We're on Fiji time

Fiddle-de-dee potatoes, we just spent the past week in the Beachhouse resort Fiji (where they filmed the second series of Celebrity Love Island - luxury for a backpackers place!) partying with the Irish. Although we planned to spend a couple of weeks on the mainland (Viti Levu) travelling between resorts on the South coast, we know a good thing when we see it, and decided to stay there for the duration.

The weather was a bit crap, so we hung round with Aileen, Elaine, Damian, Kellie, Hannah, Eamon, Hollywood, and more briefly, April and Benny (the germ):

It was like being on a proper holiday, I haven't laughed that much in ages (26kg backpack anyone?!) but we're paying for all that drinking now.

Highlights included poker tournaments, that really drunken Thursday night, kava sessions, beach volleyball, Elaine's Muff revelation, the daily frog festival (it rains - the frogs come out), kayak surfing, tea and scones, and one-eyed Tuks the music man (shown here, romancing Kellie):

Really looking forward to a reunion in Sydney, where Hollywood has promised to teach us to surf.

Debs and Ben

Barbershops of the world, part 4

Sigatoka, Fiji. Time for a quick trim at Dayalal Ranchhod's between lunch and meeting up with a taxi driver who promised to drive us home for the same price as the bus fare... ("Pay me now, I turn up - 100%", yeah right). He never showed. We took the bus.

Cost 1 Fiji dollar (0.50 EUR)

Cut quality 2/10

Fear factor 0/10

Comments: A sloppy effort, using only clippers. Took about 5 minutes and got most of the hair shorter, but left quite a lot of long bits. Can't complain about speed though :-) Prior to entering the shop we had a quick conference about how much we were willing to spend - $10 was the ceiling - the promise of "Fancy Goods" on the shop sign led us to believe that this was a premium establishment...

Ben

Celebrity Drug Island

We're on Celebrity Love Island! We didn't realise before we got here, but we've ended up on the Beachhouse resort where they filmed one of my favourite shows of 2005 (don't think badly of me, we didn't have Sky then, so I had to make do with downloads). I'm getting a bit confused about where everything was - it looks really different in real life, but the spaces for the cameras are still there, as are the 2 way mirrors. We're off to see the Love Shack this afternoon. Woo! Anyway, it's backpacker heaven here, and it isn't raining anymore, so we're very happy.

It's been raining since we left Manta Ray Island, and whilst we were watching frogs hopping through our garden at Tubakula Beach Bungalows, we were considering leaving Fiji early, but now we've decided to stick it out and try some East coast islands after here.

Everybody says the one thing you'll do on Fiji is try kava, and we were beginning to think we'd missed out, but we finally took part in a kava ceremony last night. Very cool. Kava is a drink prepared from the root of a type of pepper plant, and is drunk by Fijians as a way of saying thanks (for everything), and to generally pass the time of day. It's mildly narcotic, looks like muddy water, and makes your tongue go numb. We liked it and it just made us feel nice and relaxed, nothing serious. The ceremony involves sitting around a chief Fijian whilst he prepares and hands out (little for girls, big for boys) coconut bowls of kava. Each person in turn has to clap, say "bula" and down the kava in one (not that easy as it gets stronger!) whilst the others clap three times before and after. This goes on for about 2 hours, before dinner, and makes you too full to eat your (bad) macaroni cheese.




Debs

Fiji fun

After the slightly disappointing Cooks, Fiji delivered the Island Paradise goods in spades!

We spent the first 3 days of our Fiji leg on the Yasawa Islands - a string of sandy gems twinkling in the Pacific off the northwest coast of the Fijian mainland. We stayed at the Manta Ray resort, which totally rocked.

Highlights, apart from the perfect weather and picture postcard beaches, were:

• Swimming with real live manta rays (for Ben at least - Debs caught a mouthful of brine going into the water and spent most of the time drowning)
• Island handicrafts including making bracelets out of coconuts, and shell necklaces (one for Debs - Ben was too busy snoozing in a shaded beachside hammock)
  
  
• Snorkelling in the shallows (both of us)
• The food on the island - according to everyone we spoke to, Manta Ray's catering kicks every other Yasawa resort's sorry hide.
• The other guests, in particular Paul and Paula (Hello!) who chatted, ate, and larked about with us, transforming good times into great fun. We miss you two already!

We recommend that everyone reading this post immediately drop everything, fly to Fiji and go to Manta Ray resort! Really! We were sorry to have to leave, but you know, time marches on, budget dwindles, places to see, people to do, etc etc.

Now we're back on Viti Levu, the mainland, cruising round the south coast for a week or so before we head off to NZ.

Ben