Fiji Baby!

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Sorry about the slackness and lack of recent updates, but we've been cruising round the Yasawa Islands for the last few weeks and there's no phones, no signal and definately no internet! Some places only have electricity when the generators are on (about an hour a day) Which makes going to bed in a dorm when it's pitch black and you're pissed quite a troublesome task! Bit tired and hungover so gonna do the best i can with this!

Arrived in Nadi ???? days ago (seem to have lost track of days and dates) and stayed the night at Horizon - which was that nice that we're staying here again now for the next few days! We came here with some people we met in the Cooks and ended up sitting on the beach drinking Duty free (which was a silly idea - should've saved it for the islands - beer's not that cheap out there!) chatting with locals and making sure that we started in fiji on the right note - with a hangover! Had a realisation halfway through dinner that if we wanted to set off tomorrow that we had to get everything booked befopre 8pm - which was 10 mins away! So it was the quickest meal you've ever seen (actually was about normal eating pace for dave - god that boy can eat fast!) and made a hasty and snap decicion about what and where we were going! Hint for anyone going to fiji - the Bula pass (just the trips between the islands) is great and well worth the money. The accomodation pass on the other hand is the biggest waste of time and money since the millenium dome! You pay on average $55 a night, when it turns out the average cost of accomodation is about $40 ish and you're paying a 25% commision on top of that! And it severly limits where you can go, but we took it, because the salesgirl was so nice about it - but gonna be having serious words with her now i think! But we set off to beachcomber island with most of the guys from the cooks for some serious partying! And we wern't dissapointed! Good food, good beer, even vodka redbull prepackaged in a can! (Not too good on it's own, but throw a couple more vodkas in there and you're dancing! Literally!) Drinking games and Bula Dances all night and at some point me and dave even got changed into our cavemen outfits........................ Basically an awesome night, sadly no pictures, but it ended at around half 5 in the morning. Which wouldn't be too bad if we didn't have the ferry at 8.30am! so after a couple of hours sleep, a very quick brekkie, we had to get accross to the ferry, still very very pissed.

This is where fiji went a bit wrong for me. We all went up on the sun deck, where i duly put suncream on all arms legs and face, basically everything that was exposed like the good boy i am, and while dave did the same - he promptly fell asleep in the trademark 48 hour dave hangover, i went to go get a bottle of water in a vain attempt to ward off the hangover that i knew was waiting just around the corner for me and that was when then problem hit. Beer was cheaper than water. And they had callippos. I only mention the callippos cause i absolutely adore them and at the time it seemed like the greatest thing ever! So my very incoherrent mind thought that if i got the callippo that would be the same as a bottle of water, but i could get a beer aswell! So while dave slept me and a few of the lads from beachcomber promtly took up from where we left off and thouroughly enjoyed the next 4.5 hours on the sundeck! Now i mentioned my problem, my big problem, and that was in my foolish feeling of invincibility mainly due to a wee bit of alchohol in my system, i took my shirt off, started to apply cream and thought to myself "It's not that hot, i don't need cream, the rest of me's quite brown so this'll let my body catch up!" Basically i took liberties with the sun (sorry fred) and felt a warm glowing all over my body as i fell asleep. To wake up in agony! Having to spend most of the week with my hands on my hips to ease the pain and getting very very very hassled at the fact the no matter how hard you tried there's always sand in your bed! Which you probably wouldn't normally notice unless you had 3rd degree sunburn all over! Apart from on the one patch on my chest where i had started to apply cream and gave up.......................... Will get the piccys of all this up when we get to Auckand, connection's a bit slow here. Right times running out so gonna have to do a quick run through of the rest, might add to it later, and i'm sure dave's got some tales that he'll want to tell on here.

Quick run though of the places we stayed for all the people asking us questions on where to go:

Oarsmans - Probably the nicest place we stayed, but as you'd expect, a lot more expensive and full of families, great snorkelling and free Kayak hire! And before you try it - you have no chance of getting to the next island. trust me. i tried. You just get very very tired.

Sunrise - Big step down from oarsmans but about average in terms of dorms and food. No lights or electricty in the dorm, great group of people there, awesome nights by the bonfire, do not and i mean DO NOT pay for the island show! It's just a buch of camp fijians miming along to brittany spears! Which was comical; as apparently brittany herself was staying on the next island just a few days before we arrived! (Turtle isand - $2500 a night? Bit out of our budget!)

Long beach - seriously needed after sunrise, just me dave and a young (very young) finnish couple on the entire island! Gorgeous place, nice people, village trip is well worth it!

White Sandy Beach - The beach isn't as white or as sandy as they'd have you believe, about the same as sunrise really, good people, great at night, very dark dorm rooms - don't make the mistake of walking in in the dark, feeling around for your bed and choosing the wrong one. People aren't too happy with you.............

Manta Ray - Best place we stayed, fans in the dorm rooms, great crowd of people, great bar, and the food is beyond words! BBQs, curries, salads, meats, definately the best meals we're gonna have in the next few months! The little indian chef is a little indian legend! You're there trying to pile food as high as possible on your plate, breaking the laws of physics by balancing a fish steak on a sausage and he's there trying to tell you exactly how he made each dish - which is very nice of him, but all it seems to do is let 10 people pass you in the queue and get all the best bits before you can! Truly reccomend this place!

Wana Taki Cruise - Good fun, depends on the crowd you're with, only about 25 people on the boat, cheap beer, but we hit the hay early after manta ray, don't go if you get sea sick! you really get rocked to sleep! Definately reccommend diving off the roof of the ship - devil's bridge eat your heart out!

Kuata - Seemed nice, but by this time we were a bit sick of sand and beaches and terrible teriible awful food! Actually ineddible most of the time! Definately worth doing the reef snorkelling, 20 min boat ride out to the reef and loads of sharks! bugger me it's scary when they swim under you! And i mean like 3 meters under you-that's far to close!

Octopus - If you can, go here, never heard anything less than praise for this place, was fully booked the entire time we were there! Gutted!

Got a bit more time, so all i can really say is that Fiji's been absolutely amazing, it is paradise here, but after 2 weeks of beaches, i'm so happy not to have sand all over me anymore! Gone through so many books, it's very relaxing, too relaxing actually, lethargy sets in and you can't shake it off! You know it's a good day when you get up, have brekkie, climb in a hammock, and the next thing you know someone's beating the drum for lunch! Awesome! But 2 weeks was enough, was very very fed up and bored by the end. But as we got on our final 2 hour ferry ride it started raining which was actually a welcome change, and after finding a very cramped corner on the floor to sit in (The boat was rammed!) One of the aussie lads from Manta ray pokes his head out of the captains lounge! Turns out for $20 (6 quid) you could upgrade to leather sofas, film plaing, airconditioning and best of all - FREE BEER! ALL YOU CAN DRINK! Between us we made them restock the bar!

Then what could've possibly nearly been the worst thing ever happened to me. On the way back to the hostel in the cab (me in the front, dave and 3 aussies in the back-cosy!) I realised that i didn't have my wallet on me! After a mad speeding drive back to the harbour it was lying next to where we'd been parked, looked like it'd been run over! But it was there! Praise God it was there! All the cans of beer we'd pilfered into our bags during the ferry ride came out exoploding all over the cab! So after what could've been the worst possible thing that could've happened one of the best happened - we got upgraded! Private room, ensuite, airconditioner with remote, 32 inch tv, and a fridge! Happy Days! So off to the bar for tequillas to celebrate! and now my head hurts and it feels like i've been typing forever. So catch you all soon! Hope all's ok at home! let us know if anything noteworthy has happened - feel a bit detached from england all the way out here! Will post piccys in auckland where i'm guessing the computer's are a bit faster!

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