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Published: April 23rd 2010
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Paradise found!
Arrived in Nadi, where there isn't a lot apart from a lot of hotels and hostels and the airport of course so got myself set up to leave there asap. I went on a 4 day tour around the main island of Fiji, Vitu Levu with Feejee Experience. Our first day it was quite rainy, not happy, but once we had bought supplies for lunch and water for the rest of the trip we were on our way to Natadola Beach, a famously pretty beach. Us being Brits, mostly, we sat on the beach in the rain and ate lunch, it was pretty and the water was warm and we all had a laugh. We met the rest of our "family"., including our 2 guides and 2 drivers, lucky us. Later on we visited a village calle Matomato and had a look around, we learnt about the different tribes within a village, for example fishermen, craftsmen, and the layout of the village. We all went inside the chief's bure and learnt about the Fijian drink, kava. Made from a plant root it doesn't taste great but it has calming effects and has been found to have some useful anti-anxiety
affects too, rather than women just feeding it to their husbands when they don't want any more children... Outside the bure was a stone where they used to behead victims to eat, luckily canibalism no longer exists in Fiji. Under each post of the bure a person would have been buried alive and their spirit would guard the bure. Now I'm not sure whether this was considered an honour or a punishment but if it were me I'd be haunting them, not protecting anyone! Feejee Ex are have helped the village build a community centre and are going to help them build a preschool day facility for the younger children. The first resort we stayed at was called Mango Bay and there was a crab racing competition in the evening as well as a kava welcome ceremony.
The second day with the group started with a hike through the Matakibau rainforest to a waterfall. It was pretty muddy having had rain the previous few days and the guide Jerry ended up sunk up to his waist at one point, funny. It was good fun playing in the water falls, jumping in and watching the guides jump in from the
tops of trees! We walked back along the "pathways" to a river and a boat took us back to the bus. We arrived at Uprising Resort for lunch and afterwards had a coconut carnival, showed all the different uses of coconuts and Jaida and Dom dressed up in the clothing. I also had a go at horse boarding, think jet skiing but instead of a boat there's a horse and instead of skis there's a surf board, it was such good fun and much more difficult than it looks especially when soomeone claiming to help didn't let go of the board and I went flying. Also went tubing behind a jet ski, very fast, scary and good fun! Spent most of the rest of the day relaxing in the pool and admiring the view. The evening was nice except that it rained, a lot and there was a drunken Polish man ruining the ambience.
Our bus drove through Suva, the capital city and had a photo at the president's house with the guard, who wasn't anywhere near as serious as the one's in London! We didn't stop in Suva but there is one museum that apparently has a pair
of shoes that belonged to a man that got eaten and the people that ate him even tried to eat his shoes, unsuccessfully. We stopped in a town called Korovou to buy some lunch and some stationery for the children at the school we were on our way to visit. In Wailotua we visited the chief's house and had a very traditional kava ceremony. We all had to shout a sound like doooaaeeh instead of knocking and the occupants shout back come in you are most welcome in Fijian. Me and some of the girls made bracelets from palm leaves and the boys had to finish the kava, reluctantly. The school was just down the road and the children were lovely, they sang and danced and asked lots of questions. We didn't get to go bilibili rafting on the river because the water was too high 😞
The last place we stayed was VoliVoli Beach. We went in the pool, had dinner, got drunk on alcoholic slush puppy and played ridiculous games which included passing a bottle under over and between legs etc. as well as limbo. The last morning of the tour Jaida, Dom, James and I went on
a dive, it was really cool, the water was lovely and the fish all said hello. We also went to some mud pools to cover ourselves in mud and take photos of us all looking ridiculous, very funny. Then we returned to Nadi. A few people were heading to the islands, like me, the next day so I saw them all on the boat the mext morning on my way to the Yasawa Islands.
The Yasawas are beautiful. Actual paradise. Like the postcards, but in real life. Very relaxing. I went island hopping for a week to several different islands, met lots of cool people, met them on the boat again when heading to a different island and the staff were really good fun too. They made us do all sorts of diffferent dances or songs or introduce yourself games. I did a lot of relaxing, reading, swimming and snorkelling.
Fiji is lovely. You should go there.
J xxxx
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