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Published: July 18th 2007
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Bula!
On Sunday night I took my flight to Nadi, Fiji. I arrived at 12.30am to find there was noone from the hostel waiting for me (I later found out that the hostel bus man who was supposed to pick me up had fallen asleep!). I spent about half an hour getting harassed by travel reps trying to sell me stuff before giving up on the bus and getting a cab to the hostel. Luckily, the security guy who checked me in was confused by the whole situation and accidentally put me in my own villa, with double bed and everything! (usually twice the dorm price so I forgave the hostel for the bus).
Most people seemed to be going on the Yasawa Islands off the west coast so I decided to do the same. Got booked on the boat leaving the next day and headed for Nacula, one of the northernmost islands. I'd booked my accomodation before I arrived, but there was a bit of confusion when I got there and was told I'd been booked in under the name Charlie G! Spent the next couple of days swimming in the sea, snorkelling and sitting around in
a hammock (pretty much a standard day in Fiji). Me and a couple of guys hacked open a coconut, drank the water inside only to find a weird yellow blob inside! Felt a bit dodgy for the next couple of days after that.
The next island was Nanuya Lailai, where the film "Blue Lagoon" was filmed (I'd never heard of it). Our host was a really camp guy calling himself "Queen" who was both entertaining and slightly scary. One night he got people from each nation to stand up and sing their national anthems, for once I was glad to be english as I had about fifteen people to hide behind but some people were on their own! Took a walk over to the other side of the island where there is a $1500 a night resort, and got to snorkel in the same spot they do. There was also a tea shop on the island which had excellent chocolate cake. One night we had the Fijian equivalent of Hangi, the Maori food cooked underground and that was interesting.
The next day I went to White Sandy Beach which was pretty cool. Got a pretty nasty wound playing
beach volleyball though. At night a couple of us went to watch the rugby and were then invited to a kava ceremony. Kava is a drink made from a root that is ground up and squeezed into water. The result is a sort of muddy-looking water that has a sort of calming effect when you drink it. I'd tried kava a couple of times by this point but before it had been for the tourists so it was good to see a more authentic ceremony. I tried to stay here for a bit longer but had booked myself on the Wana Taki cruise, I had a free night on this party boat included with my pass.
The cruise was really good, it was a sunday when I got on and we went to church in a small village on Nativi. The minister did parts of the ceremony in english for the tourists and then again in fijian for the locals. The people seemed genuinely appreciative that we had gone and were really welcoming. The singing they did was amazing, it's the same everywhere you go, they never just sing a plain melody, there is always a harmony between the
men and women. After, we were shown around the village school. We headed back to the boat for drinking and games. My team won the quiz, the prize was these cocktails that were mainly Bounty Rum which is something ridiculous like 53%. I also did suprisingly well in a game of musical chairs that I was trying really hard to lose. The next morning we headed back to the village to see the villagers do some traditional fijian dancing. It was great to see and at the end they got people up to dance, I was picked every time. Anyone who's ever seen me try to dance knows I'm usually a one-man dance-disaster but it was similar to the Hoke Koke, which I can just about handle. Back on the boat I met Marie, the girl I'd zorbed with back in Rotorua! It wasn't a huge shock as I knew she'd be in Fiji at the same time but it was still cool.
My next stop was Manta Ray resort, which is quite expensive but was worth it. The food was really good and they have free kayaks so I spent most of my time messing about on them.
It was cool to see the fish dissapear into the coral as you pass over them. At one point I thought someone was throwing stones at me, but it was these little green flying fish that I was scaring out of the water! They actually flew quite far before hitting the water again.
Yesterday I took the trip to my final island, South Sea Island. The island is so small you can walk around it in under five minutes and you can see the other side when you stand on the beach (I heard some people even played hide-and-seek using the whole island!). The snorkelling was great there and sat on the beach I could see Castaway Island in the distance where Tom Hanks filmed Castaway.
Now back on the mainland of Viti Levu, I've got a couple of days before winging off to Hawaii. Fiji has been great but I'm looking forward to not having to say Bula! every five minutes (there is no fijian word for hello, so they say this all the time instead). Spoke to a guy who got really excited when he talked about the north coast of Hawaii, so now the plan
is to head up there!
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Linda
non-member comment
Aloha
Guess you are in Hawaii by now and hopefully you have indeed escaped the tourism of Waikiki and headed north to see the big surf and the more local places. Your trip to Figi just looked amazing!!! What a glorious time you have had there, heaven by the looks! Hope you have a great time in Hawaii and I'll e-mail you re LA soon. Thanks for bothering to e me from Figi, that was great. Thought you'd be heading to Vegas, what a contrast to Manta Ray Bay!!!! Much love, Linda