Hi all hope all is well back at home sorry for the long delay in writing the blogs but we had no internet or electric in Fiji and then America has been hectic and there has been no internet cafes anywhere which is crazy because I would have thought they would be everywhere!

We arrived in nadi and had booked into a hotel for 1 week, most people just stay in nadi for a couple of nights before they make their way over to the islands but as we had found a good deal on a place if we stayed for the week we decided to do that then move to the islands the second week. Nadi is very run down, it's the town where the airport is so gets lots of visitors but it is a bit of a run down place but you do get to see how the people really live. There had been a flood in January that destroyed lots of peoples homes and businesses and they have still not really recovered from this. The place we stayed in was nice a huge room with a kitchen and a small pool at the back there was nobody staying there so it felt like we had the whole hotel to ourselves! The fijians are very friendly and they can not do enough for you. We went into Nadi town centre one day and ended up in a local snooker club, we got chatting to a local Indian fijian called gary! (the indian fijians and the fijians do not like each other lots of rivally apparently) and they invited Joe to play snooker with them. We ended up spending the day with him and he invited us to his house the next day to meet his family so we accepted. He picked us up the next day and we went for a few beers to his house he lives with his parents, wife and little girl on a large farm just outside town. The farm had all sorts of animals and they had killed the chickens fresh that morning to make us dinner. We met the family and they had all dressed up to meet us and they had cooked us a huge traditional meal so we sat down to dinner and it was only then we realised they do not use cutlery in Fiji so we had to eat the meal (curry, dhal soup etc) with our fingers was very strange! Had a good night there hospitality was fantastic considering we had only met Gary the day before!

Fiji has 333 islands you cannot stay on all of them but you can visit them all so we had to decide whether to go island hopping or just stay at one resort for our remaining week, we went to the airport to get some prices and booked for a week on Mana Island in a backpackers we got a great prices with all meals included and you could also take you own beer and wine so we thought great! We went to catch the boat over to the Mana just a small speedboat and it took about 1 hour to get there, you pass some of the other islands on the way some are so small you can walk round them in half an hour! We arrived at mana and were very plesently suprised the island was beautiful the place was rustic but really nice, the staff all sang a welcome song to us and introduced us to everyone. The room was basic (just a bed) and the shower was just like a hosepipe in the wall with cold water only but as the weather was so good it did not matter! There was hammocks all round the backpackers and everyone was just chilling out. We walked round the island took us about 2 hours the show survivor was filmed on there and the actual set was still all set up it has apparently been bought by a company that want to develop it. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner was basically a buffet with local fijian dishes it was really nice every dish was fantastic. We spent the day lazying round in the hammocks, eating great food,making jewellry with the staff from coconuts, dipping in the sea it was bliss (we were very lazy). We felt like we were living in our own little community we all ate together when new people arrived everyone grabbed the guitars and we went to the beach to sing as the boat was coming in, when people were leaving we sang goodbye songs it was great. The staff were so friendly and anything we wanted was no trouble they fetched me a lobster from the mainland and the manager cooked it for me in a fijian sauce and served it on a huge platter!

We visted the local school they have no resources and rely on handouts as the government do not provide them with any money, the children were all really happy and we gave them some gifts that they loved, later in the evening the children came to watch some of the shows that the hostel put on and we chatted and played with them. Some of the shows were fantastic like knife dancing and fire dancing, one of the staff gave me a lesson to fire dance but i was not very good! Joe went on a dive to a dive site called the supermarket this is where the sharks live, he saw a couple of sharks not huge ones but still sharks, I decided against doing the dive! We really loved Mana island there was no electric and once a day someone went to the mainland to fetch resources like beers, food etc. it reminded us of the film the beach where they find their own little piece of paradise. We would definatley like to go back to there one day. The weather was fantastic we said our goodbyes to everyone and left heading for Los Angeles!