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Published: October 9th 2006
I've been in paradise for 2 weeks and its a place I will never forget! The Fijian people are so friendly and the 300 plus tropical islands that fiji is made up of are stunningly beautiful with white sandy beaches, palms trees, and lovely blue lagoons. Its the end of winter here but its still very warm but a little cloudy and rainy at times.
We were made welcome soon after the 5am landing at nadi airport by 3 Fijian mean who played guitar and sang to us while we patiently waited to get our tourist visa, along with all the other people who disembarked our double decker boeing from LA. The air pacific boeing was really cool but we were too tired to take advantage of the LCD screens built into the seats and the 12 movie channels playing the latest film releases. But we did take advantage of the champagne breakfast before we landed! (well actually just the food, it was a little early for champagne)
After picking up out bags, Ulrika and I emerged into the main terminal where we were swamped with travel agent reps. If we hadnt anything planned I'm sure we would not have had any problems! But Ulrika had booked us into a resort on one of the Fijian Islands for a dive course and the travel agents reps were helpful to show us where to check in. We had booked with
awesome fiji adventures to take us to our destination. Throughout our time with them we found them very professional and organised. So organised in fact that they had whisked us off to our
hotel on Nadi bay that we were to stay for the first night before we had a change to get FJ dolars. We didnt think it was a problem until we realised that the hotel was miles away from Nadi town where the closest ATM was. We were feeling a little tired at this stage having missed out on a good nights sleep. Our flight had left at 11pm on Sunday for the 10 hour flight and I always find it difficult to sleep upright. We also missed out on nearly a whole day cos Fiji is 19 hours ahead of LA!
So when we checked in at our hotel, Ulrika made a little bed for herself on the beach at the back of the hotel because a room wasnt ready for us (this being 7am at this stage) and I had to borrow some money to get a bus into Nadi town! Getting the bus to Nadi was an eye-opener. It surprised me to see how poor and undeveloped fiji is. Fiji who only gained its independance from Britain in the 1970s still seems very dependant, particularly on forefign investors. It seems the biggest industry here is tourism and everyone here is very helpful and there are a few who are too helpful. Nadi town is a very small place (30,000 pop.) with only one main street and lots of locals on the street who were sometimes very persistant for you to part with some cash in their shop. Thankfully the bus service is fairly regular so I didnt have to stay that long. On the way back to the hotel I got a little wet as many of the local buses dont have any windows! Its so hot here anyways...you dont really need them!
When I got back to the hotel I got the key to our room and Ulrika and I immediately went up to the room to rest for a while. The hotel and rooms were nice and modern and clean, so we just relaxed by the pool and beach and enjoyed a nice fijian chicken curry for dinner and an early night.
The following day we were up at 7am to catch an nice air conditioned coach to port Denarau. From there we took a catamaran north west to the Yasawa Island group and our island Nanuya Balavu, where our resort
Manta Ray Island resort is based.
The catarmaran came to a stop close to the island and a speed boat came and picked us up to bring us to the resort. On approach its hard to see the resort itself as the buildings are made of wood and are also surrounded by many palm trees and plants. After we landed, checked in and explored the island a little we found our tree house (or bure as the Fijians call it) It was a very basic one room treehouse on wooden stilts with enough room for a double bed covered with a mosquito net and a fan on the roof. It did also have a small balcony facing the bay that was nice. It fitted our needs fine for the 4 nights we stayed there. The only annoyance was the walk to the eco friendly waterless toilets and the open roof cold water showers. (The water wasnt really that cold and was kinda nice with the hot climate we were in)
For the first 4 days on the island we spent our time either in the water learning to dive or in hammocks on the beach studying books on how to dive. The pratical lessons under water were great and confience building because we gained a lot of info and knowledge on how to cope with emergency situations under water. After the 4 days we had a written test on all we had learned and luckily we both passed with flying colours.
Our time on the island was nearly up then so we decided that it could be nice to relax for 2 days more on the island. We also decided to move into a tent from the bure as it was the cheapest option for us to stay on. Another factor that convinced us to stay was the daily buffet of gorgeous fresh food. For 18 euro a day we could eat as much as we liked of the best fresh organic fijian food...and it tasted fantastic! We always looked forward to the drum beats underneath the main bure (where the restaurant and bar was) that called everyone on the island for food.
For the remaining 3 days we mainly relaxed but we did go on 3 very cool trips. The first was to go snorkling with a family of manta rays. These guys were very impressive with the biggest being about 4m in width. We did notice that the second biggest one had it tail bitten off by what we hypotised later was a big shark! The second trip was to the biggest village in the yasawas (or its capital where their cheif resided) which was a short boat trip away from our resort. It was fascinating to see how the locals survived on their tropical island. They also introduced us to the tastiest fruit I'd ever had and would love to have again! The 3rd outing was a trek around our island resort by a local Fijian man, Lulu. He had lots of interesting stories about film shoots such as castaway and Toms Hanks and his body guard. He also stopped along the way pointing out interesting plants that fijians use for medicine, including one plant that was of interest to japanese researchers in their search for a cure for AIDS. The end of the trek ended on one of the highest parts of the island. From there we had a beautiful view of the island and its neighbours. Lulu also stopped to show us the islands bat tree! It was hard to see them because it was a little distance away so he decided to throw stones into the branches. It was an impressive sight to see many black bats take flight, swooping around the tree and landing upside down again near to their original resting place!
To cap our great week off on the island we decided to do a night dive in the local coral reef, even though we had only 6 dives done before. Diving in the dark is like entering an alien world with our torch lights. However after a while we were a little disappointed with the dive because most of the inhabitants were asleep. We didnt really see anything unusual compared to the previous dives and spent our time searching the corals for fish. While it was a cool experience I dont think we would do a night dive again unless highly recommended in some place by a lot of people.
We were a little sad leaving Mana ray island at the end of our week but we were looking forward to exploring Fijis biggest island or what Fijians call the mainland, Viti Levu. We got the catamaran back to port Denarau and a bus to the very nice Nadi bay hotel. We werent sure where to go from there but we found a very helpful canadian tourist agency rep who described to us the best highlights in Viti Levu and together we planned our remaning 4 days. For our first 2 days we went to a lovely little town called Pacific Harbour. It was from there that we did the
big fish encounter dive or what they advertised as "The best shark dive in the world"! I couldnt really believe we had signed up for it but the travel agent rep was very convincing.
Getting kitted out and riding oyut to the dive site in our 10m catamaran was fine but when they began to throw srcaps of fish into the water to announce our arrival and when the sharks and big fish came to fight for the pieces of meat it made me very nervous. But as soon as I jumped into the water and began my 30m descent I lost all nervousness and a sense of wonder and fascination came over me. It became immediately clear that the big fish and sharks werent interested in me at all but the 1000kg of fish scraps "papa" the lead diver had pulled into the water with him. Fish from the small to the very large were circling papa and his bins full of scraps. On this dive, our first dive for the day we saw gigantic fish and a very tame nurse shark feeding on the scraps. But after a surface interval of an hour we went back down 15m to watch some more feeding and were also greeted by a 6m tiger shark and 5 bull sharks! They were amazing to watch especially the tiger shark who gave me a real scare during one point when she swam directly towards us but veered off at the last minute. It certainly was a day to remember so we bought the film shoot of the whole dive on dvd...so if any of you are interested we can watch it together to relive it!
Our last two days were spent in the capital of the island, Suva. Its a very small grotty town
so we didnt spend long it in. We spent our time in the
rain tree lodge and visited the lovely rain forest across the road. I also had some fun swinging from a tree into some cool refreshing water pools in the middle of the forest. It was a nice place to end our 2 weeks in Fiji...!
Phew..my fingers are sore now..going to go back to the hotel now to pack and get ready for the plane tomorrow morning at 8am. Next stop New Zealand!!
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Sheila
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No Photos!
Sounds great but am a bit disappointed not to see any photos!