Bula from Fiji Guys!

It's coming to the end of our trip now with only 1 country, 2 flights and 1 week left before we come home and back to reality but Fiji has been a fantastic place to have visited and I would have sorely regretted it if we had missed out on this stunning island.

We spent our first rainy night on the mainland here in Nadi before we headed off to the Robinson Crusoe Island about an hour and a half away by bus and riverboat. If there's one thing I've noticed about this place its that the locals here have a completely different concept of time and very often refer to it as 'Fiji Time'. For example when we got onto the bus to the Island the driver explained that the trip just to the boat would take '3hrs 25mins Fiji time' which to us only meant 50mins but that turned out to be even longer anyway because the driver forgot to pick up 4 lads form Bristol, so that shows how casual they are here! We also had to first stop at a cashpoint as the island had no ATM nor Credit Card facilities and then we began our journey. We got speaking to the driver and he explained that he had done this job for 6years and not once had a day off. He said that he did 2 pick up and drop-offs a day, 7 days a week for $100 which is around 40GBP. He explained that in Fiji you either love money or you love life and he had decided that he wanted to enjoy his life which was a really refreshing take on things.

As we drove through the main town there were people on the streets who noticed the bus and shouted 'Bula!' and waved at us to say what I very quickly hoped was hello (in the friendly Fijian way) but after a while the thought did pop into my head that possibly they were warning us of something like the driver could have been the childcatcher or something and all we did was politely smile and wave back, christ we were lucky or we would have looked really stupid on the news!

So anyway we got to the River and now was time for the boat, joy. It took us about 25mins (1hr Fiji Time) to get to the Robinson Crusoe Island, cold and soaked. We were quickly shown to our Bure Levu (hut) which was ideal for short Steve but slightly uncomfortable for me and only given a bed that meant my feet were hanging over the edge. I felt like I had stepped into the home of a Hobbit! But hey, the island was beautiful and the locals were really friendly and helpful all the time, as they are all over this country. The only problem was that we now appeared to be caught up in Hurricane Funa which battered the Island for 2 days, blowing down trees and hurling debris everywhere. It was a real downer because there was absolutely nothing to do on the island while the weather was like this apart from make coconut jewellery and get drunk at extortionate prices so needless to say I have a bag full of coconut now and an empty wallet! On the first night we also got treated to a traditional welcoming ceremony including Karva which is a local drink that manages to make your lips and tongue go numb which I'm sure is purely for the amusement of the staff but we enjoyed it.

Eventually the weather picked up and everyone got a little happier, me and Steve in true British fashion jumped straight into the sun and burnt ourselves which was incredibly painful for a few days after. We managed to make some MORE coconut jewellery and to be honest I quite enjoyed it and may even give it a go back home if we ever get a hurricane.

One thing I have to tell you about is that although we were feeling the strength of a local category 3 hurricane I did notice one of the locals soaked to the bone just wearing his skirt thing but quite happily making himself a cup of tea, good lad!

Because of the recent weather we were treated to a tribal dance show on the last night which they don't usually do on that day but thought we deserved it, clearly they thought we had had enough of making coconut jewellery which I hadn't! Anyway the show was really impressive with dances both from the girls and the boys. I even managed to get myself throttled by one of the blokes during their war dance which was slightly intimidating given their size (check the photos). There were even a couple of kids who had arrived on the Island that day and joined in with the knife and fire dancing while their parents watched on which was impressive given their combined age cant have been much over 20.

So we are back in Nadi now for the final night and we are about to head off to the airport to catch our flight to the US of A so all that is left to say is we hope you are all well and we will see you very soon!