My Fijian Island in the sun

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After the cool weather of New Zealand the heat of Fiji took me by surprise as we stepped off the plane. We were greeted as we walked down to collect our bags with a traditional Fijian quartet of guys playing guitars, it was a nice touch. After finding the transfer desk we were presented with little shell necklaces before setting off for our hotel. We knew staying in a hotel was going to be a huge contrast to the last month of back packing, I just wasn’t expecting how huge that contrast would be. The hotel was huge and situated right on the coast with a refreshing breeze flowing through the lobby. It was a total novelty to have someone help us with our bags- after having struggled with them on our own for the last month. The guy that helped us also looked the part, dressed in a shirt and long sarong with a flower behind one ear.

Our room was lovely, it looked over the sea, but I think all of the rooms in the place did. It was so humid that every thing seemed wet, even the sheets but I was just happy to be warm for the first time in a while. We had arrived at lunch so the first thing on the agenda was food. What I should say here is that we initially booked the hotel back in 2006 when we had a bit of money, before we had done any of our travel but now, stony broke after travelling since September, I realised this may not have been such a grand plan. This was because although we had already paid for the accommodation we hadn’t counted on the expense of living in a posh hotel and it was going to be pricey.

Any way, I was not going to let that get me down too much just yet, and after I’d had a drink whilst sitting looking out over the clear sea, golden sand and palm trees most thoughts quickly evacuated my head. It wasn’t long before a brief exploration of the premises turned up a swimming pool, which was situated next to the beach and totally deserted. After a swim Sarah and I were feeling very chilled out. It was just gorgeous here.

Later that evening we headed to dinner and had great difficulty trying to make a decision between the 6 restaurants open to us (I love difficult decisions like this). We eventually decided on Italian and after dinner we sat at the up stairs bar that over looked the water and began a night of drinking girly cocktails, followed by a little dance to the live music in the up stairs lounge.

The Next morning I was up scarily early, probably due to a bit of jet lag but more to do with the fact that breakfast is the only free meal you get here so I was not missing out on it. Breakfast was yummy and afterwards I bravely went where many women before me have gone, the waxing salon. I actually ended up chatting with the lady there who told me that they had been filming Love Island around here and the place had been teaming with British people. Because it was filmed so close to here the women from the programme would come here to get waxed- the lady then made me laugh by admitting to being completely shocked by the different shapes that women have waxed or shaved into the bikini department.

After catching some rays in a quiet area of the resort it started to threaten rain so I packed up and headed to our room where I enjoyed watching re runs of Bond, it was so nice to do absolutely nothing. The hardest decision of the evening was again where to eat but eventually we decided on the Sea food restaurant. The Seafood restaurant is a walk along a jetty to a little brick house that is surrounded by the gentle lapping sea. Inside it was lit by candles and the floor is basically sand, so rustic and just gorgeous. Once again we ended the night with drinks in the Hibiscus lounge (not as sleazy as it sounds) watching the band, they do covers of popular songs and do them very well. Life at this moment is coooool.

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