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Published: December 14th 2009
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Lunch on the beach in Nadi(Warning long blog)
The flight from LA itself was long and cramped, and long but fairly smooth oh and did I mention long!! I hardly slept as always but Nath managed to sleep most of the way. The plane was a fairly old one with the rubbish TV screen on the back of the chair that is always too dark and has no setting to alter it. It also played all the movies at one time on a loop so if you missed the beginning you had to wait 2 hours for it to start again! Other than that it was the smoothest flight I’ve ever been on so it really helped my nerves. By the time we landed though a day and a half later we were knackered and glad we were being met by someone from the hotel.
On arriving in Nadi (pronouced nandi apparently) it wasn’t as warm as I was expecting but then I guess it was only 5am. After declaring our left over Oreo cookies and dumping my massive pine cone!!! (boooo) we were greeted by a Fijian guy in a very loud shirt, which we would soon realise anyone in the tourist
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Blewater lodge hotel - bit cloudy but v warm!! industry wore. No flower garlands though, which I was disappointed with or coconut milk to drink but then this wasn’t a Polynesian country (maybe next time). We thought we would be collected in the hotel shuttle but instead we were shown to a taxi, and thought here we go....but luckily our guide got in and also paid for it - phew. The Blue water lodge had been highly recommended on trip advisor and I could see why, it is only a tiny hotel with 2 double and 2 dorm rooms making it so intimate and quiet it was lovely. We were greeted by Jo our friendly waiter, bar man, concierge, receptionist, cook and maintanace man for the few days and he showed us our room. Very clean very homely and no need (yet) for a mosquito net over the bed. As we were in time for breakfast we sat out on the decking next to a little rectangular pool and awaited our breakfast. Now this is where we had been told about "Fiji time", a bit like a siesta but longer.......About 45 mins later we had had our first course of a banana and papaya quarter and some tea, we
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Nadi beach sunset then waited another 15 mins for some toast. This was our first experience of Fiji time, which would be a slight source of annoyance over the next few days. The breakfast though small was nice and was all I was expecting from what I’d read previously. It was still grey though and chilly so I was hoping that maybe the great weather would occur later. We went straight off to bed at this point after being awake for felt like a week- so nice zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
A few hours later we arose from our pit all bleary eyed and made our way back out on to the patio. It was finally hot by now - yippeee here comes the tan. We met Mike the proprietor who was so helpful in every way, booking everything up for us and giving us the heads up on the local area. We needed lunch so headed to the beach front which was in front of us and ate at the first beech hotel we came to. Nice and cheap ($3 Fiji dollars to £1) and it even came with its own stray dogs that rested on my feet under the table in the hope
of scraps (which of course they got!! I know I know intermittent reinforcement!!!). We then took a quick stroll across the beach as it was really hot by now and then went to another hotel to use the internet to send our final messages to family for 10 days. This hotel also had a corner shop in it, the kind where every inch of the wall is covered with random items but with no prices. The guy immediately pounced and said did I need help and that every thing was on special price, “not at all just having a nose around” I said quite loud without realising so he proceeded to chat in native language with his “work colleagues” whilst I nosed around - I’m sure they were talking about me but then maybe I’m being paranoid??
Anyway that evening the food at our hotel was amazing!! The food came out on plates that were as large as lorry steering wheels and we didn’t even managed to finish half of it. Good food was also on the menu for the local midges / mosguitos as I got bitten quite a lot that night despite trying to cover up with
what little repellent we had. I was aware that some how I’d been bitten by my knee even though I had trousers on - gross! that means they’re either really strong midges over here or one had crawled up my trouser leg - brave sod!! We went to bed early as the next day we were going on a cultural tour of the mainland that Mike had suggested. So up at 5am with our swimming costumes ready we headed for breakfast which started at 6.30am. Now breakfast is the only thing I would complain about at Blue water as the rest was wonderful. It started early but not early enough, given the Fijian speed at which things happen, for many of the trips picked up at 7am so by this point you’d be lucky if they had brought out the tea pot. That morning we only managed our fruit and tea before the tour bus (which arrived bloody early) came to get us. We grabbed some of the toast and legged it out the door. (nb - it would seem over the rest of the holiday that Fijians conveniently use this whole concept of Fijian time when they want so
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Ceremonial hut they can be late but as soon as they want you to move they will literally wait behind you till you move). It was a shame we’d rushed breakfast as we then proceeded to sit on this rickety bus for 3 hours, collecting others from their hotels before we even got to the start of our cultural tour.
The tour involved a canal boat trip down one of the local rivers to the original settlement village of John Davenport (The Britain who came to Fiji originally) it was a really lovely village and we were welcomed with drums and half naked men greeting us!! We were invited into the village temple (shoes off) had a traditional welcoming ceremony, some Kava (which tastes like a muddy puddle and then leaves your tongue tingling/numb). We then saw the village primary school, some crafts being made by the woman and a young worrier climbing a coconut tree to fetch us a drink, it was all so idyllic and primitive until you then noticed all the people that weren’t involved in the “traditional village visit” using their mobile phones and psp’s!!! Anyway the food they laid on was lovely……. I think, I only
say I think as we hardly got any of it. They had cooked enough but the first few people in our group had pilled up their plates enough for 2 people (and then proceeded to leave half of it!!) so by the time we got to the buffet there was only scrapings of things left. One lady fro OZ was not happy at all and demanded more food be cooked. I can see her annoyance as I know what I’m like when I’m “starving” but it wasn’t their fault either!! With the food eaten we were then entertained with some dancing, one of which we all had to join in on, I got grabbed along with this other girl by one of the young tribal men who was very fit but smelt of BO really badly - oh well cant have it all. We were then waved goodbye and set off up the river in our leaking canoe (there’s something a little unnerving about arriving at your boat to see the driver bailing out water with a bucket!! - think they were lovingly reffered too in the brouchure as the “HMS dont come back”!!!)
They took us another 40
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Our dinner entertainment mins up river, we soon realised what the folded sheets of plastic were for in the boats when we started passing over rapids!!! We got to a clearing, moored up and walked inland to a waterfall. It was lovely, not a huge one but still impressive. The weather that day I should have mentioned was never very warm, it had even rained a little and was very cloudy (apparently in November this side of the island gets the bad weather). The original idea was to swim in the water fall lake but on testing the water it was freezing. Eventually though with coercion I decided to get in, leaving my shorts on for some warmth though and it was so cold for a second it took my breath away. Nath was taking shots from the bank so laughing out loud, before he too had to come in and appreciate why I was a little cold. I’m so glad we did it, it was freezing and the water was dark but it was an amazing experience. Neither of us were strong enough swimmers to get to behind the water fall and at times it was so deep you couldn’t put your
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mmm kava yummy...not feet down, but we did swim right up to the falling water. We were only in it for about 15 mins which was long enough!! I had by now wished we had brought the towels and change of clothes off the boat with us, whoops, so in the end we walked back soaked through in our remaining clothes, in the hope we could maybe dry off and get changed before getting back on the bus. On our journey back on the canoe we were told to transfer to a bamboo raft for part of the journey, we were only on this for about 10 mins and then put back on the canoe which seemed a bit pointless really but this was apparently the traditional way to travel down river. Later I got chatting to an older couple from Adelaide, who were originally from Yorkshire; they were very sweet and on a small tour of Fiji and the surrounding islands even though they were both in their 70’s. On the bumpy bus ride home they gave us a scribbled note on a receipt to say that if we were in Adelaide to look them up and we could have free b
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The Kava plant takes 7 years to mature - still tastes like crap!! and b - bingo!!!
Once finally back at the hotel after the 3 hour journey back we were tired and looking forward to dinner again. However the bite on my knee I mentioned before during this day had swollen up and got very large and angry looking. I showed Mike only to ask if there was a local Fijian remedy I could try as antihistamine cream wasn’t really working but he decided that as it was so big he’d rather take me to the local doctor to get it checked - gulp. Mike was wonderful, he drove us to a local clinic that he used and was reputable and then took us to a cash point (paying to see a doctor that was weird) and then a local all night chemist. He explained to the guy he wanted the good drugs as apparently they import cheap rubbish ones and proper ones. So with my week’s supply of antibiotics and steroids we returned to the lodge about 8.30pm for the end of dinner. Again great big servings of great food, only now I couldn’t have any alcohol - dam it!!! That night we packed one of our large bags with
all the stuff we thought we’d both need for our trip to the Yasawa Islands and left the other in the hotel as we’d be returning the night before our flight to NZ. I can’t believe how much we decided to take to some tropical islands!!.................................
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