FIJI ISLANDS – BULA PASS

21st October 2010 – Arrived in Nadi, Fiji – 10hr 40min flight from LAX

Day 1 – Coral View Resort, Tavewa Island
Day 2 – Coral View Resort, Tavewa Island
Day 3 – White Sandy Beach, Naviti Island
Day 4 – Naqalia Lodge, Waya Lailai Island
Day 5 – Naqalia Lodge, Waya Lailai Island
Day 6 – Beachcomber Island, Mamanuca Island
Day 7 – Nomads Skylodge, Nadi

25th October 2010 – Naqalia Lodge, Waya Lai Lai Island,Fiji ( This blog was written on this date)

Hey!!

What an amazing past few days we’ve had!! We don’t even know where to start with what we’ve done so far. Were on day 5 of our island hopping experience here in Fiji and weve just got back from feeding and swimming with the reef sharks!! Was sooo cool - Even got to touch them!! The boat picked us up about 9:00am just after breakfast and we headed out about 15minutes into the middle of the open water away from the islands until we reached the reef, then we jumped out of the boat and snorkelled around for about an hour whilst we watched the guide feed the sharks. We only saw about 3 – but even still that was pretty amazing considering we’ve never been that close and even seen a shark before! I lasted about 45 minutes until I spewed up last night’s dinner!! The current and the waves were quite strong out there and my stomach didn’t take too well to it! lol!

We don’t have any internet out here on the Fiji islands so im having to write this on our net book and will have to copy and paste it into our blog when we get internet access.
Well let me just catch up on our past few days before I forget it all!

We spent 3 days in LA before we came to Fiji – overall we weren’t too impressed with LA, but we think a lot had to do with the weather. It rained the whole 3 days we were there so it made getting around quite difficult!

Our hotel we stayed in was pretty nice – Hollywood Historic Hotel , Melrose Avenue – was clean and basic so we were happy with that. I was just happy for it to be clean ha,ha! LA was much bigger than what we were expecting and would have been much better if we had a car for getting around. Most of the time we got a taxi because of the rain.

We arrived late on our first night in LA so we just went to a local bar/restaurant down the road from our hotel and had some dinner. Our first proper day in LA was the next day when we walked all the way down Melrose Avenue and back again (A VERY long road!!). We were told Melrose Avenue was well known for all their cheap cloth stores – so of course me and Matt had to go and take a look!!  (We were good though and Matt only bought a t-shirt from the Ed Hardy store!)

Day 2 in LA we went on a tour bus that took us all round LA to all the main spots – Venice beach, Muscle Beach, Santa Monica beach, Marina Del Rey (Where CSI Miami is filmed), through Hollywood to see Graumans Chinese Theater, Walk of fame, Kodak Theater (Oscars), Hollywood sign, Mulholland Drive, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Bel Air, Sunset Strip and then around downtown.

Was a very busy day sightseeing that day! The highlight was probably seeing all the celebrities homes up in Beverly Hills. We even got to see the house where Michal Jackson died, although they had big black gates outside so you only peer through this little gap to see!

Our last day in LA we spent at Universal Studios – that was really good!! Jaws was a big disappointment though – I filmed it – so you guys can see why! Nothing like what you see on the advert when the big shark comes out of the water - maybe thats at a different universal studios?? Everything else was still pretty good though. We took a tour round all the film sets and got to go down Wisteria Lane where Desperate Housewives is filmed, and see the set for the old movie Psycho.

That night we boarded a flight to Fiji and arrived in Nadi about 5:30am and met a lady who arranged our Bula passes. The Bula passes allow us to island hop and have our accommodation sorted as well as breakfast, lunch and dinner for every day.

We have our own private room for every island apart from Beachcomber (our last night), which are like little huts with a bathroom and a bed – thats it!

So far White Sandy Beach has been our favourite island. It was as it was named – white sandy beach and clear turquoise water. The reef there was amazing! Ive never actually been proper snorkelling before, so that was my first experience which was amazing!! Even got to see Nemo and his friends ha,ha! We left that island yesterday and have arrived to an island where its only me, Matt and the staff!! Weve made some friends along the way that we met on the first island, and our trip destinations turned out to be pretty similar to theirs apart from this island so we cant wait to move onto the next island to see them again!

Today more people have arrived on this island – 2 couples and some other guy who looks to be on his own – havnt met them yet – but tonight at dinner im sure we will!
The next island we leave for is tomorrow – Beachcomber – well known for being the party island out of all of the islands – so of course we had to finish Fiji off with that island and thats where we will meet back up with our friends from Oz (Coomb’s & Kyle) and Denmark (Andras & Mya)!

Were just getting used to roughing it up now (not that we have the choice!!), havnt used my hairdryer since we left LA, or my makeup - so you’ll notice most of the pictures will be of matt ha,ha!! The mosquitos absolutely love me! Matt seems to be okay – they just seem to be attacking me, so Ive got bites covering me all over!! Eeeerrrrggghhhhhhhh . . . and there are soooo many ants and flys everywhere – inside and out! Thats getting quite annoying!
The food out here is pretty good – a lot of rice dishes and chicken! They serve Papaya with EVERYTHING!!!!! Starting to crave a pizza or a burger now though. I couldn’t wait to get away from burgers and pizza when we were in LA and Canada because we’d had so many – but it hasn’t taken long to start missing.

Sorry to blabber on for so long – tried keeping it short but got a bit carried away lol!! Maybe Matt will write the next one???

Ciao for now!