Advertisement
Published: April 17th 2006
Bula Bula
What a welcome, at home you'd have some old tramp trying to ask you for change and it would be pissing down with rain!Its been a while once again since we have done a blog. Latest news is that we are both doing well and are now in America, writing this at a small hostel in China town in San Fransisco which is a great city but enough of America as this blog is about Fiji! Just a shout out to Jon here, hope Sydney is going ok mate! Missing you loads.
After working in New Zealand and meeting up with Kim, Jon and Ben again, we were both excited to be going to Fiji. The flight we got over there was excellent. We actually were on the maiden flight of one of Air New Zealands new planes we found out after reading about it in the paper in Fiji. Arriving at the airport the plane was given a welcome ceremony, stepping off the plane we got given flowers to hang around our necks and the traditional welcoming commity that sang songs as we passed which put us in a good mood. However that was not to last! Once through customs we were shocked to find a lady holding up a sign with our names on even though we hadn't booked a hostel.
Lifes a beach!!
We had such a hard time in Fiji, no time to relax at all! After a confusing conversation we came to the conclusion that our friend Ben who left a few days before had booked us some cheap accomodation before hand. We then got a lift to the hostel and things from then on started getting dodgy and were getting very bad vibes from the people there. As soon as we got there a lady kept trying to sell us package deals to the islands, also there was a lot of shifty looking people hanging around which made us all feel uncomfortable. They told us Ben had gone on a day trip and would be back that night. We decided to head into the town of Nadi to check things out and see if we could get a good deal on a trip to the islands. Nadi was shocking its the roughest place full of touts, prostitutes, drug dealers and at night time apparantly very dangerous for tourists so we kept our visit short. We met Ben at an internet cafe and alarm bells starting ringing when he said that he hadn't booked us in anywhere and though he did stay at the hostel he left after one night becuase he heard about people
getting their things stolen there... all our backpacks at this moment we had left in the hostel, bugger! During his stay there he had mentioned our names and what day we were landing so the owner must had remembered them and waited for us at the airport, so we had to sneak back to the hostel and try and explain why we were leaving which didnt go down to well with the owner but luckily the 2 huge guys who had driven us from the airport were not there at the time, though it seemed like they were following us through town in the day checking where we were going. We ended up staying at another hostel in Nadi. We didnt venture out at night and the whole building was boarded up like a jail, hopefully to keep people out rather than keep us in. At least we had air conditioning though but the cold baked beans on toast the next morning didnt go down to well. However at least we had our island trips booked and we couldn't wait to get out of Nadi!!!
We took a morning ferry to our first island resort called Coral View on
The guys
Matt, Ben, Jon and me chilling again Tevewa, an island in the Yasawa group of islands. The trip out there was amazing, some of the beaches were stunning. On arriving we were given a welcome song by the staff there. Jon, Ben and I went and explored along the island finding the best beach and sea I have ever seen, the pics dont do it justice. We met a guy called Matt there who had snorkel gear and went snorkeling on several occasions which was pretty amasing, lots of coral and colourful fish, I found a sea cucumber aswell! Kim went over to another island to Sun Tan Beach, where, obviously startd working on her tan! Some of the Fijians went over as well and fished and collected seaweed for dinner that night.
The first night was rather funny. We all had to dance to the 'Bula' song which means hello and tried some Kava which is a drink made from the root of a plant and if drunk in large quantities can effect your vision and hearing and is said to be able to make you hallucintate but we didnt drink too much, so dont worry mums! That night a really ugly girl from turkey
Hammock
"hanging" around by the beach...... kept trying to make advances towards all the guys which was funny but really annoying luckily for us she ended up getting the sh*ts which rescued us! The 5 days we stayed at coral view were very chilled out, however is actualy got a bit boring as there was not alot to do and believe it or not spending all day on a hammock on a beach is rather tedious, however there were some eventfull days! Ben sadly had a unlucky streak, after suffering from bad sunburn, then getting an eye infection, he managed to walk into a hornets nest while Jon, Matt and I were trekking through the forrest. All we heard were rantings and muffled swearing behind us in the woods only to see Ben come up to us and show us how badly his arse got stung, not a nice sight!! We ended up getting lost for several hours and on arriving back at the resort it looked like we had been away for a week and Kim had to mother us, with all our scratches, bites and sunburn. We later found out the route we had taken was a little dangerous and an American guy fell
Volley Ball
We were all pretty rubbish but the locals were good. off a cliff and died going the same way!! That night I came down with a case of Fiji belly and had the most painfull stomach cramps for 2 nights!
Kim on the otherhand was fine and took a trip to a place called the 'Blue lagoon' which is where a movie with the same name was filmed. After 5 nights and a hell of a lot of cake, we were all very ready to move onto the next island. Tevewa was great but it was very very far from civilisation. The entire resorts power came from a car engine and we had to drink rain water, our lives were basicaly spent waiting for the next meal as we were continuously hungry. The food was good though and we tried octopus and alot of other seafood aswell as huge amounts of coconuts and pineapples. We also met some really cool people too, mostly English (we get everywhere!). We had a small world incident again. A couple from Maidstone turned up after a few days and when Natasha heard where we were from she asked if we knew Stacey Holtum as she worked with her and knew we were the
Stunning pic
Taken by Kim, would make a good postcard! same age. We both used to go to school with her and Kim sees her out and about a lot when shes at home. Tiny island in the middle of the Pacific and we still managed to find home!!
After staying on Tevewa, we travelled again by ferry to Naviti to another resort called White Sandy Beaches. The beach it was on was even more beautiful, it really did look like paradise. The Fijians at our resort were brilliant, so friendly and learnt all our names in super quick time, very impressive, most of us can't even remember our own names half the time! We spent the next few days doing pretty much the same, snorkelling, swimming, lazing in hammocks. I got "Fiji-belly" again so didn't do hardly anything. Kim walked to another beach with Danielle and Sonya (two girls we met at the last resort) called Honeymoon Beach. It was amazing, completely deserted and Kim said the snorkelling was amazing but a little scarey as it was quite far out and they all got worried about sharks and sea-snakes, pathetic girls!! Jon, Ben and Kim also went on a trip to the village on the island that is
Doing what I do best
Its a hard life..... only accessed by boat. They were welcomed by the chief with a Kava ceremony then offered items to buy from old ladies and children. The kids surrounded them and Kim managed to find a baby to coo after. When they took pictures, the children were amazed at being able to see themselves on the cameras. They were shown round the village and the school where every lesson is taught in English. The houses were simple and looked very rundown but the guys all said it was really interesting and they all said it was humbling. We all went snorkelling round an old World War II plane that had crashed into the sea just off Naviti. It was really cool, very worn down obviously but the engine was still intact and there was clown fish living there. We also had a game of touch rugby with the locals in which we got our arses kicked and I nearly broke my toe...
One night for dinner we had a Lorve which is food cooked underground. I was in heaven, there was so much food, fish, squid, salads, veg, rice, pasta, fruit and a whole pig! We had campfires on the beach
Hat competition
Last minute entries, we had to use alot of tape to keep these on, no hat no dinner we were told! and we just sat around all night watching the stars which are so clear in Fiji. We visited another resort one night as it was Danielles' birthday. We had a few drinks and Kim was dragged up to dance with a Fijian, she looked scared the whole time! We also played silly buggers and a group of about 10 of us hide from Ben and Sonya under the platform. We didn't manage to scare them, think it must have been Jon again, he's not good at stelthing!
Kim, Jon, Ben and I left the island, Ben was moving to another island and the rest of us to go back to Nadi to catch our flights. As Jons was early the next morning and ours later, us boys decided we might as well sleep at the airport seeing as we'd had a crap time in Nadi before. Kim wasn't completly sold on the idea but went along with it anyway. Luckily though they had big comfy leather sofas so we didn't get a too bad nights sleep. We waved Jon off the next morning then just hung around for our flight.
P.S. Ben if your reading this send us
a pic of your hornet stung arse.....the world must see!
P.S. forgot to mention that while in Fiji we experianced a mild earthquake, well Kim and everyone else did, I was ill in the toilet at the time and somehow didn't notice it! :-s
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 18; qc: 68; dbt: 0.0647s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Kevin (Trevs Dad)
non-member comment
Fiji
Hi Trev Glad all is well with you. Sorry havent been in touch been busy off to Spain for a week Friday.Hope you are all enjoying San Fran looking forward to hearing all about it. So you enjoyed Kiwi. Spring is here at last,was a cold winter lets hope we have a hot summer.Take care of yourselves. Really enjoyed your travel blog.Nan is keeping well. Dad and Nanxx