Bula Time

We arrived early evening and were promptly split up from all the "real holiday makers" who were going off to their fancy 5 star resorts while we were picked up and taken to our hostel. We stayed at Horizon Backpackers which wasn't too bad especially as next door was their sister hostel which was alot newer and we had use of all their facilities (ie v nice pool). As it was friday night the bar had happy hour until late so we managed a few beers before heading off to bed.


First job for the next day was to sort out our trip up to the Yasawa Islands. This ended up taking most of the morning, we managed to book our first couple of nights on the most northern island and had a short list of other resorts we liked the look of. We then hopped onto the local bus into Nadi town centre to buy a few supplies. The most important supply was a new sarong for me (a bargain at 2 pounds), then we enjoyed a nice cheap curry before going to the supermarket to get a few snacks to take with us. Back at the hostel we decided to take just one of our big backpacks with us to make life easier (especially mine as now i wouldnt have to carry one!), so this meant sorting through both bags and trying to get everything to fit- sounds pretty easy, trust us it wasnt! Finally all done and ready for trip we went next door to soak up some sun and have a dip in their pool. First impressions of fiji were really good, the people were really nice, the weather was good. So on our second evening over dinner I went to work on trying to persuade Gra that we should stay here longer than the planned three weeks (and as im writing this while still in fiji and its day 23 you can work out I got my own way- didnt take much persuading.)


The bus picked us up at 7.30 the next morning and took us to the marina, typically just as we got there it started to rain- doh! There's only 1 company to get up the islands so it was a pretty big boat and we decided to sit in the air conditioned room, this may not have been the best idea as after an hour or so I was starting to turn a little green! As we were going to one of the last islands we got to see all of the others on the way, and boy did they look nice! Finally at 1.30 we were transfered onto a tiny boat to take us to Nabua Lodge on Nacula island. As we turned the corner to enter the little bay where Nabua was our hearts sank a little bit, the torquise blue water we'd seen everywhere turned a bit darker and the sand was covered in grass like seaweed- not really ideal for swimming. We got off the boat and were taken to the main area to have lunch- we'd been warned food was abit bland on most of the islands and that was definatly right here. We were told meals were at 8am, 12pm and 7pm (eeeeek 7 hours between lunch and dinner, you can just imagine Gras face at this moment). Then we were taken to our room which was basic but ok, a bit like what we'd stayed in in Laos, unfortunatly here it costs a bit more than 1 pound a night. We decided to go for a bit of a walk to see if we could find a nicer beach but they all seemed the same with the horrid seaweed and we got drenched walking back when the heavy rain started. We got back to Nabua looking like drowned rats which everyone found most amusing. The rest of the day was taken up with playing cards with all the other guys staying there. There was a really nice group of people staying so the atmosphere was really good and pretty quickly one of the other girls made me feel much better by saying the beach is much nicer at high tide, and sure enough a few hours later you couldnt see the seaweed and we were looking forward to the next day when hopefully the sun would be out. Luckily we woke up to blue sky and we spent the next few days working on the tan during the day and playing cards in the evening. We also had a first experience of the bula dance (a great fijian dance very similar to the macarana) and our first taste of kava, their local (mild) narcotic drink which basically tasted of muddy water.


After 3 nights at Nabua we decided to try another island and us and a danish family headed just over the water (literally 5 mintues) to Coral View. We were hoping for great things as when we'd radioed to book from Nabua they told us it was 210 dollars but we realized that we could buy accomadtion vouchers from the big boat and it would only cost 150, seemed a bit bizzare but it was how it worked. Because we needed to pick up the vouchers from the big boat Gra went over to pick them up but came back minus his flip flops, it turned out that the driver of the nabua boat hadnt realized he was getting back on so he's thrown them onto the big boat without Gra knowing. He then had to go a couple of days without until he had to get the coral view boat out to try and get them back, after much searching through all of the lost and found boxes he was finally handed what he thought were his flip flops and he didnt realize until he was back at coarl view that he was now the proud owner of a pair of havanas (slightly better then his 50p thai ones).

Anyway back to Coral View, the room was great and would definatly have been worth 210. The bures had just been rebuilt so they were all brand new with tiled floors, built in wardrobes etc, it was just like being on holiday! The food was also so much better, we even had afternoon tea at 4 when you could buy a piece of freshly baked cake for 1 dollar (30p). Like I said earlier a danish family (Karsten, Sophie, Emelie and Frya) also came over with us and we got to know them really well over the next few days. The beach which Coral View is on is ok, but we walked to another just around the corner and it was gorgous, your typical picture postcard beach. Now this is what we'd expected in Thailand but never found!

The first night here was a litle bit of a disaster though, it was going really well and we'd had a great meal. Then it got around to the staff doing some singing and things and the guy who was introducing everyone suddenly collapsed and banged his head, straight away he started to have some kind of fit. Sophie is a nurse and thought it must be epilepsy but after a while a guy that was in charge came over and told us he didnt have epilepsy, but he was possessed and that his cousin had had the same thing a week before! What can you say to that!!! After a while the staff carried him to their rooms and we didnt see him again, but we were told the next morning he was fine but had gone to the village to stay with family and see the doctor. Its at times like these that you realise how lucky you are that you hosptals everywhere at home and even on this trip your covered with medical insurance.

We really wanted to stay longer than the booked 3 nights but unfortunatly they were fuly booked so we had to arrange our next place to stay. The so called "Travel desk" at CV should have been able to help us easily but everything was on fiji time and it took hours just to find out if a resort had a vacancy- nightmare!! Finally we booked a resort called White Sandy Beach on Naviti for the following day.

After saying goodbye to our new danish friends we headed off with another english couple, Elise and Ellison, down to Naviti. The beach here was again really really nice and it was really sheltered. The bure wasn't as new as Coral Views but was still really nice, we even had an outside shower and bath! It became clear from others later that we infact had the best room there (well we're not going to compain about that are we!). After our evening meal (back to the bland food), we were entertained by "The Bula Boys"- think spice girls but 10x better! They were fanstaic and obvioulsy loved it, and they seemed to love it even more when thay made us get up and do the bula dance too (luckily there are no videos of that!). We stayed 2 nights here and had a really nice time soaking up the sun and doing some really good snorkelling, but thought we'd go further south to another island Waya and stay at Sunset waya which we'd read some great reviews online for.

We saw Sophie and family on the big boat and found out they were going to Manta Ray (v nice but bit out of our budget) for 1 night and then to White Sandy so we'd just missed them which we were abit gutted about. Anyway we got to Sunset Waya and realized pretty soon that you cant actually see the sunset from the resort as it goes behind a mountain at about 4o'clock. We were taken as normal to the eating area to be told about the resort and what trips they offer and to be honest we didnt get a great feel from the place at that point and we hadnt even seen the room yet. So when we went to pay we decided to just pay for 1 night instead of the planned 3 "just incase". And boy are we glad we did....... The room was horrible, didnt seem very clean, you couldnt see in the bathroom as they'd made a kind of ceiling but forgot about putting a light in (and to be honest i wouldnt want to see in there anyway). We manged to forget how bad it was for the evening as a couple of swedish girls we'd met back at Nabua were staying there so we played Uno until it was time to go back to bed. Two words for you- Cockroaches and Ants. Thats what met us as we walked into the bure, once we finally exterminated them we tried to get some sleep (on the thinnest mattress in the world). Only to be woken up by mouse going through the bin, lets just say we were up and packed by 6.30! We had 2 choices either go back to Nadi early or go back to Sandy beach and have to pay the extra on the boat. We decided to pay the extra, sod the money we didnt want our last stay on the islands to be a bad one!


Once on the big boat Gra had to go and pay, the ladies recognized us and couldnt understand why we'd spend the money to go back up north. Gra told them how bad Sunset Waya was and as their company reccomends it we somehow managed to get half price tickets!! We then picked up Sophie and family from manta Ray much to their surprise and all went back to White Sandy beach where luckily we were given the same room again. During our stay here Gra had his first danish lesson from Emelie which was pretty amusing- and more to the point pretty fustrating as he picked it up really quickly. We stayed here another 2 nights and on the last they had fijian night. This meant we got fed some really really good food which they cook in a hole in the ground and then more entertaining from the bula boys. And once again they made us get up and join in and this time we had to play musical numbers (another version of musical statues which we probably played about 20 years ago). I have to say i was very proud of myself as i won first prize- unfortunatly there was no actual prize but gra was happy as I had made a complete fool of myself dancing on my own infront of everyone!


The next afternoon we said another sad goodbye to the staff at White sandy and got back on the big boat with the family. They had one more stop but we were heading back to nadi for one night before heading to Pacific Harbour on the south coast where they were going to meet us ina few days time. The weather was a lot better for the long boat trip so this time we stayed on top deck and enjoyed the view (and ofcourse workd on the tan).


We really enjoyed the Yasawas, I think we were pretty lucky as we always had a nice group of people staying at the resorts which makes a huge difference. Something we did notice was that peoples opinions vary soooo much (ie someone wrote the great review on Waya sunset which we had read where as we hated it) which makes it realy dificult to plan. I guess the resorts will learn over the next couple of years and the general standards will rise but until then it's pretty much pot luck. Recommendation would be to do one of the organised trips offered by awsome adventures as they seem to currently have the monopoly on the good resorts.

Next job; try and delay flights for another week...............................

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