Fiji Time

BULA!

It's Fiji Time! After a mammoth 30-something hour journey via train, tube, plane, foot, plane, bus, boat and smaller boat we arrive in Fiji! This place is out of a holiday brochure, without all the photoshopping.


Our first resort is Blue Lagoon and I am still in 'active' mode so first day 7am I have decided we are going on the mountain hike. The clue should have been in the word 'mountain'... as I looked around at the group of children, those erring on the plus-side of middle aged, and an older fellow, I confidently, and apparently arrogantly, thought I am going to rock this walk. Oh, how wrong could I be? Turns out they were all hikers and the older guy was a hiking instructor in Canada - this is the guy who practically carried me down the mountain, until I discovered you could slide down the soil practically the whole way! We did get to see a wonderful view of the island, down to the local village we visited later in the day and then had a beautiful walk along the beach back to the resort seeing how they are using the local land and villagers to run and support the hotel as environmentally friendly as possible.

Visiting the village in the afternoon was a great way to see Fijian village life. The houses are basic as you'd expect but everyone was hugely friendly and welcoming. We have been encouraged to shout BULA to pretty much everyone we have met... hmmm something we continued doing for two weeks to much amusement.... not sure how shouting HELLO at strangers would go down in London! Anyway, the village-people (oh how I tried not to write that) did a welcome meke dance for us. (We saw 3 of these during our stay in Fiji!) We got to get up and have a boogie too, well we did a backwards forwards dance and something like follow-the-leader-conga. We then got in a circle and one guy did a solo dance, then dragged me into the middle...so obviously I did some funky moves... I don't think the Fijians were expecting that and all bent over laughing. :) The ladies of the village then put on a craft market selling necklaces, fans, bookmarks and sarongs. We felt so guilty only buying off 3 or 4 of the ladies. We then visited the local school where most of the children live-in. They sang a few songs too including 'If you're happy and you know it', and 'Kum-by-ya'. They were super cute but also like every other child in the world, a bot grumpy at having to stay late after school to sing to strangers, well until they started enjoying having an audience and starting being really cheeky and dancing for us! haha.

We have taken part in a few less cultural activities too including eating way to much, crab racing ( we always seem to get into the final but never win that bar tab!) and volleyball (Duncan not me!).

I also went snorkeling for the first time! After panicking a bit about breathing underwater and shark and sting-ray attacks I really loved it. The coral was beautiful and the fish so colourful! We were also right by the shelf which was amazing! I was not expecting it and all of a sudden the coral just dropped away under us like walking off the edge of a cliff! wow!

One of the cheesiest things (and maybe my favourite activity) was watching a movie outdoors, they strung some canvas between two palm trees and projected Blue Lagoon The Movie onto it! So we watched Blue Lagoon, at the Blue Lagoon and Blue Lagoon cocktail was on happy hour...geddit! ok, next... 


Next stop was Manta Ray. hmmm, the resort was about half the price and half the nice. We had to sign a disclaimer on the way in saying we wouldn't sue the resort if we should we die or injure ourselves in anyway including poisonous snakes, spiders, tripping on man-made objects or by any fault of the resort. ok glad we got that all cleared up. Out tree house was actually quite sweet all on it's own in the woodland area...well until I realised that trees attract animals and a HUGE lizard decided to run around our room... cue Duncan standing on a chair, on the bed (with me holding it for safety), stuffing all the holes where the Lizard could get in, maybe this is why they made us sign a disclaimer.... the resort was ok here, more 'backpacker-y' and younger. There was a group of 5 American lads who I kid you not went 'spriiiing break' during their stay and one of them looked like Stiffler from American Pie.

Anyway, we thought we might get some resting and book-reading in here but the activities manager had other ideas and told us we couldn't be lazy all day so we should weave a basket, and a very fine basket I did weave too!

We also helped prepare a Lovo dinner on Friday night which is where they burn rocks in the ground, layer them with banana leaves (any other leaves would burn the food apparently), then the food (potatoes, kasava and chicken) gets wrapped in palm leaves (like the basket), put in and covered with more palm leaves and material and dirt. This actually tasted really yummy and the food was really moist. And a nice step on from that...this place was my first encounter with 'the long drop', yep compost toilets.....gross enough and then I saw a cockroach climbing UP the toilet....I quickly learnt how to pee ski-pose! I think we should move on...


Octopus was our third stop where we met up with our new friends Andy and Gemma again. This mainly meant hours of Monopoly Deal playing! We finally had a chill out and read most of the time.

We went to the local church service on Sunday thinking it would be a really lovely uplifting, spiritual, song-filled service...Oh My God...after two hours and this minister preaching at us in Fijian really, really loudly through a microphone (why shout into a microphone in a church that fits about 100 people in?!) in Fijian about something I think that roughly translated as 'god will punish you' we got up and left. hmmm.

We had a fabulous beach bonfire night here also which was only dampened slightly by the massive tropical storm. Ok so it pretty much put the fire out so we went back to Monopoly Deal. We really had a great time at Octopus, watching another movie under the stars (Good morning Vietnam, I was wondering if we'd get Octopussy!), crab racing (and losing) and snorkeling again. We also tried our hands at light writing with Andy and Gemma and I had a lovely relaxing massage looking out to sea...mmm chillaxed to the max!

I am now becoming at one with the local lizard wildlife, apparently they eat mossies, and have three pet lizards living outside our bungalow (Garry Gecko is my favourite but don't tell the others!) Also, the food is way to good here and I really need to watch my belly! Oh well, surely walking along he beach and snorkeling counts as exercise?!


And onto Waya Lai Lai, the worst worst place ever! Our room smelt like damp, and was home to several bugs and ants - I feel itchy now talking about it. We went to afternoon tea and biscuits - or more accurately tea and cream crackers, weird... worst yet was dinner. It was served school canteen style, grumpy staff and one of each item only. Also, I was very worried about the lack of electricity meaning the bottles of coke were not cold... no that's not what I was worried about.. it was the thought of how the chicken and meat was kept cold every day... Back at the room we thought maybe we'll just wait until morning as all this moving around can be unsettling, and coming from a great holiday resort can be misleading... well so I though until the hugest, darkest cockroach in the world crawled up the curtains and this time there were too many holes to block anything out! I wrapped up tight in sock, pajamas, a shirt, and a hat made from a top plus three sheets... and then the electricity shut down and the fan went off... it was a battle between my fear of the bugs and a fear of dying of heat - the bugs won. The next day after a disappointing breakfast of bread and jelly jam, we got on the first boat going North again to anywhere... we ended up all the way back at The Blue Lagoon but something felt odd...


... back at The Blue Lagoon I felt different to the first time we were here, sort of calm and easy-going, is this what relaxed is? hurrah!

We should have only been at Blue Lagoon for 1 night and then Bounty for 3 but our friends from earlier (Andy and Gemma) had been there and written to us with a disturbing review of 'the hostel with blood on the sheets' so we decided to stay at Blue Lagoon! Which also worked out well as we made a whole load of new friends and Monopoly Deal buddies! 2 sisters from Australia, a Canadian lady, a British pair - one of whom worked with Dewynters through radio once and wants to work in theatre advertising in Melbourne, small world - and an Irish couple. We got to see another movie under the stars - DIRTY DANCING!! I laid back and closed my eyes, listening to the beautiful words. Duncan asked why I had voted for Dirty Dancing if I wasn't going to watch it, to which I told him 'I don't need to 'watch' it, I know exactly what they are doing' duh! We also crab raced, and lost, again. Our Canadian friend's crab won though! Very exciting times in Fiji for us. Also we got to see another Meke, eat another Lovo and enjoy another beach bonfire...this one had fire-dancing before it and petrol on it which was much more exciting! We also went out on a boat trip to a nearby sand bar..I thought this was a beach bar which sold drinks, it is a bar of sand that goes out into the ocean actually. I bet you all know that! The tide was really strong out on the bar 'cause for some reason we went at high tide so it wasn't showing rather than low tide so we could walk up it! So we went back to the beach, played cards, and listened to some choons on the pod... nice.

We have had a great time time in Fiji but sadly it is time to move on. Now we are in New Zealand (and cold) we will try to update more frequently as we go.

VINAKA (or thank you) and goodbye for now!

Link to Fiji Photos