Chapter 4 (fiji jalfrezi)

Hello again. I am going to pick up from where i left off but before i do just wanted to say thank you to you guys for leaving comments and stuff. its nice to know that people are reading this thing. I think you have made the right choice with thailand by the way amy. I havnt met anyone who hasnt liked the place yet. Also thank you jack for your comments, i hope uni is going ok at the moment, you guys must be getting close to exams and stuff? Can someone also say happy birthday to rafe. Let me know what you guys got up to. Did the Amsterdam plan happen?

So... Last time i wrote i had just arrived in Fiji. I will try to make this piece a bit shorter than usual but it has been over two weeks since i was in fiji so quite alot has happened. So i arrive to grey overcast weather, still very warm, but grey. I went to downtown Nadi to stay a night in a cheap backpacker place which turned out to be more of a travel agent than a hostel. What you guys have to understand is that fiji is almost 50-50, 50 percent local, fijian people, and 50 per cent indians!! Where did they come from i hear you cry? Well apparently when fiji was a british owned state(it is still in the commonwealth) they bought the indians over to show the fijians how to work, as they were lazy and didnt know good buisness techniques. Which is hardly surprising, as they were still eating one another. The last cannibal in fiji died in 1965 i think, and he had eaten 99 people.

So anyway lots of indians in fiji and their way of life, way of buisness is so different to that of the fijians. When you walk along the street, they come up to you, hassle you and make you feel bad if you dont buy their priceless wooden box that they are going to sell to you for a twice cut price of $10. This is something i didnt like about the place. I have to say that it was mainly in the cities and towns that you experienced it. So i got the hell out. The next night i moved down the coast to accomodation called 'the fiji beach house'. Its a very nice, popular place, if not a little to resorty. It also happens to be the place where they filmed almost all of celebrity love island. The one way smoked glass is still in place all around. It was in a beautiful setting aswell, where i was able to go out and do some snorkelling on the amazing reef. The only problem was, that for the first two days the sun didnt show its head. Yet on my last day there it came out in full. Another problem with the place was that there was a hell of alot of couples there, and for me, just coming to terms with leaving my lovely lady friend, it probably wasnt the best place i could be. Although there was a few pluses of being in that place, these were, I met a group of three French people, who restored my faith in our continental neighbours, they were very friendly and incredibly interesting. I also met someone from stuminster newton. Nuff said.
Anyway the next day i moved down the coast to a place called mango bay, not knowing what to expect, i put my backpack on and walked around the coast, at low tide it is a half hour walk, from the beachhouse, to mango bay. I dont why i expected it to be much different, but hey, i got there and it was just a cheap holiday resort. it had good facilities but it was just to clean and unnatural for my liking. Worse still were the people who were there. 17 british guys from a football squad, with the one mission of getting trashed. Also possibly the worlds most obnoxious, racist ausralian woman. Who i had the pleasure of eating my dinner with. Along with one of the nicest french guys i have ever met. That was an interesting evening.
So in the morning when i realised where i was i left and got dropped of at the road near the entrance. I decided to hitch in whatever direction i felt like, as i didnt have any plans. So as the first vehicle came round the corner i stuck my thumb out and got picked up straight away. He was a hilarious character who had a brilliant laugh, and he took me along the road for about an hour. By this time i was starting to enjoy life in fiji a little more, getting away from the routine of a resort would do me good i think. So i turned up in a place called sigatoka and decided to grab some lunch. I intended on travelling back up to nadi and possibly going out to one of the islands in the manuaca group. It would be quite expensive but i couldnt see what else to do.

Then as i was eating lunch a guy came into the restaurant, he had seen my backpack and started telling me about this accomodation down the road that was in the middle of nowhere, but right on a surfing beach. I have always wanted to surf and the guy said that they had boards for hire. He said they were going through a quiet patch at the moment, and I took that to mean that they wouldn’t have anyone staying at their place. So I had my lunch and then got a taxi to the address that he had given me. It was right on the beach in a small village, but a ten minute walk from the nearest house. Run by 2 guys and one girl, I was the only guest.
So I chatted to them and had a smoke with them, they seemed very cool. I guess I was a little on edge at first, because the accommodation was….budget and I was the only person staying. Yet once I had chatted to them I felt more comfortable. I had missed low tide so we decided to hit the beach the next morning. Until then I checked the place out, slept and ate. In the evening we went to one of the owners, friends house. A guy called paul. He showed me his arm, which had a huge scar right up it, that was in a half moon shape. He told me it was a shark and he got it when he was surfing. He is an awesome surfer and has competed in national events. What made things a little worse was that he managed to get the bite at the beach I would be surfing.
So I woke up to an awesome brekkie, then hit the waves for the first time in my life. One of the guys came out with me and gave me a lesson. I can honestly say that it was one of the most tiring things I have done in a long time. The currents pull you in the opposuite direction to where you want to go whilst the waves are bashing you from side to side. Although, when you catch a wave, and manage to stand up for a few seconds it makes it all worthwhile. It was very enjoyable. And where better to learn than in the crystal blue, warm waters of fiji, no wetsuit for me.

So now comes the move that I regret, anxious to keep moving and see more of the country, i left and headed back up to Nadi, where I stayed the night, realised I didn’t have much Fijian money left, so I went to a town higher up the country that was close to an island group, hoping to get a cheap crossing. No such luck, instead I was stuck in a crap town for a night, that was made easier due to the fact that I met two very cool English girls. So the next day I rang the airline and moved my flight forward a couple of days, stayed one more night in Nadi, then caught my flight out of there.

I had been in fiji for just over a week, and had really enjoyed myself at times but I felt like I would prefer to spend those extra few days in New Zealand. I met some ace people, who I intend to stay in contact with, but I don’t really feel like me and fiji clicked. Maybe, if I went back with a bit more money and a beautiful lady, my visit would be a lot better, who knows.

My first week in New Zealand is to follow soon….

P.S This is a photo that i took of probably the most amazing sunset i have ever seen, It was on the south coast of vana levu.