Tuesday 19 July 2011

Hello kids!

Yes its been a while, but i have been island hoping around FIJI with has very limited internet or none!

Its been a nice chilled out 10 days here I will try and explain the highlights below.

Flew from Auckland to Nadi its a very short 3 hour flight with air pacific, which makes a nice change from the massive 9+ hour flights we have been doing!

Walking around the airport I spotted a collection of jack daniels on display!
one day i will own you all!


Jumped on the plane and before I knew it i could see the beautiful mainland of Nadi!


Got off the plane and was greeted by some locals playing guitar and singing to all the passengers

waited for my luggage and looking around duty free again and bought this.




I couldn't help myself and it was cheap! So I slapped my card down and added more weight to my 19.5kg rucksack!

Got a cab from the airport and checked into our hostel for the night, ready to leave early at 7am to catch the boat to our first island.

Took a 4 hour and 30 minute journey to the very north islands for our first stop



Nacula Island - Labuna Lodge

Arrived to the island and was greeted by the locals shouting out "BULA" which translates to "hello" and many other things (i'll get into that later)

Spent the day walking down the beach and tried to smash a coconut I found. Then one of the locals managed to crack it open with a spike attached to a tree.


Doesn't get much more organic than that!

On each island their are a few activites to do, I decided to go fishing.
What a mistake that was.

I encountered the worst sea sickness of my life! I even jumped out of the boat halfway through the journey just to get away from the rockiness!

Which was another mistake since when I put my head under the water the saltiness of the sea got to me bad.

so there I was in the middle of the sea with a headache salty shit up my sinuses, suncream and insect repellent in my eyes.

I was fucked.


Swam back to the boat and just sat as still as I could. I got back to the hostel and just crashed out until dinnertime.

Sat around meeting a few other travellers then I was introduced to the "BULA" dance, which is half macrena and half kicking a man at the end in the balls while shouting "BULA, BULA".



It was a good night in the end and this was the view I woke up the next day when I had to leave.


After a short stay at the small island Nacula with the friendly people at Nabula Lodge I then spent a night at Korovou. It was a sunday and I think it was everyone's day off! the people seemed unintrested in their guests there was no dancing or games at night and the power shut off at 10pm.


(as you can see it was pretty dead apart from some people greeting you!)



It was ok though, since I met some fellow travellers from glasgow on the first island, that were doing the same package deal as us, so at least we had some company!

So me and Adrian and some others went down the beach to find people from the other resort, sitting around a burning fire (it's already 100 degrees on the beach and sitting by the fire it was hotter than satans bumhole).


After spending one night in korovou, it was a short trip to wai lai lai which is a bigger more friendly island I was greeted by many kids again shouting BULA! at me.

This island had a bar and some more dancing, I was cheated out of winning the game, no free booze for me that night.

So I ordered some cocktails and sat down and started chatting to a girl from poland who 11 years used to go drinking in the same pub as me in wimbledon!


(Sorry Aga I could not find a good picture of you!)

freaky or what! after a long chat I headed off to bed ready for tomorrow.

Had a nice lay in, then went down to the beach to get ready for shark snorkling with baby sharks, Adrian manged to capture some shots underwater.

Don't worry these types of shark won't bite you!



Beachcomber is said to be the party island of FIJI! The only reason why this is true, is because this island is the only one with a bar open till late!

They also do some pretty good food



Saw some fire-eaters, more bula dancing and had quite a few cocktails, if I find any pictures of this night I might post them.

Saldy a few friends we made along the way were going home, so said our goodbyes and made our way to the last island on the trip.



Got to southsea island around 6pm, it is the smallest island in fiji you can walk around the whole island in 5 minutes!


Remember earlier, I said a bunch of kids were shouting "BULA" at me, well here is a list of activites to do on an island.

Notice the word "BULA" again


On another island they had a "BULA" bar


I guess it means more than one thing?

BULA dance
BULA activities
BULA bar
BULA = Hello

BULA = Can't be arsed to find a better fitting word?

Only 12 of us were staying that night due to it being so small and we had a crabrace!

I called my crab "Queeny" and it lost.


You may ask why did I call my crab queeny? Well I dug up an english note, New Zealand note and Fiji note, which all have the queen of england printed on them.


If you can see on this bad picture, the queen is youngest in England, then older in New Zealand and even older in FIJI, taken the only country she is smiling in is FIJI
maybe this was after a BULA dance or Kava? Kava is the drink of choice for the locals here, it comes straight from a plant, and mixed with hot water into a large bowl.

kava!

Me drinking Kava! With a local!

The next day I chilled out again, there were some activites but they all include a boat journey of some sort and after my fishing trip I avoided it like the plague.

Still one more night to go then off to Australia!

Will keep you posted! : )