We woke to a sodden dormitory floor and a very stuffy room. Some very selfish person had turned the air con off during the night and for some reason the majority of the room floor and walls were soaking wet... including our bags! Thankfully, the sun was shinning outside for us to dry it all out! With only three days left in Fiji, we were keen to spend a night or two in a little authentic Fijian village. One thing that's very obvious when visiting Fiji is just how important family is to everyone. Many of the staff at some of the hotels were from little villages miles away but had been given permission or sent by the Chief of the village to work elsewhere. Although we had stayed with a family on Wayalailai island, it was a resort and not an authentic village so our aim was to try and seek one out where we could visit.

Initially, this proved quite difficult. We had read a number of blogs before coming and had written down two villages we may be able to visit. However, trying to organise this would be difficult as many of these villages don't have Internet and only one main telephone as a means of contacting them. In the end we decided to ask Mary (one of the tourist guides at Bamboo backers hostel) to see if she could sort something out for us.

After a few hours, Mary came back and informed us she had not had any success with arranging a visit for either of the villages. The first village she was unable to contact and the chief of the second village was away so they weren't able to book anything without his permission. However, she had managed to find a third village called Navala which was actually the last village in Fiji to still have all the ancient bure huts left in the village. We were all very keen to go so we asked Mary to book one night. Luckily, we were able to go that afternoon which was perfect. We arranged a taxi to take us to Ba where our host Tui would collect us and take us to Navala in his 4x4. The road to the village was notoriously bad and easily flooded so other cars would not be able to pass. We headed back to the hostel room to start packing!

We had just done a washing load since returning from the islands so we packed a small backpack of overnight essentials and left our big bags in the luggage room at the hostel. The three of us then set off in the taxi by 12.30. The journey to Ba was an hour long and cost us 80 FJD which wasn't too bad. We sat on a park bench and waited for Tui. We waited a good hour and a half before Tui arrived. We are starting to understand 'Fiji Time' much better now. Tui was a giant of a man, in his 60's but with a very warm smile and friendly infectious laugh. He took us around a Fijian market - which was immaculately organised, where he bought our dinner and we purchased some kava as a gift to the Chief along with some school stationary for the children.

It just started to rain as we headed through the rocky narrow road towards the mountains. We arrived at the village an hour later. Some of the children were jumping off the main bridge of Navala into the river. As it had been raining quite a bit, the current looked very strong and fast but the tiny children we jumping in and swimming no problem. We were all keen to have a go so Tui took us back to the lodge first to drop off all our stuff. The Bula's Eco Lodge was beautiful, very basic but you really felt as though you were out in the sticks with nature. We certainly felt it when the mosquitoes started to eat us alive!

I was so nervous to jump off the bridge but the 7 and 8 year old Fijian children were giving me great encouragement which I'm not sure whether that was a good thing or embarrassing. Either way I jumped! It was incredibly shallow though. Luckily two of the village girls jumped with me and swam along side me telling me to lift my legs. They also told me when to try and swim to the side to bypass all the sharp rocks. Unfortunately, Matt wasn't so lucky! He must of jumped into a particularly shallow area and managed to hit every rock as he went. From the side I thought he was waving to us and smiling so I just waved back. Later he told me he was in fact waving for help and trying to desperately scramble onto anything he could...oopsy!

That night, after showering practically outside with 9 centipedes sharing the shower with me, we headed to Tui's dining room for a freshly cooked dinner. Tui was a little behind so we offered to help. He cut down 4 coconuts from the tree outside his house and showed us how to cut them perfectly in half... there is a special way! We then took it in turns to grate the white flesh of the coconut on a piece of wooden with a metal knife grater sticking up from it. It was pretty hard work! Dinner was interesting but lovely all the same. We couldn't get over just how much food Tui had prepared for us! We had fresh fish with coconut sauce, chicken curry, spinach, cucumber and a root vegetable that looked a bit like potato but was much more stodgy, I wasn't a massive fan of it but it was good to try. Tui also lived with his mother who unfortunately had a stroke 2 years ago and now required full time care which Tui provided. The more we were with Tui, the more he just seemed like the friendly lovable giant.

We finished off the evening with a welcoming ceremony of Kava in Tui's fathers kava bowl which had been passed down 4 generations. It's tradition that the father in the family passes it down to their eldest son.
We were cream crackered after a very fun filled day and were looking forward to the village tour the next day so we called it a night.

By the time we got back to our room using our head torches, our room/beds were infested with centipedes, mosquitoes and ants! After a mass murder killing spree, we sprayed the entire room with repellent and covered ourselves from head to toe in liners and nets. I had visions of waking up covered in insects, we were in for an interesting night!