Bula Every one!

We were looking forward to relaxing in Fiji for two weeks but we were still gutted at the loss of our 3rd musketeer. It was going to take a while for us to adjust again haha. We made the decision to travel the Yasawa islands which are a set of islands that run up the west coast of Fiji. We were visiting 3 islands during our stay and they just so happened to be the best 3 out of all the islands. The flight there was awful because I was still blocked up and the pressure in my head was unbearable, my nose kept on squeaking as it let air out from my head. As we arrived in the airport we were welcomed by a singing Fijian band which was pretty cool; wish we had that at Newcastle airport, they could sing the Blaydon races....i'm sure Gazza would be up for a bit of extra cash!

We had to stop one night on the mainland before we started our journey to the Yasawa's and the hostel we stayed at was let's just say..............awesome!! it was right on the beach and it had a pool and the food was just great!! We met a couple of guys called Dave and Jacqueline from London and Ireland we all shared a dorm room, funny enough Dave was sitting next to me on the plane but i was in no mood for conversation. The next morning we had breakfast before an early departure which was really nice....however!!! when Lou was finishing her breakfast I went for a little walk on the beach only to attract the one freak who roamed the beach, to be honest it all happened so fast but I should of known better, the conversation went a little like this............."hello my friend where you from" ......."England"............"you are good people come shake my hand"- as he stands just outside the hostel boundaries unable to come onto the property obviously due to his restraining order, his excuse was he was tired so you come to me. Being the naive boy that I am I thought this was a legitimate reason and wondered off the property into his territory and it was all downhill after that............before I knew it he said "do you like coconuts?" before I could even smile he was there cutting it up with a machete he pulled out his back pocket and presented it with a straw which he just conveniently had, followed by the usual phrase..............."I do this for my family so just give me any donation you have" .................god dam it........I've been conned hook line and sinker!

As I did the walk of shame back to the hostel I was laughing at my stupid decisions and wondering what could I have done differently to avoid this sort of situation again...............don't leave Louise's side!!! I made the decision not to inform Louise of my misfortune and keep it a secret until a more appropriate time, because I was certain I would have got a lecture on being more money wise especially since it had only been our first day in Fiji. The 4 months spent in them westernised countries has made me forget everything I learnt in Asia. Haha.............Oh well!

We boarded the boat and had a 5 hour boat journey to our furthest island called Nacula home to Blue Lagoon Beach resort, our first port of call and we were staying 4 nights. As we arrived on a little motor boat there was a band singing the Fijian welcome song and they gave us cocktails upon our arrival, we loved it! We went for dinner straight away and we couldn't believe it there was a big lunch menu and we could choose whatever we wanted, obviously this is how it always works but we have been cooking for ourselves all the time and to keep things cheap we tend to stick to just tomato pasta, noodles or vegetable stir fry. So this was an absolute treat we didn't have to cook a thing for 2 weeks everything was all inclusive, I had the Bula (beef) burger for the first time in ages and Lou went for an Asian stirfry and it was immense because the chef that they use is from a cruise ship.

The place blew us away it was pristine blue water, a white long sandy beach there were hammocks dotted everywhere and sun loungers right on the beach. Our dorm room was all single beds no bunk beds and it was a 3 seconds walk onto the beach, it even had hot showers, fresh beach towels and shower towels everyday with a flower arrangement on our beds. That night we all had dinner in the restaurant together; maybe about 30 people and just as we were having dinner the local church choir from the village sang hymns because it was Sunday. We had a 3 course meal and the food was brilliant, we said we wouldn't have been surprised if Jamie Oliver was in the kitchen, we had fish soup, curry then chocolate mud cake for dessert and if this first day on the island wasn't good enough it was also movie night..................sweet!! They pulled down a massive projector screen between two palm trees and we watched the wedding singer as we laid in deck chairs as they brought round free popcorn haha!

We went to bed that night over the moon and looking forward to the next three nights we had here. The next morning we had buffet breakfast; cereal, fruit, hot muffins and pineapple juice which set us up for the day nicely not that we were doing much. We spent the morning learning to basket weave with Terasea from the local village. We made a basket out of a palm tree leaves and then we learnt how to weave some bracelets and before we knew it, it was dinner time which was sounded by a banging on some drums. That day we went for Thai curry!! After dinner we were both full and I spent an hour sleeping it off in the hammock before i heard............."ADAM" looked up only to find it was Sophie and Rhiannon who we met on the kiwi bus in New Zealand, they were the girls dressed as the Aquafresh at the Poo pub party! So we had a good catch up before we watched a coconut demonstration given to us by the local staff. They showed us the difference between a brown and green coconut, climbed a coconut tree and showed us how to make coconut cream which was pretty interesting.That day i went for a walk along the beach and thought i would put my weaving skills to good practice and thought i would try make Louise a ring out of a palm tree leaf surely it's the same principle as a bracelet; just on a smaller scale. What can i say........I aced it! Nearly two hours later i returned to Lou excited to show her my achievement and she loved it!!

All we did all day was eat, snorkel and sleep with the odd basket weaving thrown in for good measure. That day we were sun bathing on our sun loungers and Lou was just minding her own business and they say that dogs have a sixth sense.......well this little chubby white dog must off sensed lou was thinking about tyke and had waddled over jumped up onto my lounger walked straight passed me, jumped over onto Lou's, wiped his sandy testicles on her towel and just plonked itself next to her hahaha

That night we had a kava ceremony to welcome us to the resort. We all sat around a mat with a big bowl of kava in the centre; kava is their traditional drink and its made by grounding a root down into a bowl of water and it looks like muddy water and it doesn't taste that far off! I was made chief and Lou was the spokesperson and we drank it out of coconut shells, the only rule is you have to clap your hands and shout BULA before you receive the cup and you have to drink it in one go; its normally used as a paracetamol and it literally numbs your tongue as you drink it. We then did the snake dance which is a traditional Fijian dance it's just like the conga! Haha That night we had a big spread for dinner; it was a seafood special and cheesecake for dessert.

Next morning we went for a big snorkel and saw a black and white sea snake and a huge titan trigger fish and one of our favourite's, the oriental sweet lips, then we laid in the hammock all day until dinner and we went for catch of the day this time haha all we seem to do is talk about food but it was so good and it was a major part of the island.After dinner we had booked onto a village tour to go and see the locals and see the school kids. We loved it, they put on some Fijian dancing then we had a tour of the school, at first the kids looked miserable........... thinking bloody tourists, but they soon got into it and they started singing..............Macdonald's, Macdonald's Kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut haha but it was quite sad because when we walked through the village they obviously hadn't ever had a camera before so a dad asked us to take a picture of him and his son just so he could see it on the camera screen, so we donated to the school. That night we had our usual 3 course meal again and for dessert was a battered banana with custard and despite appearances was surprisingly nice! We had an early night and we had a text off our parents informing us that both sets of parents were coming to Vegas; we were chuffed to bits and couldn't believe it!! WOW but all we could think of was we hope Katie is coming, Louise especially was eager to see her and it wouldn't of felt right if she wasn't coming.

Next day we woke up on a high and hired some fins for snorkelling and we got attacked by a shark......sucker. haha a shark sucker is a tiny little fish about the size of a pencil and it has a flat head that looks like a foot print which sucks onto the bottom of sharks so they can feed on its left over's however this fella was harmless but it thought we were sharks and it kept on trying to stick to us and Louise was screaming her head off through her snorkel and everybody on the beach thought she was getting attacked by a shark. That evening we tried our hand at hand line fishing but unfortunately we didn't catch anything but we just sat on this boat rocking back and forth in the crystal blue waters as the sun started to set and I dare say it was the best sunset we've seen so far.

On our last night we had curry night and it was a mammoth feast, we finished off the night with a bonfire on beach. When we checked out we were faced with another karma situation, we never got charged for the hand line fishingwhich accumulated to $36 which was about 12 pound so what did we do?................ we did what real backpackers do and kept quiet and did a runner!! It was only later when Louise thought that money might go to the kids in school we thought to go back and confess and we did the right thing. We left that day for Mantaray island resort where we spend the next five nights and left Sophie and Rhiannon.

Love Adam and Louise xxx