Dear Stuart, Jan, Caitlin & Euan Banks

Time moves quickly now. Minutes are passing like hours and hours are passing like days. Before we know it, we are going to wake up and this wonderful adventure will be over. We know this and have accepted it and so are making every day count a little bit more. To help with that, we have used your very generous wedding gift to buy not one but two boat trips out to some beautiful tropical paradise islands. It's all a bit like happy hour or a two for one sale but with more sunshine.

Our first trip was to the island where they filmed the movie 'Castaway'. A movie that has been on our to watch list for ages but we never quite got round to. Visiting an island where they have filmed a movie you haven't seen is just like going to an island that they haven't filmed a movie on. Luckily it was a nice island and there were lots of nice people on the trip and it included as much beer and wine that you could drink so that was ok then.

As mentioned in a previous post, 'Fiji time' is a concept that Fijians have come up with to explain away why it takes them so long to do anything. It is supposed to represent the laidback approach to life that they have here. We discovered however on the morning of our Castaway trip that Fiji time doesn't apply to us when we are being picked up at 7.15am and at 7 o'clock the hostel decides to tell us that we cannot book our room for another night and so have to move all our stuff. Manic running around stuffing things into bags while people shout at you that the bus is leaving in five minutes is not the most chilled out experience we have seen.

Back at our hostel we spent the evening with some lovely French people practicing our GCSE French on them. It is amazing how long you can stretch out saying things like 'Oooh air la pissing?' and 'jai cans on' and it still be funny. It was only afterwards we found out that Jordan actually has a degree in French. Hers was still as bad as ours.

Our second island trip was more beautiful still, yet possibly less fun as it included a lot less alcohol and nice people but we saw lots of animals. We visited Bird Island. 'My God, there are lots of birds on that island' we said. We also got taken on a walk to see some red prawns in a secluded inland lake. This was very exciting because it is the only place in the world where they live. They were like normal prawns but red. It was very exciting.

We are now staying in a place called Beachouse. The palm trees, the setting, the beach are all on a whole other level. This is where they filmed the 2006 TV show Love Island, if anyone remembers that? No? Well anyway, it is very pretty here but it is in the middle of nowhere and has a rather draconian food policy. On arrival, we were told that there was a compulsory $39 daily charge that you have to pay that would cover you for breakfast and dinner. We were horrified. Can't we just buy our food as we go along? No. But that works out like thirteen whole pounds a day for dinner and breakfast. It is shocking. Just outrageous. Three days later and we have been institutionalised. The highlight of the day is when they put what dishes we can choose for dinner up on the board.If I don't get my dinner at the next place we stay at 6.30pm sharp I don't know what I am going to do.

To make this place even better, they also have daily coconut leaf weaving classes, ran by a jolly old man called Mali, who didn't say much except to find every thing that Jordan said hilariously funny but, by God, he was good at coconut weaving. Previously I didn't know coconut trees even had leaves. You learn something new every day. So far I have made a nice bracelet for Donna and a bookmark. I tend to only read my Kindle these days so I am not sure what I am going to do with the bookmark to be honest. And it is probably going to be taken off me at customs anyway. But it will be sad when we have to 'weave' this place.

Tomorrow, we fly from Fiji to the USA. It will be sad to be leaving Jordan but it is nice to have met a travel friend who has now become a real friend. Our flight crosses the international Date Line which means we will actually arrive in LA yesterday. Which sort of means that it has already happened. Although we don't know what we did yet. It is sort of like time travelling. So next time I write a blog I will tell you about what happened yesterday. It is all very confusing.

Lots of love

Jim and Donna