Fiji!!

The best damn place in the entire world. Get there around 6 am and spend an hour queuing at airport as our flight coincides with an LA flight which wasn’t the best timing. However we were greeted by smiles, Hawaiian shirts, guitars and singing which immediately put us in the mood. We met our hotel guy and he took us back to this fawlty towers hotel, pretty sure we were the only guests there. We never saw anyone else. They were obsessed with breakfast kinda like mum, you get free breakfast here so they kept asking “what time u want breakfast” We told them we weren’t hungry and went to sleep. Woke up in the evening and decided to go get some food. Walked down the road to a cash point and ended up in a place called the tropic of capricorn for dinner; chicken curry and it was very nice...accompanied by a lovely red wine... or 2. Met the owner called mama a 73 year old lady who is so lovely and ended up talking to her and her nieces Bella and Zelda and Tom who I want to say is her nephew but can’t remember. The girls went out for drinks later to a place called nasa which is an army place. They tried to persuade us to go but our hair was in desperate need of a wash and we looked a state to say the least, but we suggested the next night. We ended up staying with mama till about 2 drinking wine and chatting then headed back to basil fawlty! As we got in he kept asking what time we wanted breakfast, “no breakfast thanks” 5am comes and we get a phone call. My sister was due to have her baby any day at that point so char thought it was my mobile but that was off and didn’t even work in fiji. We soon worked out it was the room phone. Char picks up....its 5am and then hangs up.... is this a fijian tradition to let us know the time at all hours... it was quite funny though but only after we had got back to sleep and could laugh about it in the morning....then 7.30am phone goes again this time I go to answer it... you want breakfast? NO NO NO I told u I didn’t want bloody breakfast last night. Obviously I was a lot more polite than that. Spent the next day by the pool (our own private one as no-one actually stays there!) and met Zelda later for drinks and then we headed to Nasa. It was like a proper fijian club me and char were probably the only English there and I half expected a reaction like from films such as honey and save the last dance! But seriously people couldn’t be friendlier, BULA BULA BULA everyone was nice as can be. Had a few drinks and met her Cousin Sam and had a really good night. We ended up drinking alot more( 90p drinks you can’t go wrong) Went back to Manwell (however u spell it) and char asked the man not to call us at 5am again esp as it was like 4 am already and we said no breakfast; To make sure though we kept the phone off the hook.

The following day we went to the shop as our mouths were drier than Gandhi’s flip flop. It said shopping centre and bottle shop so we walk in and it’s literally a room the size of a shoebox and one woman behind these bars like a cage and a little hole to insert money and products into. Also whenever we asked for anything she sighed and tutted so loud it was funny...not the happiest lady around!

Went down to mamas to see zelda and book our islands decided on robinson crusoe island first 4 nights 5 days then back to nadi to do the sea spray sailing day ( go to where they filmed castaway) then beachcomber and mantaray for 4 days. Then we planned to do a trip that took us to wailaioli or something and korovou island. another 5 days on that then our final night in nadi then fly to LA.
So the following day it was Robinson crusoe! Not getting picked up till 3pm so decided to sort out our stuff and actually have breakfast! We told the guy we would like breakfast at 8am the following day. We stayed in that night as my sister was in labour so we were very excited about the new addition to my family. Finally after what seemed like years for me so god knows what it was like for Lis, Little baby Jamie Galton was born. I’m finally an auntie and a very proud one at that can’t wait to meet the little man. Congrats Lis and Mike. By time we got to sleep it was about 5 am and we needed to be up at 7.30 so needless to say we were very tired the following day. But also excited about going to Robinson Crusoe; although it was going to be our first time in a dorm!! Ha Ha we dodged it very well.

In the morning we packed our stuff and walked down to mamas where we left our main bags locked up. We then went for lunch at smugglers cove next door and soon were ready for this experience...we had been told we would be washing with buckets of cold water at this back to basics island. We got picked up just after 3 and were in a car with the driver and another guy....his name was Ollie and he became a very good friend of ours. I was falling asleep the hour or so it took us to get to the jetty but when we got there we soon woke up. We were put on a long tail boat with a lady dressed in a coconut bra and grass skirt and the boat driver called Nelly. So off we went on an hour’s boat ride to the island...char and I kept thinking we saw crocodiles but it was just bits of wood so not as exciting, we got taken around trees and it all reminded me a bit of Pocohontas. When we arrived there were lots of people waiting for us singing the Fiji welcome song, we were helped off our boat and shown to our dorm. Luckily although it was a 28 bed dorm there was only about 6 people in it before me, char and Ollie joined. Char was next to the wall...well not wall more like wood and net curtains, i was next to her and Ollie next to me. They told us to take our time to look around the island and dinner would be at 7 so Ollie went off on a walk around the island and Char and I headed to the bar for frozen strawberry daiquiris! Soon another boat came in and it was full of people who already stayed here...they called us Islanders, there were a lot of day trips here as well. We met this really annoying girl from Australia but luckily met some other great people. Astrid and Stine were from Norway and had been on the island a day or so. We got talking to them and had a good night drinking and getting to know the others. A guy called Mess asked us to come and join him and Gus and play a game called vindi vindi (pronounced vidi vidi) which is a flicking counters game.... it’s more fun than it sounds. But me and char were shocking so it was really mess vs gus. We all sat around for kava (there root plant drink) and songs and it was really nice. Soon it was raining soooo much and thunder and lightning, the sand was flooding so we moved to the deck for a couple more drinks. We kept playing would you rather game with ollie...would you rather have one leg or one arm etc his answers always managed to crack us up.

Robinson Island was awesome I could write forever about it but have so much to write and am so far behind I’m just going to cut it down to the basics. We played volleyball, went kayaking, Made coconut bracelets ourselves, sunbathed, drank lots of Kava and made some amazing friends. We had to shower with cold water in buckets...proper old school. The guys and girls on the islands fire and knife dancing was incredible. We got on really well with them all: Luke, Dan, Paul, Nelly, Mess, Gus, Rico, Es, Joe and loads more. It was pretty much Stina, Astrid, Olly, Char and myself the whole time. We had such a good laugh and the food was nice as well. We had given breakfast lunch and dinner times although we didn’t always make it up for breakfast. On the first morning the annoying Aussie girl kept running in and waking us up telling us we were gonna miss breakfast....we don’t care let us sleep!! We also missed learning an island dance due to sleeping in...that was lucky! On sat night they have a massive show where loads of people come to the island. We had to stand up the front with the guys and sing, there’s me clapping away when char looks down and starts laughing, yeah my dress had come down so my bra was out nice- obv that was the look I was going for! That night we stayed up drinking till 5ish, me and char had brought vodka from Nadi (and wine but that was stolen) so we brought that out and Dan got out rum and in no time we were very merry!

The following morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed to wave off Olly, god we were gonna miss him, he’s such a funny guy and dances like a crazy man! We waved off the boat and headed back to bed. The following day we left, we had a great last night with the girls and guys and were sad to leave Astrid and Stina, everyone was singing the fiji farewell song as we left.

When we got back to Mama’s finally we were meeting Mess from the island to go to Nasa, We got back later than expected but showered (without a bucket unlike the island) and were nearly ready when Mess got to our hotel. We had something to eat then got a taxi down to Nasa. Was such a funny night! One of the best we’d had, we all got so drunk, did lots of dancing (although we did get robbed....some stupid girl managed to take some money out of mine and char’s bag) Probably our fault for leaving it on table when we were dancing...we definitely learnt from that experience. But other than that we had a great night but got in around 3ish and we had to be up at 6 for our day trip! We were very merry and went on skype to mum, lis, mike and jamie. The first time my baby nephew sees me and I’m a drunken wreck...well start as u mean to go on. Then we get a knock at the door and Mess is there, wanting to make sure we got home ok...such a pleb. We let him sleep on our spare bed and halfway through the night he got up and ended up on the sofa legs in the air...so funny.

The next morning we were picked up at 7am to go to our day trip on the island where castaway (Tom Hanks) was filmed, we were all so drunk still stumbling around, we had only had 2 hours sleep, if that. We pointed Mess in the direction of a taxi and got on the bus, we seen him stumbling down the street which made us laugh. We got on the big boat and I was starting to feel ill, I slept for an hour and then we had to get on this little sailing boat ....oh god!! I was not feeling good by this point. The drunk had worn off and the hangover was in! The guy brought round champagne I couldn’t even look at it! I think he realized how rough I was when I kept disappearing to the toilet and couldn’t eat a thing! I had paid so much for this trip and ruined it completely through my own fault!! The trip was amazing though, if I hadn’t been throwing up in the gorgeous clear waters I would have probably enjoyed it more. But it was the most beautiful and quiet island I’d ever been to. We also visited a school and a village which was really nice, although I’m not gonna lie we were very glad to get back to the hotel...

We were leaving the following morning for beach-comber island at 7 again so we got in, sorted our stuff and slept! The following morning we got our thermos’ filled with tea and got on the bus....adding to the stereotype of the English and tea. We got to Beachcomber midday and had some more tea...this time it was gross. We had a nice little beach hut there and found a nice spot on the white sands by the clear blue sea (gorgeous island). We stayed there all day topping up our tan and then went for drinks in the evening. They had a band playing which were good and some dancers, but I still wasn’t fully over my hangover. So a few drinks was enough for me, but it was fun watching the other drunk people falling over etc. The band kept coming over to speak to us, one guy kept calling me jenna...I couldn’t be assed to correct him especially as we were leaving the following day. It was this guys 23rd bday so they needed 23 girls to kiss him, we tried to avoid it but they still needed a few and the band was on the mic making us go up there, it was quite amusing.

The following day we left for mantaray, That was a nice island with nicer food than beachcomber. We had a spot for sunbathing and swimming in the sea so we spent most of our time there and usually bought a crunchie and a beer for afternoon snack before our nap...it really was the life!

We had been told by Zelda and mama that the wailaila (or however u spell it island) had had loads of complaints so because we loved robinsons so much we decided to go back there for another 5 days. Woop Woop!! Don (who worked at mamas) picked us up at the jetty and drove us to the robinsons jetty! The guy there had been waiting for us for ages and they had sent a boat esp to get us as the other new people had come earlier. We were on the boat in the pitch black, god knows how the driver knew which way to go and then it cut out he had the torch out, looking in the water...and then mentioned something about crocodiles...I practically jumped into the middle of the boat so I wasn’t close to the side. As we pulled up by the island, Luke and Nelly and a few others were there singing the welcome song...and then they realised it was us back and were like welcome home!! It was so nice to see everyone again. We were being shown to our private lodge (a step up from the dorm; it had a kettle in the bathroom next to the bucket so we could make warm water for showers) Rico came running over to us saying they told me you were back and gave us a big hug. They had a show on so we sat down and got served a drink from the lovely Rita at the bar and watched the show. We spotted Mess and he came rushing over he was hungover again and was excited to look through my pics from the Nasa night and showing everyone there them. We also saw Paul and he sat with us most of the night. He was a funny guy he used to always to scare us when we were sunbathing by putting crabs on us or jumping on us....we got him back one day with water while he was sleeping. After the show we all got talking and drinking and ended up just being me and char with the guys drinking as everyone else went to bed. We loved robinsons so much made really good friends with the guys there and also met two guys from Poole there, such a small world. Like I said we had so many good times but I don’t have enough time to write everything so guess that will just be left for mine and Chars memories.
We were very sad to leave again especially as we will probably never get a chance to go back there again....although we have been invited to Fiji for Mamas birthday in a few years so hopefully will go then.

The last night in Fiji we spent...at Nasa of course, although I think we were very tired so it wasn’t as drunkard as normal. Sam kindly took us home while Zelda continued the party and we had a nice last night in Fiji town. The next day we went to Nadi town to look at the shops, managed to buy some cheap dvds and souvenirs then before we knew it, it was airport time. We got an amazing chicken salad sandwich at the airport (tasted like greggs) and saw the two guys we met on robinsons, they were heading back home and we were heading to LA for our last two months in America..... Farewell Fiji we will miss you soooo much!!