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Published: March 30th 2007
Well, where to start. We arrived into Fiji on 17th March, having completely missed out on the 16th because of time travel warp stuff. I'm sure it would have been phenomenal had we got to live it. At 5 in the morning, the pilot announced it had already reached 24 degrees in Nadi (the place we landed). It seemed almost certain we'd be guaranteed excellent weather, until the cyclone hit. Now I know nothing about this, but James tells me we were on the tail end of it, and thats the reason I found myself in constant torrential rain from day 2 or 3. Makes sense.
Well, seen as we'd already been awake for a stupid amount of hours on the 10 hour flight, we figured what we're some more hours. Turned out we'd been up 48 hours til we finally passed out after copious amounts of Kava. Kava is the national drink of fiji. No-one knows quite what it is or why we had to drink so much, but basically, you clap once, you drink the crap, and then clap three times and look like you thoroughly enjoyed it. (You didnt, it tastes like pondwater...) It takes about
20 bowl fulls or so before you start going numb in the legs.
Our initiation into Kava was carried out by the so-called 'Kavaholics' at our hostel. These were headed by a man called Tai, all obsessed by Kava, singing, playing miniature guitars and constantly shouting 'good shit'. Tai's entire family would then get up and dance in height order in home-made leaf skirts. You cant complain about that.
We decided to spend our days in Fiji on the Fiji experience. This involved getting as wet as possible in the already torrential rain. Our first (and driest) day we spent sand dune boarding. To do this, one must find an enormous vertical sand dune, and a swimming float. Put ones upper body on the float and procceed to throw oneself down the sand dune. It was.... intimidating. but awesome. and sandy. James hates sand. We went to an amazing beach (natadola beach I think its called-picture will be included) with random horses strolling down it, and on a village tour. Now. In the village we found out that in older times, the Chief of the tribes would bury his warriors alive under each of the pillars in his
hut. The village was made up of about 300 people, all carpenters and fishermen and stuff, which means there was probably about 50 warriors all in all, and there were 20-something pillars in that hut. tell me how that constitutes effective military defence.?.
We stayed that night at Mango Bay. Another Kava ceremony and a bonfire were involved. Oh and limbo. We were awesome. But neither of us won. James would like me to tell you he had the most stylish walk up to the ole limbo barrier. this much is true. He was quite the Jamiroquai of the limbo floor. The only hinderance was the fact he kept falling over. Otherwise he'd of won for sure. I was alright, I was still walking at full height by the time most people had been knocked out of the competition. Still didnt win though. I'm afraid somehow we'd managed to drink a lot and were not at our athletic primes. We were due to go on a rainforest trek the next day. Needless to say we didnt. We didnt do much at all. Somehow in mine and our new friend Danny's drunkness though we'd managed to tell the manager we
loved him enough times to get upgraded into a giant ensuite tent thing. We made up for our minor set-back the following day with a kayaking session and a waterfall trek. The waterfall was pretty amazing, we went swimming in it and stuff. James lost his shoe for a while, but I was on hand to save it. Saw lots of blue starfish. We'd advise anyone going that way at any point to go to Mango Bay, its about 9 pounds a day and you get tons of free activities and well nice accomodation. Do it.
Back on track again, we found some Norwegians, lovely girls, and us and our new friends Danny and Sabrina from the hostel made a pretty spectacular team. It was eventually named Team Norway as more and more Norwegians cropped up in every corner. We eventually got round to doing this rainforest trek, in full on tropical torrential rain. I fell over at least 8 times. Even the guide (who'd forthought to carry all our cameras for us) fell over. A good part of the rainforest trek was through a river, which on most people went to thigh height, so I was practically under
it. One of the Fijians made us all fabulous hats out of leaves and covered our faces in tribal war-mud. Excellent stuff. We eventually emerged from the rainforest after 3 years or so, on the side of some kind of mountain whereby we were told if we let go of the rope to the side of the trek, we would most certainly die. One of the Fijians took it upon himself at this point to start singing songs about imminent death. Luckily however nobody did die. (Yay), and we all gathered at the side of a river to collect tubes for the subsequent 'river-tubing'. This involves sticking your bum in a ring and drifting down rapids. (They werent that rapid, me and James were expecting at least some dangerous high rocks at 60 miles per hour). James tells me he did nearly hit a tree. This was one of those 'James-things' though whereby there was no trees near, and yet still, STILL he managed to nearly hit the tree. Just like those ticks in LA. Ashore once more we were narrow-boated across to a big waterfall that led down into the river. It was ace. I dived in it like
7 times. The first time they made me do it with a life jacket on. That was bizarre, it just kept bobbing up and hitting me in the face, so off it went. It was ace. We then went narrowboating down the rest of the river. I was separated from Team Norway onto another narrow-boat with a crazy driver whose soul aim was drown their narrowboat. Brilliant. He managed to pull it straight alongside and tip it to the right so a huge wave went completely over all of them. I should probably mention the scenery. It was vast rainforest covered mountains to either side with the occasional waterfall pounding through and us slap bang in the middle on a wide open river. It was really pretty. Still raining of course though.
I'll pass onto James for a moment to tell you all about Suva, the capital of the island...
Ok so after the rainforest trek el clairos was feeling somewhat wet and couldnt be bothered with anight in suva i and the rest of team norway on the other hand plus a bloke called nicoli decided diffrently. Although we dint venture far only to a restraunt in
which the waiting staff were as useful as a rhino in a antiquties museum and then to relies bar a fun time was had. espically when whilst in riles when a local figian woman kicked the shit out of a drunk irish bloke for been annoying. Still jokes were aplenty espically when nora the norwegian began to dance like happy feet which sent me and nicoli into a series of dances attempting to brakedance and slow dance and jazz dance and you get the picture. moreover it was intersting watching nicoli crash and burn with every member of team norway including me and danny he was a horny bugger. The only draw back was the green beer which was a left over from st patricks day. Its just not right. Still after a free taxi ride home i had my teeth brushed for me by Thrine and then spent all night waking up convinced i was actually asleep outside.
Ill now hand back to claire to continue with day three of the figi experiance and also what i have termed to day of the great flood.
Ah yes, what a day. we drove around in the bus for
most of this day, because there were too many floods to do any of the activities and we were stuck on the side of a mountain with rivers bursting open every couple of miles. At these points we had to get off and walk through them, as otherwise we might have been washed off with the bus. We did make it to a Fijian school for half an hour. The kids bullied James. They all wanted to arm wrestle him. I however was forced to read a word in Fijian for each letter in the alphabet, (apple/apolo and butterfly/bebe, -you get the idea), then told I had to say them all again without looking. Tough learning. 26 words to learn on the spot. I think I did alright all things considered. There's not much more to tell you about this day. We got to the hostel and decided to go kayaking, then got a wee bit drunk and co-ersed into crab racing (again). James wishes me to advise all vegetarians not to go to the Voli-Voli beach resort in Fiji as I could only eat chips for dinner. That could have got boring quickly. We were leaving the next day
so it wasnt too bad. Oh yes, he also wants me to tell you that during the bonfire later that night I (and I really must say I was forced into doing it) but some old Australian bore forced himself into my presence and was chatting me up for about half an hour, then started loudly 'singing' some song about Australia, (mainly involved shouting the words 'Australia, Australia') at which point I got up, ran at him and rugby tackled him. But really. I'm becoming sick of people who try force themselves on you and are also mad. Down he went.
The next day was mainly taken up by a visit to the mudpools. It was muddy. And really all in all quite repulsive. More like a pond but the bottom was filled with warm thick mud and leaves and twigs and stuff. It didnt smell too pretty neither. We covered ourselves in it regardless of course. Then we got in a hotpool to wash ourselves off. The mud was really the main feature. Not much to say other than it was mud.
We were dropped off back at the hostel and then we both went our individual
ways. James went to BeachComber Island for a night but it didnt really appeal to me, so I stayed in Nadi.
That night, I decided, it being Sunday the next day, I'd ask how one goes about getting to church, because I read in a blog sometime, somewhere, that the churches all had gospel choirs, and I was quite interested in seeing them. Amos, the hostel security guard, took me to Church. The first hour was pretty good. You could barely hear the preacher cos the congregation were whooping and shouting so much. Most of it was about singing and dancing around wildly. It was pretty funny. At one point I saw a flash of colour out of the corner of my eye, only to find the gospel choir (and these were bigger than average ladies now..) had begun to jump up and down in sychrony, joined soon enough by the first 5 rows of the Church. Then the preacher announced he wasnt actually the preacher (Hallelujah) and that the preacher was stuck in a flood (Hallelujah) and that he'd been really reluctant about going on stage and preaching today (Hallelujah) (They hallelujah every sentence regardless of whether its
anything to do with God)... it was very bizarre. So all was going well, next thing I knew I'd joined the gospel choir, I'd tried to shimmy away from the stage quietly but I was forced on, then I'm 'doing lunch' with the missionaries in the back of the church where they live. It was weird. Felt like a bit of a fraud, but I could hardly mention that by then. All in all I was there for 7 hours. 7 HOURS. Even the preacher thanked me for coming. That was the most Christian day of my life. Now james will explain beachcomber
So whilst claire was praying for my sins i went to beach comber the party island with the reminants of team norway. So what can i say unfortunatly the wearther was still against us and so my first advise is dont go if its wet cause there is little to do. Although the boat ride there did prove fun yet back was not as fun after a night of copius drinking. So whilst there as i said the rain stopped most activities still me and danny were determined to swim and we did and then nearly
drowned it was fun. Later that night it was party time and after several bottles of wine and jugs of beer we were in highter spirtits and began onec again to dance like idiots. It was at this point that danny and nora decided to go swimming again. it was very naked swimming and i spent the next few days winding them up. Still as a conclusion to beach comber only go if its sunny and you have lots of money as it does get expensive. Oh yeah once again the staff were more then useless and it took me 40 minutes to get them to check lost property for my coat even though we were leaving that morning. so here claire again to conclude
yeah, we're bored of writing, plus we just spent the last few days just trying to escape people from harassing us to get in their taxis. Hundreds of them. Sorry we've been a bit rubbish about emailing back and stuff-the internet there was horrendous. In New Zealand now so we'll try keep this more up to date so you dont have to trawl through these novels! Love to all xxx
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Nora(the norwegian..)
non-member comment
Hi u!
thanx for sending us the link to your site!i agree with you James;Claire you should write a book!!Maybe 'bout FIJI-TIME???We came back to Norway today,and it is actually quite nice to be back!Thailand was sunny:) miss you guys,have a great and safe trip(that's to you clumsy James)in NZ and Asia.love,Nora xxx