Another Day In Paradise?

Fiji. The whole point of coming away to Fiji was to relax and chill out and I am proud to say that it is most definatley mission compleate!

I have now been sat here, in the bar on the resort where I am staying for about 10 minuites. I really dont know where to start in describing this beautiful country. Its amazing. Lets start with the people., they are some of the most friendliest people that I have had the joy to meet. An example; when I first arrived in the resort everyone (and I mean everyone - from the electrician here to the painters) ask for your name. Then whenever you meet them about the resort then they say 'Bula Tom, how is your day etc.' Bula is the Fijian for hello. It just makes you feel right at home. Even though this is the furthest I have been from cold, wet, windy Caerphilly this is the most at home that I have felt in the 2ish months I have been away.

I arrived from the big L.A. (Los Angeles, not Long Ashton) at 05:30 Saturay morning. I had to wait for about 45min for my lift to my hostel. I was soon to realise that even though Fiji is +11 hours GMT it has its own timezone, this is known as 'Fiji time'. Basically Fiji works on whatever time the Taxi driver decides it is. This could get annoying if you are here with a purpose other than relaxing. But I wasn't.

Festival, Fiji style! Glastonbury it is not!

After getting to my hostel one scary taxi ride later I was informed that my room wouldn't be ready untill 10:00 and would this be okay? Are you joking? Check-in time of 10, YES that is fine! I was offered breakfast to compensate my hassle (Fijians obviously havent been to a Travelodge, because if they do, thier heads will probably explode with the shoddy customer service that hell-hole offers). After breakfast and aquaiting myself with a few other travellers I got into my room. It was okay, nothing special. Some of my fellow travellers then said that they were heading into Nadi town center for a festival that was going on and would I like to come along? It was cool, a real good introduction for my Fijian experiance. We hung around there for a bit, had some food. I ordered a BBQ special, it was a pork steak, a sausage, some noodles and lots of spicy sauce. When I asked the guy at the stand if I could have a fork he just smiled (more than he already was) and said 'welcome to Fiji'! I used my hands - Fiji style!

Because whenever I am at a marina, I go to a
Shark free marina!

In the evening after I booked the resort for the rest of my time in Fiji, I just stayed at the hostel chatting to a Sweedish guy who had the strongest scouse accent about football. I have had wierder evenings!

Early the next morning I woke and went to the hotel next door to watch the Champions League final. I met a German from my hostel and because of the stupid league I ws naturally supporting Bayern. After the Germans threw it away I caught my transfer to the dock. From there I took 2 boats to get to my resort that would be home for the next 5 days. It took about 1hr30 in total to get to Malolo island and the Funky Fish resort.

What a place! So the resort has enough accomidation for 50 people, when I arrived there were just 5 guests staying here. As the days went on they all left and by the last night it was just me! In total I paid roughly £40 per night here, but for this I got 3 full meals per day and all the Fijian beer and/or Oz wine I could drink between 12:00 and 22:00. Bargain!

Did you miss me? I just stopped writing because photos had to be taken etc. etc. It is now a day later and I am sat in the departure gate at Nadi International airport waiting for my flight to Auckland, god knows where I will be able to get a WiFi signal to upload this blog!

The view from the resort bar.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yea, so in the afternoon that I arrived I took myself out snokling. It was the first time that I have ever done it and after a few 'technical' hitches (Breathing in underwater being the main fault) I got the hang of it. I took my underwater video camera (from Best Buy no less) and I gt some really good footage. In the whole time that I was at the resort I managed to see an Octopus, Seahorses, lots of amazing coloured fish and . . . . . . . . . a whole family of 'Nemo'/clownfish! Was well chuffed with that last one, I was so happy at the time that I forgot to breathe, which was a little tricky underwater!

One day as I was wading the 50m or so to get to the reef I noticed something unusual in the water. I put on the mask and put my head under the water for closer inspection only to become face to face with 2 sea snakes curled up. The most elegant way to describe what happened next was that I 'got the F**K out of there'! I ran, tripped, jumped, waded and even tried swimming in 30cm of water. I was so S**t scared. Not cool at all!

Err, it is safe to say that I kinda love this place!

So basically my time was spent snorkling, lying by the pool when the tide was out and attempting to do some line fishing on a sea kiyak. I took one of the Kiyaks out about a mile one day, just because I saw  white post in the water and challenged myself to do it. It was the most relaxing 5 days of my life. One evening I was strolling allong the beach (as you do) and I saw a coconut lying on the ground. Now I have seen a lot of Bear Grylls/Ray Mear and so I have a massive but seemingly pointless amount of knowledge on the art of survival. I therefore set myself a task of breaking into this coconut using the tools that I had around me (rocks, shells & a stick). The locals kept asking if I wanted a machete to break it open, I politely declined their offer (I wouldn't have one if I was stranded on a island) and continued my challenge. 45min later, having sweated more than the amount of milk inside the 'nut I got in. It was at this point that I discovered that I actually dont like coconut milk. But now I can sleep safe in the knowledge that if I was stranded, I could survive.

In the evenings I usually went up to the bar for dinner at 7 and then watched a few 'dodgy' (as in not fully paid for, not bam-chick-a-wam-bam!) films with the rest of the staff. It was cool just to chill out with them.

So that was my time in Fiji. I arrived back at the hostel where I arrived last Saturday about 17:00 last night and bumped into my sweedish/scouse friend who had also just got off a resort. It was cool as we chilled out and put the world to rights again. I met a couple from Dallas and they were cool and then a girl from Middlesbrough came and joined us. She was so so annoying, really arrogant, the kind that gives the England a good name, well I say England, what I mean is Northern England! Anyway I promised that I would write about her in my blog, there we go!

Cheers! I am starting to look more and more like a traveller!
'tis good!

Auckland awaits me. I have booked into a hostel for 3 nights in the city. I need to get some washing done (I am starting to whiff a tad) and also want to try to send a parcel home with some clothes to free up space (I mean who was I kidding when I took a gillet with me?). Apparently the weather in New Zealand is a little chilly at the moment but as I keep on telling people, I live in Wales, if its dry then its a good day!

Good bye and thanks for reading!





Tom