Fiji Time

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Bula.

There's two time zones in Fiji. Fiji time and no Fiji time. The later basically means whatever you're waiting for may turn up near the desired time. I can just about manage to keep up with the hecticness of it all, it's all very stressfull.

Been in Fiji for ten days, done quite a bit, seen a lot, meet loads of cool people, had a lot of fun. Just split up with my ol' mucker Andy. Been travelling with him on and off for about 6 weeks, sad to see him sail into the sunset but will hopefully be living with him in the big smoke in a few months. Sweet as.

Anyway will give a quick run down of what I've been up to, pretty sure I have forgotten a lot of it but ehy. Nick, Robin and I arrived and met up with Andy and a couple of other girls. We chilllaxed for the next day, swimming, playing volleyball and destroying my foot playing cage football. Think I've done a little more damage to it. I also rang home and mummy bailed me out as Fiji is very expensive and I had no money 😞 Thanks mummy.

Next day we set sail to the islands, first was Manta ray. These islands are meant to be paradise, they're lovely but not a patch on Thailand and Thailand is not a patch on Borneo. Thus to me they were lumps of sand. A touch harsh, they were lovely. We spent two days here, snorkelling, volleyballing and beach stuff. We met loads of new people, and had funness. We also met some brummie guys who were hilarious. I will get the videos of one of the guys from Andy. They have to be seen.

We then went somewhere, for Friday, can't remember where at the moment but guess we must have been somewhere. But we was on beachcomber "the party island" for saturday. More beach activities and a heavy night at and we were in to Sunday. One of the girls we met, Lucy was heading back to the mainland. I was a little bored of the islands and so was Andy so we threw our Bula passes into the sun and went back to mainland. This was an oversight as I left Robin and she still had $650 of my money in her account. Hmm, for an intelligent person I am stoopid. It then get's worse, I noticed I'd lost my plane tickets. Did not really phase me, little money, no bank card, no flight home and no quick way of getting money sent to me. I really should panic, but didn't fancy it so didn't. I went and got my tickets re-issued and decided to worry about everything later and head up North.

There's still quite a bit to write and I'm tired/bored so will edit this either tomorrow or in Hawaii when I'm eating sand and sleeping in the sea.

Don't worry though, I have a plan. Plus it's better to be lucky than good.

Take care all.

EDIT
Ok, we arrived at the uprising resort in pacific habour. The resort is lovely and cheap compared to the rest of Fiji. We had a meal and talked to the owner all night, lovely guy - he started building his resort and employed all his unemployed friends. The resort is way over staffed but that is a good thing for the guests as they're all really friendly. We booked the shark dive for the next day.

The next day we rocked up to the shark dive place. Complete mess. Andy couldn't dive as he didn't have his log book and apparantly he's not on the PADI website. So just me and Lucy to dive. We paid our money and they rushed us on the boat. On the way out to the dive site we saw two humpback whales. Amazing, we got really close to them and they were jumping out of the water - was one of the best things I've seen this travels. Concluded from that moment that this was going to be a fantastic dive.

I was so very wrong. We got to the dive site and the dive "instructor" said get in and meet at the bottom. No buddy checks, no imformation about the site, no buddies, nothing. Lucy and I were not impressed, we buddied up like good PADI's we dove in (after chaning my BCD for one that leaking slighty less). My fins fell off so had to dive down and grab them, Lucy was having more problems. We started our decent and lucy started to panic, we re-surfaced and discovered she'd lost 100 bar of air in like 2 mins (half her tank). A couple of instructors came up and tried to sort it out, I waited at the bottom with my new buddy. She changed her tank. I swam of with my buddy i thought lucy was in better hand with a dive instructor and I wanted to see the fricking sharks. We swam around for a while and I was constantly like where's the sharks?!!! After about 15mins he told me to go up. I was like WHAT? I still had over half a tank left. I had little choice, I ain't diving without a buddy with this shoddy equipment. Oh forgot to mention about my weight belt continuely slipping off and me darting up a few metres - fun was had on this dive. So I resurfaced and my "buddy" swam of. Cheers.

I was first up by a country mile. When the others surfaced they asked how my dive was I made my feelings rather clear. I was feeling pretty sick from the day before,think some food was not agreeing with me. The boat did not help and i lost the remainder of my stomach overbored. Fan-tas-tic.

The second dive was a little better. I saw some fish!! Oh the first dive was a wreck dive. Never saw the wreck. Agrh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No sharks still, not happy.

We got back and Rob was not a happy bunny. We went to the manager and complained alot. Apparently they don't do shark dives on that day and upcoming new this. Balls. He said our dive sounded bad but if we wanted a refund it's come out of the Fijian's pockets. Our dives were probably their weeks wages so Lucy pulled out her trump card and started crying. I started laying into the guy how unprofessional it is to use the guilt trip to stop us wanting a refund. He knew he was beat and caved in,promising not to touch the Fijian's money. They were terrible dive masters tho in fairness.

This did not make up for it tho as we lost the chance to do the shark dive. Thanks to the no diving and flying rule. Argh. Not happy.

I Still felt ill and had an early night, can't remember what I did in the afternoon but I wasn'tup to much.

Next day was another lazy day, was meant to be going fishing but it rainned all day. Rain in Fiji?!

The final day we went for a horse ride. My horse was called Ben. I tried to get on him and he bucked, i kept my leg in the brace thing and rode the buck but i was like this is not a good idea. The other two smartie pants had rode before and had nice horsies. I had the biggest and the one that only one Fijian would ride. Great I thought. He rode it around for a while then came back to me. So that 2 min ride broke this beast in then?? Regardless I got on him, whilst 2 Fijian's held him down. In hind sight why would i want to ride him?

We trotted for a while and my horse was lazy. I was also told about a thousand times that whatever i do keep him away from Lucy's as they kick each others. Brilliant. You can stear this things? Halfway down the beach I was contemplating where the fun was, you just bounce and slowly destory your body - not to mention your manhood. My horse felt the same way and laid down in the sea - I jumped off just in time to avoid him crushing my legs. Was pretty funny though, I am at one with horsies.

The guide then started chucking things at Ben to get him to gallop. That's it anger the beast mate. He ran like the wind and there's why horse riding is fun. Painful but fun. The way back the horses ran all the way, they go so fast and keeping him away from Lucy's was hard as I was trying just to stay on alot of the time.

Horseriding was a good crack.


Next. Machine. Jet skiing. The owner gave us a free go for 20 mins on the Jet ski. I had Andy on the back and raced off, the sea was really choppy. I decided that slowing down was not necessary. Ever. I had the gas on full and Andy said don't turn too fast or you'll flip it. We'll see about that. I zigged and zagged and then. Wooh yup we both flew off. It shook us up a little bit and i said i lost my privaliges and let andy take it back. The dude wasn't around to return it so free time!! I got another go. Mistake. I was determined to take it slower but i wanted to push the boundaries.I did, i kept digging deep into the sea, was alot of fun. Then I got too carried away with trying to make andy scream like the 12 year old girl he really is. And a real big crash this time, we flew across the water landing miles away from the jet ski. We were very lucky, if we bounced off each other broken bones at least and if the jet ski came near us well it wouldn't have been pretty. Again I lost all privilages and andy drove it back without the safety cuttoff as that'd broke of my wrist in the death defying crash. Jetskiing is a lot of fun and I drive them way to fast. But you have to right? Otherwise they'd surely ahve a break. Hmm.

We then tried to catch the bus back to Nadi. We waited on the wrong road and missed it. Lucy was set to miss her flight now but we got a minibus to take us back for 4 times the price. Lucky we did as the bus we weremeant to get broke down in the middle of nowhere. See, travel with me and everything will be fine. I am the luckiest person alive.

We said our goodbyes to Lucsay and I went back to the skylodge for one night. I had to pick up my tickets the next morning, they were not there. Apprantly they didn't get reissued. Would have been a major problem but Nick had found my tickets. Better to be lucky i tell ya.

Well that's about it, arrived in Hawaii earlier. Will post about that later.

xx

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