Bula from Fiji

Fiji wasn't part of my original route but after struggling to find a short contract in rainy Sydney I decided to rearrange and take 3 weeks in Fiji and 2 months in New Zealand. So here goes...

Nadi

Fiji is a collection of islands, over 200 in total, although the top attractions are the main island, Viti Levu (home to the 2 international airports of Suva and Nadi), and the two groups of islands called the Mamanucas and Yasawas. Life in Fiji varies quite widely - most native Fijians are poor and live in run-down 'villages' which consist of little more than a few communal shacks which sometimes double up as homes and schools, whereas other parts of the country are developed and are usually home to money-making Fijian chiefs, expats or tourist resorts.

I arrived at Nadi airport with no plans other than a nights stay at a nearby hostel, Nomads Skylodge, which costs just £8 a night and is actually quite luxurious. My first impression of Fiji was of a lush, green, tropical and mountainous landscape, mainly given from the window of the plane; that changed a little bit as we drove through Nadi past a few derelict-looking shops with very shady types lurking outside. As always with places like this the roads were at times in appalling condition and the drivers are complete lunatics. I checked into my hostel, had a bite to eat and looked around for someone who looked approachable; I settled for some fairly dull conversation with a Dutch guy who liked walking and hiking. Fortunately some friends of his arrived soon after and things picked up a bit, and I staggered into bed feeling very tired just after midnight.

The next day I went to the hostel's travel desk and booked some packages to occupy my time in the next 3 weeks. I sorted out 3 days on Mana Island, a 7 day unlimited 'Bula Pass' which takes you around the Mamanucas and Yasawas, and a 7 days package featuring 3 nights on Robinson Crusoe Island (to the south west of the main island) and 4 nights at a new backpacker resort called Mango Bay, located on the south coast of the main island. My travels started the next day so I extended in the hostel for one more night and packed a small bag to take with me consisting of a few t-shirts, a wash bag, a towel and a few books. And the didgeridoo had to come with me, of course. After finding the bar occupied by a huge group of Americans playing drinking games I opted for an early night before leaving at 10 in the morning for Mana Island.

Mana Island

Most of the Mamanucas and Yasawas are pretty small in size, some of them little more than a few hundred yards, so comparatively Mana is a big island - it took me almost 3 hours to walk round it and take in all the sights. My package took me to the island on a tiny boat called the Mana Flyer which was full with about 12 people on board, although only myself and 2 other English guys went all the way to Mana - the others were dropped off at Walu Beach and Beachcomber Island, the party capital of Fiji. I was staying at Mana Lagoon Backpackers, one of three 'hostels' in close vicinity, so I said goodbye to the lads and checked into my digs.

Mana Lagoon is a pretty interesting place. There's a big room consisting of a bar and a 10 bed dorm room next door, and also a separate building a short walk away which holds another 10 bed dorm, a few private rooms and a couple of toilets and showers. The showers are actually just thin plastic pipes that dribble out cold water, and the lights inside rarely work, but what actually makes it an interesting place is that it's located slap bang in the middle of a local Fijian village, so you're effectively experiencing true Fijian life. Cool. There's a school nearby that you can visit and help out at whenever you want, and there's always a plethora of kids looking for attention on the beach and in the village - great fun but they always reminded me of my niece and goddaughter who are growing up back home.

Physically I had a tough time on Mana, spending more time than I'd have liked on the toilet. I'm not sure if it was the tropical heat, the food, the water or the booze but I lost my appetite pretty quickly and had little energy during my 3 days, which became 5 after I missed my early morning boat and decided to stay on for an extra few nights. Obviously I was having a good time there - the people and staff were great, the weather fantastic and the snorkelling on the surrounding coral was incredible. An added bonus was the appearance of an Australian of Aboriginal descent who tought me how to circular breathe on my didgeridoo, i.e. breathe through the nose while expelling air from your mouth - not an easy thing to do and I haven't fully mastered it yet.

After my 5 nights were up I was given a leaving song by the islanders, accompanied by the Aussie dude on my didge, and then it was time to leave and finally activate my Bula Pass, 2 days late.

Walu Beach

Taking the big Flyer boats from Mana Island doesn't leave you with much choice in terms of destinations. I didn't fancy Beachcomber, the party island, so I stopped at Walu Beach for 2 nights, still in the Mamanuca island collection. I'd purchased a 5 night accomodation pass to go along with my Bula boat pass and was surprised to see that my free accomodation was a luxury lodge all to myself with a huge hammock and hot tub outside. I was then equally unsurprised when a member of staff approached me an hour later to tell me that my accomodation pass wasn't valid at Walu Beach. Doh! Still, 35 pounds a night in a luxury resort with all your food thrown in seemed reasonable to me after 5 nights roughing it on Mana Island, so I decided to stay there for a couple of nights and waste a bit of my accomodation pass, as well as 2 more days of my Bula Pass - four days in and I'd only got on one boat. Never mind, I'm on holiday.

The resort seemed pretty empty - lots of staff and just 5 guests including myself. I got chatting to 2 girls from Guildford and soon realised that I'd spoken to them before on the Mana Flyer boat that took us out 5 days ago, and within 10 minutes we were playing filthy scrabble with a group of 4 Fijians sitting round us singing us songs and refilling our drinks at the first sign of getting near empty. I decided that I'd made a good choice.

Later that evening I had my first taste of Kava, the local drink made out of the root of the kava plant. It's basically a mild form of drug - it makes your mouth go a bit numb after one cup (half a coconut shell) and apparently can be halucenegenic if you drink enough of it, but there's no way I could ever do that as it tastes like crap. Muddy water would be the best description I could give it, which makes sense given that it's made from the root of an earthy plant. The Fijians love it, probably because you can make a huge bowl of it for about 40p and most Fijians can't afford beer - workers at hotels and resorts rarely earn more than a pound an hour and a smallish bottle of beer will set you about almost £2 in a bar. I could have a guess as to where the money goes, but it certainly doesn't go to the workers who make the places what they are. Fijians are generally incredibly friendly and happy people, and they have the most infectious loud and high-pitched laughs that I've ever heard. I think I'd be pretty happy too if I lived in paradise and never wanted for more.

I'm also yet to meet a Fijian who can't sing and play the guitar. On my second and final night it was one of the girl's birthdays and on his way past the maintenance guy picked up a guitar and sang the full version of the happy birthday song, which goes like this:

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Sarah
Happy birthday to you

Happy longlife to you
Happy longlife to you
Happy longlife dear Sarah
Happy longlife to you

May god bless you
May god bless you
May god bless dear Sarah
May god bless you

And all done with a huge cheesy grin throughout. Awesome. Next stop was Bounty Island, home to that wonderfully classy TV programme Celebrity Love Island.

Bounty Island

Take a handful of z-list 'celebrities', add a terrible plot and watch as a beautiful paradise island is transformed into a horrible mess of a TV show. That's unfortunately what happened to Bounty Island when ITV hired it out to make the dross that was Celebrity Love Island.

Just 2 nights on Bounty for me but at least I'd used my Bula Pass to get there and was also finally using a few nights from my accomodation pass, the only 2 nights I actually used. I bumped into one of the guys, Deano, from the first Mana flyer in my dorm room and we wasted no time in hitting the bar. At midnight everyone else had gone to bed and I lent Deano my wallet to go to the bar; he came back with 3 drinks each, namely a shot of black sambuca, a double vodka and coke and a black russian, one of my least favourite cocktails. Already wasted, I downed the sambuca and took a sip from my vodka and cocktail before stumbling off to bed, leaving him with my camera to give me evidence of him drinking them.

I got up in the morning to watch the second half of the Germany v Turkey match, and then laughed my hangover off when Deano appeared with a camera full of drunken evidence of the drinks being finished. Apparently he comes from posh stock so we grabbed a small catamaran sailing boat and set sail around the island, which turned out to be a bad move as the wind totally disappeared and we had to get off into the water to push the boat back to the shore, past everyone on the beach and by the pool. Smooth. A little later, after a very lazy effort by us on some kayaks, Deano's mate Tom from Mana Island arrived after four nights on Beachcomber, looking particularly subhuman and in my opinion vindicating my decision not to go there. I've never seen shakes and sweats like it, and after going to bed at 8pm he wasn't seen again until 11am the next day.

Back to Nadi the next day (after Spain v Russia in the morning), and to Nomads Skylodge in particular to say hello to Lisa who I'm travelling round New Zealand with, and then onto Robinson Crusoe island for 3 nights.

Robinson Crusoe Island

A 2 hour bus drive from Nadi to Robinson Crusoe jetty preceded a 20 minute boat ride through the mangroves to Robinson Crusoe Island. Typically my name wasn't down and I had a bit of hassle checking in, but I managed to get it done in time to grab some lunch and settle down on the beach for some sun and sleep. The tan was pretty much back by now so I was just trying to cement it on before the harsh cold of New Zealand. The evening's entertainment turned out to be the same every night - a series of Bula dances (the word Bula is used for almost everything in Fiji) followed by some pretty impressive machete and fire dances, the best I'd seen in Fiji. By the time I went to bed the generator had been turned off and I had to stumble into the 50 bed dorm room, find my bed in the dark and also pull down the mosquito net and climb into the top bunk within the net.

There are a lot of people travelling in Fiji and hopping around the islands, yet it's amazing how you keep bumping into the same people you've met before. Tom and Deano were on Mana and Bounty; I met a girl called Vicky in Nomads Skylodge who was in Lisa's room and she was also on Robinson Crusoe and Mango Bay; and on Robinson Crusoe I also met the three English girls that I shared a dorm room with in Cairns back in April. You're never really alone.

The next day I got involved with the coconut jewellery session and made myself a pretty cool ring, which I subsequently lost 3 days later on Mango Bay. Other people were making bangles and pendants so I decided to be a bit different; the trick is to file the fur off the coconut, saw off the top and then drill a hole in the side in increasing sizes. You then saw around the hole and sand it down to the right size before applying some varnish; it took about 2 hours but it gave me something useful to do.

The highlight of my stay was undoubtedly a trip to the mangroves nearby, the only things that can grow in salt water. I'd already kayaked all the way round the island earlier in the day with one of the girls, Crissy, and wasn't particularly fussed, but after a fair bit of nagging from the girls and 2 of the workers, Lex and Missy, I decided to throw a kayak in the boat and join them.

When we got to the mangrove patch Missy parked the boat up and we jumped out into our kayaks. Lex surged ahead and I tried to keep ahead of Missy behind me but the mangroves are tricky to navigate, with low-hanging branches that scrape your body and often try to claim your oar. After a pretty sharp u-turn I found Lex out of his boat and reaching down below the water to grab a slab of runny mud from underneath - this trip was actually a mudfight, unbeknown to me, and pretty soon it was girls against boys. Lex, Missy and I against Crissy, Kars and Sabrina; disgustingly good fun, I ended up caked in mud, including a couple of handfuls down my shorts, and eventually we headed back to show everyone what they'd been missing. We washed the boat, the kayaks and then ourselves in the sea before hitting the showers Robinson Crusoe style - buckets with rope pulleys.

One more journey to make before heading back to Nadi - a local bus to Mango Bay.

Mango Bay

The bus took almost 2 hours to get to Mango Bay but was worth it for the measly sum of £2.50. I was pretty tired so I upgraded from a dorm room to a safari tent, which worked out at £35 a night as I got 4 nights accomodation for the price of 3. The room was pretty decent, consisting of a double bed, 2 single beds, a safe, an ensuite bathroom and a big wooden veranda with a couple of hammock-chairs. Lisa arrived a few hours later and in the evening we joined a few people by the bonfire for some pretty childish truth-or-dare games, including two Canadian bimbos who were possibly the dumbest people I've ever met, despite recently passing their exams with straight A's. How easy must they be?

The next 3 days were spent sun-chasing - which involves moving your sun-lounger every 10 minutes to avoid the coconut trees - eating and drinking, and either watching or taking part in the activities that were going on. The highlights were egg-throwing, coconut bowling on the sand and a table-tennis tournament where the long-term residents got a chance to show everyone exactly what they'd been doing for the past few weeks.

Looking back, I'm not sure what the best place I visited was. Mana Island for the local taste of life; Walu Beach for luxury and being pampered; Bounty Island for a typical taste of backpacker activity on a small sand island; the fire dances on Robinson Crusoe; or the peaceful nature and beautiful scenery of Mango Bay. They were all great and completely different in their own way. One regret of mine is that I never got a chance to visit Monuriki, the island from the Tom Hanks film 'Castaway'. It was a £20 return trip from Mana Island but they cancelled it when I tried to go as there weren't the required minimum of 4 people wanting to go. The trip included food and a complete tour of the island including the cliff where he practices his suicide attempt, and the cave where he spends most of his time with Wilson.

One piece of bad news from Mango Bay - after taking some pictures for Vicky of her dive lesson my camera leaked some water and no longer works. I think - or hope - that it just needs a new battery as it won't charge, but for the time being I'm without a camera for the third time on this trip. Never mind, the main thing is that my memory card survived and I still have all my pictures. Four nights in Nadi remain before my flight to Auckland, and they'll be spent chilling, sorting out all my washing, uploading pictures, writing this blog and planning for New Zealand. For now it's Vinaka and Ni Sa Mothey from Fiji...take care everyone.