Viti Levu - Busman's Holiday

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Bula! (That's hello/hey/how's it goin' and lots of other stuff in Fijian in case you weren't aware!)

After waiting around in Nadi for another few days, getting sick and tired of hearing stories of some geezers from Guilford, Surrey, who had a great time staying at a local village (all a devious little ruse to get us to go into their shops and buy loads of crappy souvenirs), we managed to get ourselves onto the Feejee Experience bus for a tour of the main island Viti Levu. There are similar buses for Australia and NZ, where you spend your time travelling with other backpackers and getting to experience certain things you may otherwise miss out on if travelling on your lonesome.

The brochure had the itinerary set out for us. First up on Day one: 'Visit the Nadi markets and barter with the locals'. In the excitement of it all I mistakenly read this as 'banter with the locals', so although a hilarious time was had, I failed to get any amazing deals from the experience. Well, except for...one sarong! We all had to buy one as they are customary to wear when entering Fijian villages, which we did after a brief stop at one of the Top 5 beaches in the World (just behind Yarmouth i'm pretty sure). Spent the whole tour struggling to maintain my dignity as the damn sarong kept slipping down! Meanwhile all the locals were chilling out in shorts!

The last activity of the day was sandboarding down the Sigatoka sand dunes. The toughest part was climbing up the thing in the first place! Getting down was pretty easy and pretty quick; Mikey enjoyed a spectacular dismount at the end of his final go - wipeout!! His face was completely covered in sand, but luckily his good friend Will was there to look after him: "Mike, don't wipe any of it off. I need a photo!"

We ended up at Mango Bay Resort, on the Coral Coast, which claims to be 'the World's first Flashpacker Resort" - basically a backpackers for ponces. The place was pretty awesome to be fair; we started off with a traditional Lovo meal and a Kava ceremony to welcome us into the Mango Bay family. For the evenings entertainment we were treated to a traditional Fijian song and dance session, then sat around a bonfire listening to acoustic versions of classics such as the 'Baywatch' theme, whilst people argued about who the greatest cinematographer of all time was, Kubrick or Welles. Personally, I don't care, so I went to bed! (only kidding, Orson all the way)

We stayed another couple of days at Mango Bay. Our days were mostly spent sunbathing, playing volleyball or the occasional cheeky game of table tennis. Really, that was about it. Apart from when the crew from Celebrity Love Island came over to our beach for a spot of filming. Didn't manage to see any celebrities unfortunately. But I did see all the contestants from Celebrity Love Island (wahay!! I just tee them up, then knock 'em right out of the park!).

So on to day two of the Feejee Experience bus. This time we were in a bigger group (there were 12 of us). Our new guide was the crazy cat Bola, who spent most of his time singing to UB40 and shouting out 'Bula baby!' at everyone and everything. The main activity for the day was a 3 hour trek through the Namosi Highlands. We'd been given warnings of how tough it was beforehand, so myself and Mikey has psyched ourselves up with a Lance Armstrong-esque mentality. The hill climbs would be the toughest, just don't let any punks break away from the pack. In the end it was a breeze. The only problem being my converse trainers now hum something rotten after the half hour we had to spend wading through water!

After lunch it was time for a spot of tubing down the Navua river, complete with one or two easy rapids. We stopped off at a secluded waterfall, where the mentalist Bola decided to do his party piece of climbing up the rock face to a point under the waterfall, a good 20 metres above the water, and bombing into the pool below. My new Lance mentality doesn't extend to such madness at the moment.

A longboat took us further down the river and back to the Feejee Experience bus, then it was off to spend the night at Suva, on the South-eastern coastline and the capital of Fiji. What better way to experience the real Fiji than with a night's entertainment at...an Irish pub???! They really are everywhere - oh B'jesus!

We decided to spend an extra day at Suva. All we did pretty much was go to the cinema. You'll be surprised to hear, it was kind of like going to the cinema back at home! Except with a lot more crappy adverts for kitchen units and random stuff like that. Yeah, that really was about it!

Day 3 of the tour then, another new guide and another new bus load of backpackers (including randomly some girl who used to live on Dussindale in Wymondham and was in the year above me at Robert Kett - small world and all those cliches). Before leaving Suva we went to a shop in town where I purchased some felt tip pens, pencils, and a copy of the Disney classic 'Dumbo' in hardback format. This isn't actually my new book for reading on my travels. It was a present for the kids at the orphanage which we visited that morning. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time with them at all, it was straight on to another Fijian village for a traditional Kava ceremony. The day was rounded off with a spot of bilibil rafting (aka bamboo rafting) down the Wainibuka River, and a game of volleyball in the middle of the river as the heavens opened.

We ended up the day at Ellington, on the north-easterly tip of Viti Levu, and stayed at Volivoli Resort. That evening,as well as the usual kava ceremony and bonfire on the beach, we had some fun and games with the rest of the guys on the bus, including crab racing in which my hermit crab was atrocious and hardly moved out of the starting circle.

Again, we chose to spend an extra night at this resort. And again, we spent the day sunbathing and kicking a volleyball around. Another crab race in the evening - this time I'm pretty sure my crab was in fact dead!

On to the fourth and final day of the tour. It focused on the Indo-Fijian culture in the Ba district, as we went through areas heavily populated by 3rd/4th generation Indian settlers. In embracing this Indian element, we were meant to be 'chowing down Ruby Murray' for lunch according to the itinerary. I stuck to my good friend, the Chinese section of the menu. It never lets me down! Before arriving back in Nadi, we all got a bit dirty in the mud pools at the base of the Sabeto Valley. My skin now feels 10 years younger!

As and added extra to the Feejee Experience package, we spent two days and one crazy night at Beachcomber island, situated south of the Yasawa islands which we hopped around previously for a week. Our accomodation for the night would be a dorm room of 84 beds!! It used to be even more than this apparently,and lays claim to being the biggest dorm room on the planet!!! (according to the Book Of Lies, I hasten to add. We didn't even bother with the Fiji version) As one of the last nights as a dynamic duo, we partied like it's 1999. The bar area was made up of long benches where everyone would sit together, helping to create a bit of a party vibe. We entered another crab race, but this time it wasn't for free. We strategically placed our money on the outsiders, Marley of Jamaica and Imran of Pakistan. And they both did nothing!! Ah well! All that was left was to toast the night with a Fiji Bitter or two, and dance to the tunes of DJ Foxy.

Today it's time for goodbyes as Mikey goes to Hawaii. Mike, has anyone ever told you you're a star?!! It's not really time for sentimental goodbyes, cos I'll probably bumpinto you in the States anyway!! It's been 7 months of high class banter - I'll Jermain Defo see ya in a month for Kettle Chips, Only Fools repeats and Pop Tarts tomfoolery.

I, meanwhile, am off Stateside for a month-long American adventure. I think the whole plane to LA is gonna be full of backpackers. I've met quite a few peeps already on my flight, so no chance of me being lonely then! Until next time, take care and keep smiling x

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