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Everybody in the village and resort was up early this morning getting ready to attend church. The local villagers and many of the staff were very smartly dressed. It didn't matter too much what the men wore, Chris got away with wearing his long shorts and a t-shirt but women had to look smart and I still didn't have anything suitable to wear, all my clothes were considered too revealing or too short. Luckily one of the small staff ladies was able to help. We were about the same size and she was happy to lend me something. She handed a choice of three outfits to Chris and he brought them back to the room for me to try on. One of the outfits was very Fijian! It was yellow and green and covered in embroidery patterns. There was no way I would wear it but I couldn't resist trying it on lol. The next one was a grey two piece suit, the skirt was long but had a split right up the side and the top was too small for my juberlies. Luckily the last outfit was fine, it was a very pretty long brown dress with a pink flower pattern and a slightly frilled edge at the bottom. It fitted perfectly.
After I finished playing dress up we both finished packing our bags and checked out of our hut. We were going to a new resort this afternoon called Beachcomber Island, apparently it has a reputation for being a party Island so hopefully it will be fun.
We sat in the restaurant and waited to go. I reminded Bill the manager about my sandals again and told him I really wanted them back now. I had found out that they were taken to the village where we were going to church! He said he would send someone to search for them but I didn't have much hope in them finding them.
Everyone was ready so we walked down to the beach and climbed into the small boat. The weather was a lot nicer today so we prayed that it would stay that way. We shared the boat with the ministers and some other guests but Bill didn't join us, he had to stay at the resort. It was a bumpy ride over and although we had warned the other guests that it wasn't a good idea to sit at the front they didn't listen to us. So we enjoyed watching and listening to them yelp just like I had yesterday lol.
As we arrived onto the beach we could hear people singing in the church. They sounded like children! A guy greeted us as we walked into the church and asked us to sit on the two front benches in front of the children. They were enjoying themselves singing songs and reading their bibles. It was all really nice until I saw a few large mozzies flying around us! Then I felt one land on my face and take a bite, I couldn't relax after that and Chris kept telling me to keep still.
Half hour past by and the children continued to sing hymns while we waited for the other people to arrive. Once the church was full the minister stood up and spoke. He spoke in Fijian first then welcomed us in English, which was very nice of him. He called us foreign Christians but none of us were actually religious, but we felt very privileged to be there. The service its self was a little slow and boring but the children were very funny to watch. They were so cheeky to each other and would get wacked by a bamboo stick from one guy watching over them every time they messed about! The boys would play up then tell on each other to get the other one into trouble! We couldn't help but smile and giggle at them. One older girl read a story book throughout the whole ceremony, she looked totally uninterested in what the ministers had to say lol.
After the first hour we really did start to get bored. We had no idea what the ministers were saying because the whole ceremony was in Fijian! The singing was amazing though and we loved listening to the children sing. Some of their voices were just as loud and strong as the adults! One of our most privileged moments was witnessing two children get christened, I had never been to one before! And we were also invited to kneel before the minister and take part in their holy communal, another new experience for both of us.
We were told the service would only last an hour but it went on until 12:30pm! Three hours! We were relieved when it finished and thanked the minister before climbing back into the boat and going back to Wayalailai. After lunch we went to find Bill who was sleeping. We woke him up to find out if he had an update on my sandals, I was getting frustrated now that no one had returned them. Bill said he sent someone to the village to look but I still hadn't heard anything. He apologised and said he would send them to Beachcomber if they turn up but that's highly unlikely.
It started to rain again so we sat in the restaurant chatting. We had afternoon tea before finally leaving Wayalailai at 3:30pm. When we got on the Flyer we were excited to find Steve and Emma sitting down! They were on their way to Bounty Island where we would bump into them later. It was good to see them and catch up and we promised to have a drink with them when we get to Bounty Island in the next couple of days. Suddenly we had arrived and we had to get off and transfer over.
Like everywhere else, the staff welcomed us on the beach with a song. From what we could see the island was very small and unlike the other resorts we had been too this one was built up with a huge bar and restaurant and lots of rooms. We went straight into the reception to check in and then went to our dorm room. There were a couple of young girls sharing the dorm who had also just arrived. We spoke to them briefly and they told us how bored they had been in the other resorts, they weren't lively enough for them. Me and Chris said to each other later that they should have just gone to Malia to get pissed if that's all they wanted. Why travel this far?
Anyway, we didn't want to stay in the dorm in the end, our bunk bed was right in the middle of the very small room. There were six bunk beds crammed into the tiny space. It was a bit of a joke! Plus all the beds were occupied even though the island wasn't busy and there were other dormitories available. I could tell Chris wasn't too pleased about staying in there and I definitely wasn't. Our beds felt damp too which I hate! One of the girls put their bag down and blocked the area in front of our bed. She told Chris to move it if he needed to but there wasn't actually anywhere else to put it! We didn't last more than five minutes in there, we literally put our bags on our beds then went to reception to find out about an upgrade to a private room. It worked out an extra $95 fijian dollars per night Which was a lot! We really didn't want to pay extra but knew we would hate being in that room. We went next door into the gift shop while we thought about it and straight away a gorgeous pretty dress caught my eye! I looked for a price tag but there wasn't one, then I saw a 35 Fijian dollar sticker on the bar it was hanging from. For only £10 I really wanted it so tried it on. Chris really liked it too so said he would buy it for me. The shop assistant wasn't in the room but then the reception guy came in and Chris quickly asked to pay for it while I still had it on. He showed him the 35 fijian dollar sticker even though we had noticed 85 fijian dollar price tags on all of the other dresses. Luckily the guy fell for it and didn't check so we got away with it! We thanked him then quickly went back to reception and upgraded our room.
We were so pleased that we did, it was so much nicer than the dorm! We had tea and coffee making facilities so that was Chris sorted and a nice ensuite with hot running water. We also had a fridge to put our rum in, at last we can have a cold drink instead of drinking it warm! Dinner was in less than an hour so we started getting ready, we had our first proper hot shower in ages and it was lurvely. I wore my new dress to dinner and loved it!
We went down at 7pm expecting the bar to be busy but it wasn't. Everyone was spread out in the restaurant area and a live band was singing really chilled out music, we guessed it was still early. The food was very nice, a good selection to choose from so we stuffed ourselves. Once we finished a lady came up to the stage and told everyone that they could not drink their own drinks anymore, they had to buy from the bar or leave. One girl ignored her so she basically threatened her over the mic to get rid of it! She was pretty scary! Then she announced their crab racing at 8:30pm. We couldn't be bothered to get involved so we went back to our room for a few of our own drinks. We put our music on and drank more than we intended to. We got through 1.2 litres of Bacardi! We didn't realise how long we stayed in our room and when we went down at midnight we could hear the music pumping really loudly. I was excited and we were both expecting to see a party but when we got there it was a big disappointment. There were only five people up dancing and two girls on a table. It was dead! We didn't care too much in the end, we danced on the table with the girls for a bit then when they all left we sat down and drank some more with each other. We had a good laugh giggling and acting stupid, then went to the bar and drank even more, we got triple rum and cokes from the bar lady! She told us it used to be packed on the island before the old owner died last year, since then the new management has raised the prices and the guest numbers have gone right down. It's such a shame because the island looks great, we can really imagine it being full before. We eventually went back to our room around 2:30am when the bar closed. Some how we managed to carry on drinking before finally passing out in bed.
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