Fiji me!
Trip Start
Aug 20, 2007
1
45
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Beachcomber Island, Mamanuca Islands, Fiji
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
After zipping through customs and getting another stamp in my dog-eared and highly cultured passport, I slide into a rickety old taxi adios'ing the dusty streets of Nadi and it's rugby-playing children and old-school NZ-influenced shops, and am greeted with banging drums and those trademark Fijian smiles. Shazza is spot on about our room at the 5-star Radisson Hotel in Denerau...it's PIMPIN'!!! I literally have found the man-made heaven on Earth! We glam ourselves up and make a b-line to happy hour where we sit at the bar sipping on pint-size frozen strawberry daqueris overlooking the waterfall-flowing pool overlooking the wedding party overlooking the white sandy beach overlooking the clearest waters I've seen in my entire life...and I've seen a hell of a lot of the world's water! The next morning after a night of drinking Fiji Bitter and more luscious cocktails at Cardo's Steak House (I ate eggplant!), we leave behind the manicured golf courses and holidaying antipodean families and head to where our real holiday begins....enter Beachcomber.
One island, one resort, over one hundred people just like me looking for some fun! I have found the southern hemisphere's answer to Ibiza (a fraction of the size and minus the drugs, clubs and sleaze) OK, so maybe that's a bit of a big call...but this tiny island that can be walked around in under 10 minutes, gave me four nights of fun-fueled, care-free hedonism. As the beaming barman said...happy hour is every hour! After a night of drinking my weight in Fiji Bitter, slushie cocktails, island-made spirits, jugs of Vonu lager, and not ANOTHER tequila shot, followed by a day of spewing it all up to make room for the pending night's alcohol quota then sunbaking on the beach in a hungover euphoria with duty-free cosmo in hand, I was ready to start all over again for another 3 nights...throw in winning a drinking competition (boat race of beer), rigged crab races, pole dancing, booty grindin', perfecting the Bula dance moves, hot Fijian fire warriors and surprisingly no kava... this was my life for the next four days....and did I mention all the while I'm in the middle of a postcard of paradise!
But I saved the best til last...at 10.30am we arise from our beachfront bure to embark on our all-day island hopping bar crawl. Joined by a couple of Townsville gals (Julie and Corrina) and our dear guide Mama Lesi, we pop open the luminous Tribe alcopops and set sail towards Malolo Island (what Heaven aspires to be like), Walu island, Plantation Island and Musket Cove....several highly potent yet fruity cocktails later and our bar crawl's turned into a 16-hour bender infused with glugging Tribes through snorkels, underwater adventures amongst exotic fish, bread pass-the-parcel for lunch, and jumping off the boat (including the captain) to pee in the sea! After drinking the boat dry, we finish the time of my life back at the Sand Bar gyrating to electro and hip hop whilst being known by our fellow islanders as the (early-twenty-something!!) Bar Crawl Girls...mission accomplished.
I shed a tear as I leave the island...we spend or final night in a Nadi curry house with Corrina and Julie (not able to drink even one more beer) before jetting back to NZ....'til we meet again Fiji...I have a feeling it will be very soon :)
