My favourite days in Fiji...
Trip Start
Feb 19, 2010
1
41
Trip End
Jun 05, 2010
Where I stayed
Beachcomber Island, Mamanuca Islands, Fiji
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Beachcomber is a typical Fijian island - we walked round it in about 10 mins on our first evening, it's surrounded by crystal clear turquoise waters, white sand....really, really lovely. It also had DELICIOUS food - huge buffet dinner and dessert which made us all pretty happy! It has a big beachfront bar as well - it's called the 'barefoot bar' and as it's on the beach, it's just sand which was lovely and very holiday like! There was a limbo competition which Michelle won which got her a huge jug of cocktail, and we had a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate being in a perfect resort again! The DJ played some lovely music - a good variation of 70s and 80s plus more modern stuff so we did loads of dancing, partying and took lots of photos...in fact, we were only meant to be staying there for 1 night before heading back to the mainland ready to fly out the following day but we decided to stay there another day and catch the 11am ferry back to the mainland ready to fly out that evening, so paid extra to stay there for 2 nights which was a good move. We also had a thunderstorm which cleared the air, got rid of the humidity and returned the sunshine!
Our full day there was spent on 'Seaspray' - a big old wooden sailing boat. Again, the weather was lovely and we sailed over to the island filmed for Tom Hanks' Castaway film which was beautiful, and did some more snorkelling there (rather marred by the presence of jellyfish which stung like hell so we swam to the beach rapidly and sunbathed instead). Once back on board we had an incredible BBQ with loads of salads (we really didnt need anything having had the biggest breakfast ever of fish and chips (weird, i know), pancakes, omelettes, toast and muffins (it was the one breakfast where cereal ruined it rather than making it - and the one breakfast which i wasnt still hungry at the end of it!)) but still managed to eat a pretty big lunch!
After lunch we sailed over to an island for a traditional Kava ceremony - the local drink which is made from plants and is pretty strong. The ceremony was really interesting and then we had a little wander around the village - Fijian kids are SO cute. You have your camera out and they all want to be in photos and then see themselves on the screen - they're really adorable. We then went to a shell market and bought a few little jewellery bits and pieces before heading back to the boat. I was really amazed at the poverty though - the houses are just breeze blocks or corrugated iron with raffia mats on the floor - no electricity, running water, very little furniture... all the children just sleep on blankets on the floor and only a few houses seemed to have double beds or sofas or anything. The Fijian's are really friendly though but i wasnt expecting to see so much poverty, it was really surprising. One of the guys was chatting to one of the fijian's at Coral View and he was paid $17 a day - about 6 pounds. Absolutely nothing, really...
It was even more surprising as i thought Fiji was quite expensive - we paid $96 FJD to stay at Beachcomber another night, so about 45pounds, which is really UK hotel prices for a 64 bed dorm! So I dont know quite where all that money goes. All the Fijian's are really friendly though...
So we then returned to Beachcomber for showers and a couple of drinks before dinner, and then partied again until the bar shut - another really nice evening. Michelle won the limbo again so more cocktails and we met a group of guys who were buying huge cocktail jugs so it was a pretty fun evening!
The next morning Alex and I headed back to the mainland (after a couple of hours sunbathing crammed in int he gorgeous sunshine!) which was sad, but i was still pleased i shortened my trip - i wouldn't be able to cope with 12 days of mosquitoes, humidity and simply sunbathing - i've discovered i need to do activities as well!
