Categories
Recent Entries

Archives

September 01, 2005

The Yasawas

The flight to Nadi was delayed for a couple of hours due to the vague excuse of "engineering problems," so Eve, Naomi, Marine and I grabbed the $8 food vouchers they gave out to console us and, in true pikey backpacker style, eked the most out of them we could. Naomi and I stopped off at the loos on the way back to the gate and were chatting over the noise of the tannoy announcements, hand driers and toilet flushes as we queued. I remarked that I'd never been called by name for a flight, but had secretly always wanted to as it would feel like you were being personally invited onto the plane. It wasn't until we saw the TV screens saying "gate closed" and the airline staff yelling at us to run that we realised they had actually been paging us and were holding the plane. We did the walk of shame down the aisle past the other passengers who'd been waiting two hours already and were missing the All Black versus the Springboks.

We were greeted at the airport by guys in sarongs singing and playing ukeleles and shouting "bula!" which is the universal greeting in Fiji, and seems to mean "hello" or "welcome" or a number of other things. We stayed in Nadi for a night and then headed out by bus and boat to the Yasawas Islands, to the North West of the mainland, Vitu Levu. Not having done much (or indeed, any) research for this leg of my trip, and expecting the prices to be similar to those in South East Asia, I was surprised and dismayed by how expensive everything was.

The islands ranged in size from large places with hills and villages, to tiny specks that looked like they were floating on the ocean and could be washed off at any time. I ended up staying for four nights at Korovou, on Niviti, which was three hours north of Denevau. We were met by a small boat from the resort and were greeted as we scrambled onto the sand by the staff saying "bula!" and shaking our hands. The Fijian people seem to be genuinely friendly and up for a laugh, and we got to know them over the few days we were there, especially Moses and little Joe. I was asked by everyone if I was Fijian, which was pretty hysterical considering how pasty pale I am, but for some reason my hair made me look like a local. Apparently. We were given hibiscus flowers on our arrival, which Fijians wear behind their left ear if they are single, and right ear if they are attached (Naomi and I went for an enigmatic approach and stuck them in our hair). We stayed in a dormitory room with 24 beds, which made for a couple of sleepless nights, but it didn't matter so much when you can relax during the day. There were no telephones or internet, no hot water and the electricity went off at night. The resort consisted of a few huts, a dining room and verandah and a long, narrow beach with some hammocks, which I made full use of. The food was included in the accommodation price, so we rushed over when we were summoned by bongo drums for our meals, which were good. In the evenings we sat around by the bar on the verandah and there were dance performances and concerts by the owners and staff and kava ceremonies, where we drank crushed kava (which looked like dirty dishwater and tasted not much better) from coconut shells. At other times we watched coconut picking, read, played cards, talked and went for brief forays around the island. I think tropical island life suits me!

I went for a dive off a nearby island and the coral and fish were beautiful but I had problems equalising. I've never had that before, so I kept blowing to force the air through and have damaged my eardrum. I haven't been able to hear out of my left ear since Monday, and it goes through phases of earache and crackling. I've been taking paracetemol and it kind of put a damper on my plans for lots of diving here, as the doctor told me it could take weeks to heal. I feel like I can't really complain as I'm on holiday in a gorgeous place, especially when there are so many awful things going on in the world at the moment, so I'm trying to be philosophical and hope that it will get better soon.

Posted by Rowena on September 1, 2005 01:17 AM
Category: Fiji
Email this page
Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):




Designed & Hosted by the BootsnAll Travel Network