This was the 3rd time we had met each other on 3 different islands. We arranged to eat together that evening.

We were warned on the radio that "every man and his dog was in Nadi", as it was Xmas Eve. However they do not know the meaning of the phrase! They should experience Xmas Eve shopping in the UK! We received the expected news that our camera could not be repaired in Fiji. We were of course offered new cameras at "fantastic prices" and were tempted, however when we later looked on the internet we found that the pound seems to have collapsed and where we were getting F$3.5 to the pound we are now only getting F$2.4! So we will continue with Michelle's phone camera.

We started Christmas Eve meal started with just Anja at her hotel but we were soon joined by Clare from Glasgow and Yussi from Finland. It was a good night and beer & gin & tonics were bought regularly. However at 1-00am the manager suddenly and quite rudely asked us (Michelle & Terry) to leave as we were not guests. Next day the girls came round to apologise but of course it was not their fault and on reflection we had had enough to drink anyway.

Clare and Anja, together with ourselves, decided to have our Xmas Day evening meal at our hotel as the menu was ok and they had gone to a lot of trouble to decorate the tables. We were joined by Andrew from South Africa plus Lindsay and Scott from Ontario.
The meal was OK but not what we know as Xmas dinner also there were no crackers or paper hats. The xmas pudding however was a joke, just some dried chocolate looking cake with sauce, Terry was the only one to eat it!

Our last day in Fiji we decided to go to the 'sales' in town (Nadi). We bought a few things as we were told that the Cook Islands were expensive. We took the local bus back direct to our hotel We had been warned about this bus as it travels about half a kilometer along the sandy beach! Yes we know "What about high tide?", "What if it gets stuck?" Anyway we do not know, and it didn't but it was a new experience.

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