life, by me

"Bula!"...you hear this everywhere you go in Fiji!  It's the Fijian greeting, meaning 'Hello' and 'Welcome'.  It means more than hello though, literally it means 'life', it is said to you everywhere you go!

So, I just spent 9 days in Fiji. It was mostly like you would imagine...white sand, blue water, palm trees, hammocks.... I spent the majority of my time on the islands, to the east of the main island. Initially I thought I'd just stay on one island for the week, but then realising there is only so much sun bathing I can do, decided to take a look at a few of the others, and I'm glad I did because the ones I saw were all quite different.

The first island I stayed on was 'Bounty Island', and was simply a small island with sun, sea and sand. You can walk round it in about 20 mins and is where they filmed 'Celebrity Love Island' a few years ago if anyone saw that! The left over set has now become part of the resort there. It took me a couple of days to get used to doing nothing/not much after all my sight seeing in New Zealand, but surprisingly didn't take me too long to get used to the pace of life!

Fijians actually promote themselves as having a different pace of life to the rest of the world, referring to it as 'fiji time'. They told me that Fiji is the first place where the sun rises in the world so they don't see the need to rush - 'fiji time' also means buses are late, taxis take detours and life is just generally chilled out and laid back! (Although in contrast, on one island, Fiji time meant dinner was sometimes half an hour early and you could turn up on time and have nearly missed it...)

I have found Fijians to be really friendly and helpful people. They like to treat you like 'family' on the islands and all the guests get treated to some singing and dancing most evenings! Here's a photo of a bit of a fire show they treated us to one night...

Bounty Island was also where I first tried the infamous 'kava'. Kava is a traditional Fiji drink that everyone seems to drink, mainly in the evenings and looks (and tastes) like dirty water. It's made from the roots of a native pepper plant and acts as a mild sedative to the drinker. Apparently it is now sold to western countries to put in to sleeping tablets. When I was drinking it, although it was gross, I was attempting to be hardcore and keep up with the Fijians so had 5 'low tides' (high tide = big coconut cup full, low tide = small!). It had no effect on me in the evening, but all my limbs felt so heavy in the morning, I didn't want to get up!

When you leave the islands, they like to sing you a goodbye song to send you off, as I was the only one leaving Bounty Island this day, I got my own personal rendition as I sailed off in the boat...

The second island I visited was 'Waya Lai Lai'. Here I got treated to some 'bula boy' dancing, which was amazing. Traditionally, the men don sarong type things or grass skirts and do welcome dances and war dances - you name the occassion, they'll have a dance for it! Very entertaining!

Another night, the staff did a fashion show of what people in Fiji used to wear, and here they are pretending to attack me (they used to be cannibals you know...)

I also had a weaving lesson and made a bracelet from a padana tree leaf!  And on one of the other islands, I was taught how to weave a bag out of a palm tree leaf...here it is, modelling how it can hold a large kitchen knife.

I spent 1 night in 'Tavewo' island, right in the north of the Yasawas and then a few nights on 'Naviti'. Here I went on a village tour, met the chief, who conducted a kava ceremony and I got to enjoy some more of their wonderful drink and then a local school sang some songs for us. It was good to get out of the resorts and see the contrast of how the local people live, which in some ways reminded me a little of some places I saw in Asia. 

This is the kava ceremony in the village 

 Some boys at the village school giving us their performance of the 'Bula dance'

One day on Naviti one of the staff climbed up a coconut tree and threw down some coconuts for us and then shimmied down the tree head first, it was rather impressive! 

Some more pictures of 'Bula dancing' on Naviti Island

Fiji was really nice, hot everyday and I didn't even have to cook for myself as all the places to stay are catered, it was great. I did, however, realise that there is only so much 'relaxing' I can do on the beach so am looking forward to a bit more exploring in USA!

I left Fiji today, and due to the fact LA is 19 hours behind Fiji, it is still 'today' now and I've been here, and awake, for ages now, but seem to have gone beyond the point of tiredness. Well, this is definately the longest 31st of July I've ever had.

My final farewell song as I left Fiji...