Bula from Fiji!

ok friends, it has been too long so we're telling you about Fiji now since it isn't too out-of-date. We've been in Oz previously but since a/Queensland didn't blow us away, except Brisbane with Cheryl and Troy and b/ we've been robbed and all our valuables including memory card with Queensland photos, are gone, we'll cover that at a later date.

Early start on 5 Feb to return our hire car at Sydney airport - still baffled by Aussie signage after a month, we end up in bus lane being beeped at and getting generally lost, but still manage to check in on time. Then we have one of those minor but irritating traveller episodes: a representent of Virgin Blue horrible customer service messes up by sticking our visa numbers on the photo pages of our passports which according to immigration is serious defacing. It can't be removed from L's passport without ripping the plastic covering photo and personal details so they flip out and we wait in a room for a while whilst they bollock Virgin Blue, and then tell us we need to get new passports and claim compensation from said rubbish airline. We ask Virgin Blue at the check-in gate and they keep us waiting for the "supervisor" til everyone had boarded, so when she finally arrives in a state of deep stress she is screaming at L. that no-one has stuck anything on his passport (she rips it off in a frenzy, tearing the photo page) and that she refuses to give us a phone number or address to contact and to get on the damn plane right now coz she is feeling very stressed. Quite unsatisfactory! Sorry, our Aussie friends, but we've had too much of this in Oz and can't wait to get to laid-back Fiji!

Turbulent flight to Nadi takes 4 hours to our surprise (another poorly judged time-shift!) but we love the vista on landing on Vita Levu island - limpid green waters; we can see the reefs from the air! Get the traditional "bula" (hello/welcome/health in Fijean) from band full of men wearing flowers at airport and experience the famous "fiji time" awaiting our driver for an age at Arrivals. Sandalwood lodge hotel, off the road from airport to Nadi, is friendly and fit for purpose. Then ensues travellers nightmare No X: our Smile visa cards won't work at any ATMs, and we are planning on leaving for the Yasawa Islands in the morning, where there are no banks or card payment facilities. We take a local bus downtown - interesting experience, costing about 10p and squeezed full of locals fanning themselves with anything and everything. We just drip. The road is just open but very poor, following the recent cyclone and floods and we see schools being rebuilt and general destruction. Town is pretty gross - ugly and full of touts, and banks and even Moneygram still do not work for us, so we head back to Martintar for Fiji curry (really inidian - half the population here are) and octopus for Laurent; Fiji Bitter is pretty good (tho really lager). Still keen to leave tomorrow, we finally find a phonecard and working phone and have extraordinarily stressful conversation with Smile (our bank) where they can't hear properly or there's or a delay or they just don't want to listen, but basically nothing is resolved and we can just hear them blah-ing on, frustratingly telling us the problem is something that we have already resolved about 20 times and can't do anything about from here. GRRR. We awake during the night to ponder and see that we have been joined by the biggest cockroach we have yet experienced, then can't sleep! M has had hideous, angry rash all over her legs and elbows for days and it also reaches a painful peak this night, preventing much sleep :(

Next day bank still doesn't oblige so we cheer ourselves up by enjoying lunch of bush fern and cassava in coconut milk - yum. head downtown again to optimistically try to buy our boat pass, only to find company is not where it should be or indeed anywhere but we happen upon a random agency and they sort us out. We try both our bank cards again in different banks and suddenly one of them works and then is blocked again - seems so arbitrary and like a lost cause after loads of messages and phone calls! After a warm-pool dip we get a pizza - this is where all the Fijeans are hiding! Next morning we leave for the Yasawas with a small budget, and kindly the hotel agree for us to pay when we return.

Off to the islands - exciting! Fortunately when we get to the marina we get some cash from a bank transfer we did that's come through early - phew!5hr cruise from Denerau on the Yasawa flyer catamaran is hot but breezy and stunning: first the Mamanucas (Bounty and Castaway etc are true Robinson Crusoe idylls), then the Yasawas - limpid warm water, coral and coconut-palm covered islands. We travel up to the far north - Nanuya Lailai, and with Laura, who we meet on the boat, are the only people at Gold Coast resort. Apparently it's very quiet up here as it's rainy season and due to after-effects of cyclone. Basic straw and bamboo bungalows and meals - 4 carbs combined, but great location; we trek across difficult terrain for 30 mins to the famous Blue Lagoon where snorkelling is pretty good (seahorse-like pipefish exciting!) and water is gorgeous turquoise. During the evening there aint much to do with no electricity, bu Bill and another woman from the staff play the guitar and sing to us - they are so shy and incredibly quiet but know all the American/British classics - bizarre! They find it very bizarre that we don't know all 70s Americana... Fijeans are all so lovely. But giant spider in bure (traditional fiji thatched dwelling) not so lovely - bigger than any tarantula we've seen; that's the hazard with open rooms like this - full of lizards too.

Next day we're taken to the Flyer along with all the other speedboats, to move on to our next island, but having been assured it's the next stop we get on and are told they have already been there so we're going in the wrong direction. We plump for Long Beach on Matacawalew islands instead as it looked gorgeous on the way up; annoyingly the ferry make you pay before you can leave the boat, ostensibly so people aren't stranded but in reality fixing prices for resorts and taking 30% of payment for themselves. Long Beach is friendly and lovely and as all the Bure were swept away in the cylone we get a cabin with electricity (sometimes) set in the pretty gardens and only a few metres from the beach. There are only 10 of us, but sadly the Brit contingent are dimwits and keep up awake til the early hours getting wasted and shouting. OK, this is unfair coz afterwards we get to know them and they are actually very sweet and personable but we are probably snobby and old (only 3 days til M turns 34 - we won't mention that again - said Brits were astounded that anyone could be over about 25!! which made us feel better). It's weird wading through water (King tides) for Afternoon Tea in Fiji, but welcome and a good prelude to hammock-lazing til dinner. Next day L. awakes with c.50 mozzie bites, but we decide nonetheless to stay here a bit longer not least because the next place we wanted to go is far too £££. We swim out to nearby tiny Deviulau Island but are reluctant to go further because generally all land belongs to a village and you mus seek the chief's permission to be there. After a typical boiling, sunny day we experience a night-storm: sky flashing electric purple.

Next day after lovely coconut bread brek, we get back on the Flyer northbound but learn our next choice has no water, so stay on boat til it loops south (an age with no lunch except beer and pringles) and move on to Waya Island - pricey Octopus resort. May be twice the price but is far nicer than anywhere else we have seen (apart from the tiny £25,000 a night type islands), with a sand-floor bar/restaurant, beach with decent snorkelling, pristine pool, lots of sunloungers, flowers, tres and pretty bures and bungalows (for us cheapskates). We experience Kava at a welcome ceremony (called Kava Kava in UK - a type of anaesthetic root-plant very important in Fiji for ceremonies and bonding, traditionally reserved for chiefs/men) where we have to clap and shout "bula" before gulping down a shell-full, which results in numb lips and slightly dreamy feelin. Enjoy a beer at the bar with Nigel the prison guv from Burnley (Kath and Andy - he was weirdly like Andy though clearly from the wrong side of the Pennines) then an amazing seafood and fish buffet with tons or salad and fruit, all to the tunes of the Fijean string band. We love it here and feel very spoilt! So far have only eaten carbs in Fiji, apparently because people grow and rear their food so its difficult to get enough for a troup of tourists. After dinner we spectate at beach volleyball listending to the cheep-cheep of lizards and generally enjoying the luxury.

Sadly, next day budget says we must move on though we book our last 2 days here. Make the most of the day lounging in sun, playing backgammon and scrabble (M, 34, reigning champ), then take boat around the volcanic green-clad hills of Waya island to Sunset Beach resort. M swims and admires one of many Fijean rainbows (wet season) whilst L is roped into volleyball with all guys. Sadly, resort transpires to be a neglected dump with lounging about, quasi-catatonic staff who just about muster the energy to spray the huge cockroaches constantly streaming out of the kitchen. They spend the whole evening listening to reggae and playing cards, giggling like teenage girls as the Fijeans are wont to do! We wake up in our mouldy, unbelievably saggy single beds to find we're wet (heavy rains came into the bure) and we almost missed breakfast as they didn't blow the conch-shell today (the traditional call). Never mind, it's inedible oily dumplings with nescafe (as usual) anyway, which we abandon for a game of chess. Lunch similarly foul and indeterminate. As we play with the skinny kittens and tick-infested dogs on the beach, we remember Octopus resort wistfully! We sit outside to escape dire gospel Cds but are treated to annoying fire & brimstone lecture by one of the guys who follows us; "life is but a meaningless transition" attitude may explain catatonic state?!We escape him by walking across picturesque sandspit to Waya Lailai island, where we're headed this afternoon.

Wayalailai Ecoresort is contrastingly clean and happy- hurrah! Greeted by bula band on pleasant hammock-strewn beach, then settle into our cosy, colourful bure before heading to bar where we play Shanghai with a Finnish couple - Sari and Merke, as it's torrential rain all day. Next day, we chill in and around our beachfront bure in company of cheeky mynas, seeking refuge in the mozzie net. M then went on hike with local guide and 3 others (L's back too bad), hacking our way through vegetation up to Wobbly Rock (product of landslide - it's huge, and wobbles when you're on top), with views of the Yasawas & Mamanucas and up to "Gorilla" rockface and "3 sisters". Passing kava plantations, bamboo, pineapple, guava, mango, orange, taro roots, lemon verbena and various medicinal plants and stopping to pray at landmarks. It's a tough climb but a far tougher descent as it pours it down, through 8ft grasses, over rocks, stones, tree roots and through slushy mud. Barely recovered, M, together with the Leicester 3 (Brits from Long Beach) gets roped into "bula dance" - cheesy 80s disco style dancing, but only for a very short while before slinking off.

Final 2 days spent at Octopus again; so good to be back for more beach lounging and general chilling. We meet a US Freestyle Frisbee champion (sorry, but I just cant take this seriously!) and Calen and Amber - lovely Californians straight out of the OC. Evening screening of Grease proides much singalong fun, but sadly we dont have energy for millionth viewing of Rocky Horror Pic Show afterwards. Next day, M visits local village and attends church service - tons of pigs slopping about happily in mud on the way. After the trek (Fijean paths go straight up and down - no messing about!) we are all leaving puddles of sweat in the pews, but are diustracted by the intense singing from the 4-part choir is loud and incredible. The Brits definitely left their choral tradition here to be flavoured with Fijean passion; there is an inter-island competition in the Yasawas and standards are high despite heat and lack of books/pianos etc. I joined in as best as I could in Fijean with no music, aided by an enthusiastic Fijean songstress neighbour. Village, cute kids especially, so friendly. On return, we played backgammon, realising to our horror we've had wrong set up all this time; M still wins though again! Spend evening lying around the pool under the stars watching a Tommy Lee Jones movie no-one understands; good setting though!

Next day we leave for long trip back to Nadi, where we bid farewell to Calen and Amber at Denerau marina. Manage to find an internet place, though weirdly it's just someone's office, then try our best to sleep during a massive tropical storm. Up at 5.30 for flight to Vanuatu - we're so excited, but spend 2 hours stuck on tarmac due to flap problem. Eventually, the engineers turn up and we're off and away!

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