I am currently recovering from a week in Fiji. Recovering from a week of doing more or less nothing apart from a bit of snorkelling and a lot of sunbathing. Its pretty exhausting doing nothing! Having said that it was an amazing week and I met some really great people. Fijians are so friendly: you can't walk down a street without at least ten people shouting 'Bula!' at you. ( This is their equivalent of 'g'day mate!'). They are so helpful as well, and lucky for me there were lots of lovely gentlemen on hand to carry my suitcase wherever it needed to go. Pure bliss!
To make the most of my week in Fiji, I decided to do a spot of island hopping. Fiji has three hundred and twenty two islands in total, most of them uninhabited and a lot of them are teeny tiny. They are nearly all, however, the picture of a paradise island with white beaches, clear blue waters and lucious green vegetation. Heaven. The first island I visited was Coral View. This was up in the Yasawas, the furthest group of islands and approximately a five hour boat trip from the main island. When we arrived we received a traditional Fijian welcome which involved singing and a lot of shaking of hands! I soon discovered that Fijians absolutely love to sing, especially at Coral View. They literally sing about everything. Lunch, dinner, hello, goodbye: you name it, they have a song for it! The vibe here was very laid back, and all the staff were so friendly that after the two days were up, I was almost reluctant to leave, and in fact some of the people I arrived with decided to stay longer. In one guys opinion, deciding to stay on the island was like having a girlfriend: you know there's probably someone better out there, but you decide to stick with the one you've got. (Needless to say, he didn't have a girlfriend!). I decided to tear myself away in the hope of finding something even better in the shape of Korovou resort.
At Korovou I sadly did not get the same melodic welcome as at Coral View, however that was because I arrived on a Sunday and nothing happens on Sunday apart from going to church. It is God's day. They more than made up for the lack of entertainment on the second night though, where we were treated to a fire dancing show. It was all very exciting: topless men dancing with fire in little grass skirts. At one point they even set the floor on fire. Literally! I have to say that I was very impressed with the dancing skills of the Fijian men. Its a shame that British men aren't the same. Unless, of course, they've got a few pints down them! After the fire dancing there was a bit of audience participation (as there was at all the resorts, in fact). We all had to get up and do the Bula dance. This is basically the Fijian Macarena. Same moves, the only addition is that you have to shout 'Bula!' as you jump round, hence the name 'The Bula Dance'. At this point I did feel like I had been transported to a British holiday camp along the lines of Butlins. But everyone got involved and there was always the chance of winning a few free drinks.
The final island I stayed on was South Sea Island. This really was a tiny island. It looked as if it could get washed away at even the hint of a slightly bigger wave than usual. You could actually walk around it in two minutes and, according to one of the girls I met, hop around it in three and a half. What it lacked in size was made up for in hospitality though. Again, the staff were so friendly. We had a candlelit dinner on the beach followed by crab racing (highly competative and taken extremely seriously) and, of course, Bula dancing. Later on we all chilled out round a campfire, sang songs and drank lots of kava. Kava is the Fijian drink of choice. It is not alcoholic, as many of the islands are actually dry, so alcohol is forbidden, but it is a narcotic so will have some effect. It mainly makes your tongue go numb and gives you very strange dreams apparently. It is made from the root of a plant mixed with water and unfortunately it just tastes like muddy water. Not very pleasant.
On my last day in Fiji I went on a day sailing trip around the magical Mamanuca islands. I was lucky enough to do this trip for free as I had bumped into a couple earlier in the week who had paid for it, but were unable to do it on the day as they wouldn't have time. I did have to make a few changes to the ticket though, which involved a nerve wracking experience of me having to pretend to be someone else. As many of you know, my acting skills are not great and I was sure I was going to get caught and thrown overboard. Luckily it all ended well. This sailing trip was amazing. Not only was there unlimited free food and drink (I definitely made the most of the free cake!), but we also got to visit the island where 'Castaway' was filmed, visit a real life Fijian village (yes, it was as patronising as it sounds) and take part in a kava ceremony, which was a pretty big honour apparently. All in all, not a bad days sailing!
Life in Fiji, especially on the islands, is very different to the way of life I and most of the other people I was travelling with are used to. None of the islands had hot water, so it was cold showers for the week, and on Korovou, there was no electricity, apart from between six and eleven at night. This meant no phone signal or internet access and therefore no Facebook! It was actually quite nice. There was no point worrying about trying to get in contact with someone, because you literally couldn't. Instead you could just spend your time enjoying the simpler things in life. Such as sunsets. By god, I saw a lot of sunsets. In fact I think the majority of my Fiji photo album will be of sunsets! They were very pretty though. We also got to enjoy having time to do absolutely nothing. In Fiji, people run by Fiji time. This tends to be at least half an hour later than any of the clocks on the island. In fact, there aren't many clocks on the island. Although we all used to joke about Fiji time, it was a fully accepted method of time keeping amongst the locals. I once asked one of the locals what time it was, so I could work out how long I had to have a shower before the sun went down and we were plunged into darkness. He simply answered, 'it's Fiji time', as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer. It was very easy to get used to though, and by the end of the week my body clock was definitely set to Fiji time. It nade arriving in busy LA a bit of a shock, and definitely prolonged my jet lag I think! I'm getting over it now though and am enjoying the last stretch of my round the world adventure...
No comments:
Post a Comment