Fijian Pancakes

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Bula!

Grab yourselves a cup of kava (traditional Fijian drink which tastes like mud) and settle down to enjoy our Fijian blog.

We feel it's only appropriate to begin with our now somewhat traditional weather updates: yes, it rained for our three days in New Zealand; yes, it rained for our first three days in Fiji. 'All are punished.'

Very briefly, we had a quick stint in Christchurch which, as some of you will be aware, suffered from a 7.4 earthquake in August. Bearing in mind we were still recovering from Lois and Bryan running us ragged, we did very little apart from look at the cracks caused in the roads, the damaged buildings and sleep. Oh, and caught an episode of Jeremy Kyle (the British shame). The most strenuous activity was Gail applying for a job. More on that later. After spending the night curled up in our sleeping bags in Auckland airport, we caught a luxuary flight to Fiji. By this, we mean they fed us for free and we had a telly each.

Flash-forward four hours and we arrived in Nadi airport, hopped on a local bus and headed straight to the other side of the island. For those of you who are not too sure on Fiji, it's actually made up of about 300 islands and Viti Levu is the main one. Contrary to popular belief, 80% of Fijians live in or around Suva, which is the capital city, so we headed there in order to sit and moan for three days about the continuous bloody rain.

Fiji has a pretty clear 'backpacker trail' around the Yasawa Group Islands (west) but we were in search of something a little more secluded and plunged for the island of Caqalai ran by the methodist church (east). We've popped a little map on here so you can get an idea. Caqalai is tiny and took 15 minutes to walk around. In total there was an average of 6 people staying on the island, plus staff. As we sat waiting at a weird little landing, we were mightily relieved when Jen and Kev arrived also in search of a pick-up boat. Little did we know that over the next five days we would get on famously and they would catapult into being our favourite Americans.

We stepped foot onto the golden sand to a serenade and an awkward question of whether we really wanted a double bed... We also felt a little short changed as our bure didn't have a porch or light and we had a bonfire pit directly outside. But, we soldiered on and did little else apart from eat when they blew the conch and grab the snorkels to look at all the amazing coral reef surrounding the island. This was a big draw for our visit here and we weren't disappointed. So much so, we allowed the lovely German dive instructor, Crazy Barbara, to talk us into signing up for our first scuba dive! We were both quite scared, especially as she seemed a little ditsy and Gail still has her (now smaller) fish fear. You'll see from the pictures that we didn't stop smiling for the whole hour we were down there, apart from a couple of tricky moments... Gail's ears on the first dive refused to pop and so she aimlessly floated around 5meters whilst Nikki's body refused to sink with 4kg weights around her waist. She was so boyant that Barbara gave her all of her weights (now 8kg!) and she had to hold onto a big rock to stop from surfacing. The underwater comedy.

We were pretty lucky for our first dive as it was Barbara's birthday and she was in a generous mood. Plus, it wasn't actuallty her business and she was just filling in so she took us down again for a freebie! This time, we went to 8.5m and it was absolutely a-ma-zing. The coral was so colourful and the fish were abundant. It was everything we expected the Great Barrier Reef to be only a million times better. For those of you who can be bothered to take a 15hour flight, it's way worth it. You'll see that our disposable camera managed to capture some of the corals but the colours aren't quite as bright.

From here we hopped over to the island of Ovalau, to the capital of Levouka for a look around. It's one of the few towns in the Pacific which has retained its old colonial style and it is rather charming. The only problem is that it stinks of fish as there's a massive tuna factory. Bleugh. Whilst here we were randomly asked out on a date in the street (the power of Gaydar) by the lovely Katy who is based in Fiji working for the American Peace Core. We met her and her Jewish friend Julianna for a few drinks and found out loads of interesting stuff about the way of life in Fiji. We learnt that lesbians in Fiji are called Pan-cay-cays, which happens to be the same word for pancakes! After obviously getting drunk, the evening took a strange twist as they invited us to a local birthday party for one of the guys who works at the tuna factory. So, three pancakes and a Jew walk into a bar... only to be confronted by a hundred Fijians and Phil Collins blasting out his best hits on a big screen. Surreal. Turns out we loved the authentic Fijian food yet Julianna said after 18months Peace Core-ing she really missed her 'Jewy' food.

Leaving Levouka at 4am (ouch!) with a hangover, we then began our 8 hour bus-ferry-bus-bus journey back to Nadi town. We did much debating about our last 6 days and eventually gave in to the Yasawa Group and decided to head to Wayalailai, the cheaper end of the price bracket. Fiji was turning out significantly more expensive than we had planned. It certainly isn't Asia cheap and the big resorts have bought up a lot of the islands making them way beyond our budget. We had tried in vain to book the resort yet decided to head to the ferry anyway in the hope that they would have a couple of beds left. They didn't. So, with the news that Gail had infact GOT THE JOB (whoohoo!!!) we booked into a 4 star luxuary resort! Needless to say we upgraded to Waya Island at the Octopus Resort and stayed in the dorm (we're not made of money) and it was, for Nikki, rather an emotional few days... The thoughts of returning home, unemployment, Cameron in power and the resort being a little too small and intense, all led to a few tears. We realised whilst staying here that we have both hit The Travel Conversation Wall. We are now at the point where we physically and mentally cannot have another conversation which goes along the lines of:

So, are you on holiday or travelling?
We're travelling.
Have you been away long?
Yes, this is our tenth month.
Ten months, wow. Where have you been? (blood begins to boil)
Well, we started in India, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Cambodia, Vietname, Australia, New Zealand and now Fiji.
That's a lot of places. Did you have a Round the World ticket?
Yes.
Which was your favourite? (reaching for the noose)
I think we would both probably agree it was India.

Obviously, this conversation is then reversed back to them. Please bear in mind there are ten people sat at each dinner table, each evening and it is mandatory that everybody partakes in this conversation. We know we sound like ungrateful little travellers but Nikki is on the verge of punching somebody. Gail still has some level of decent politeness left, luckily.

Anyway, Octopus was good fun with a lovely dorm, great food and sunshine! All this was topped off with more amazing snorkelling. We've not had that camera developed yet so watch this space. We did meet some really lovely, friendly people here but there were far too many children playing around the pool for our liking. Let's just say that we're not in a rush to go all-inclusive again!

From Fiji we began our mammoth journey to Mexico, Cancun. This involved 3 flights, 1 timeline crossing, 3 time zones and one day lived twice! Needless to say when we arrived in Mexico we were absolutely wrecked but we'll leave this story for our next blog entry.

Wishing you all a happy halloween and bonfire night. We'll see you in six weeks!!!

Vinakka,
Gail and Nikki x x

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Photos

The Coconut Beach Bar
Fiji Gold 1.50p

Caqalai
Our home for 5 days

Wadalice Landing
Fingers crossed for a boat!