I'm not going to dilly-dally with an introduction. It'll be far more fun if we plunge straight into the madness.
So I arrive on the mainland cranky as hell because I've been travelling for 26 hours straight [note- a plague on anyone who thinks taking a young toddler and a year old baby on an 11 hour night flight is a good idea, you crappy crappy human beings] and now I'm at the hotel and they're telling me my room won't be ready for 5 hours.
This was what started the receptionist's list of check-in information about the hotel that, I admit, I had embarrassingly first world middle class reactions to ($8 for an hour of internet?! Isn't there a Starbucks with free Wi-fi around here? What is this, the eighties?!) But after I'd had a solid 14 hours sleep I began to see the beautiful simplicity of the place, and cruising the ocean to my first tiny island the scenery was so stunning that I oohed and aahed with the other passengers, but I couldn't help noticing the number of couples on board, which left me wishing I had a certain someone (if he's reading this, he knows who he is) who I could also nauseatingly cuddle up to. Because Fiji is undoubtably place to bring your other half. The clear ocean waves are begging for a romantic midnight swim. The white sands want you to stroll along them holding hands. The superaize hammocks need to be slowly rocked while you sit in them together and talk about the silly things in life.
But wherever you go as a traveller you'll meet people, and lo and behold my first night I befriended an Irish banker called Chris, a hospital receptionist from London named Jack and Marius, a hilarious German with a random passion for Spring Rolls.
The next day was akin to a British Spring day: pissing it down with rain. Oh except it was still 30°C+ and was accompanied by the forecast for a cylone. It's a testament to the determination of tourists that everyone was still refusing to move from their sun loungers. I actually witnessed one woman have her hat, towel and beer blown away as she was holding them only to cry "You'll have to do better than that Zeus!" to which I replied "Amen!" as my sarong flew into a Coconut tree.
But altogether it meant that the real fun came that evening when everyone made an unspoken agreement to get completely wasted, and after we'd played every drinking game known to man- myself and the other ladies took ourselves to bed, leaving the boys singing 'No Woman No Cry' with far more soul than was expected from a group of German, Australian and British lads.
The next morning began with three little words: get. over. hangover. By the time we arrived at the next island, however, Jack and I had expanded our mantra. It now went: 'spend day ___ ___ getting over food poisoning'. (I leave two spaces blank because it was the only variable between me and Jack, he chose to fill the gap with 'in bed' whereas I thought 'by pool' was a better option. Sure it was a longer dash to the toilets but hey, I got my pool time. [Note: we later realised it wasn't food poisoning- it was the water on the first island. It was filtered sea water the staff said was safe to drink. Turns out several peoples' stomachs disagreed].
But anyway we powered through and as a reward the powers that be decided my last few days should be blessed with glorious weather, allowing me to snorkel on some fantastic reef sites, kayak along the shoreline and swim through a network of beautiful underwater caves. Our little knot of friends was also joined by an awesome Galswegian girl called Ashley and a happy-go-lucky German named Daniel (sooo many German travellers in Fiji, who knew?) who made my last island stop a sheer joy; we actually managed to laugh about how uncomfortable the beds were- imagine a brillo pad mattress on a crowbar bedframe.
So I arrive on the mainland cranky as hell because I've been travelling for 26 hours straight [note- a plague on anyone who thinks taking a young toddler and a year old baby on an 11 hour night flight is a good idea, you crappy crappy human beings] and now I'm at the hotel and they're telling me my room won't be ready for 5 hours.
This was what started the receptionist's list of check-in information about the hotel that, I admit, I had embarrassingly first world middle class reactions to ($8 for an hour of internet?! Isn't there a Starbucks with free Wi-fi around here? What is this, the eighties?!) But after I'd had a solid 14 hours sleep I began to see the beautiful simplicity of the place, and cruising the ocean to my first tiny island the scenery was so stunning that I oohed and aahed with the other passengers, but I couldn't help noticing the number of couples on board, which left me wishing I had a certain someone (if he's reading this, he knows who he is) who I could also nauseatingly cuddle up to. Because Fiji is undoubtably place to bring your other half. The clear ocean waves are begging for a romantic midnight swim. The white sands want you to stroll along them holding hands. The superaize hammocks need to be slowly rocked while you sit in them together and talk about the silly things in life.
But wherever you go as a traveller you'll meet people, and lo and behold my first night I befriended an Irish banker called Chris, a hospital receptionist from London named Jack and Marius, a hilarious German with a random passion for Spring Rolls.
The next day was akin to a British Spring day: pissing it down with rain. Oh except it was still 30°C+ and was accompanied by the forecast for a cylone. It's a testament to the determination of tourists that everyone was still refusing to move from their sun loungers. I actually witnessed one woman have her hat, towel and beer blown away as she was holding them only to cry "You'll have to do better than that Zeus!" to which I replied "Amen!" as my sarong flew into a Coconut tree.
But altogether it meant that the real fun came that evening when everyone made an unspoken agreement to get completely wasted, and after we'd played every drinking game known to man- myself and the other ladies took ourselves to bed, leaving the boys singing 'No Woman No Cry' with far more soul than was expected from a group of German, Australian and British lads.
The next morning began with three little words: get. over. hangover. By the time we arrived at the next island, however, Jack and I had expanded our mantra. It now went: 'spend day ___ ___ getting over food poisoning'. (I leave two spaces blank because it was the only variable between me and Jack, he chose to fill the gap with 'in bed' whereas I thought 'by pool' was a better option. Sure it was a longer dash to the toilets but hey, I got my pool time. [Note: we later realised it wasn't food poisoning- it was the water on the first island. It was filtered sea water the staff said was safe to drink. Turns out several peoples' stomachs disagreed].
But anyway we powered through and as a reward the powers that be decided my last few days should be blessed with glorious weather, allowing me to snorkel on some fantastic reef sites, kayak along the shoreline and swim through a network of beautiful underwater caves. Our little knot of friends was also joined by an awesome Galswegian girl called Ashley and a happy-go-lucky German named Daniel (sooo many German travellers in Fiji, who knew?) who made my last island stop a sheer joy; we actually managed to laugh about how uncomfortable the beds were- imagine a brillo pad mattress on a crowbar bedframe.
All in all I did have a few days of what I consider the typical Fijian holiday, doing the things that everyone does when they visit. But it was the unexpected things, good and bad, that made my Fijian experience quite different to what I thought it'd be. Geckos falling in our dinner, husking, cracking and scraping out our own coconuts to make fresh coconut milk, challenging the resort staff to volleyball matches in the tempestuous rain, a Fijian cooking lesson, playing with the pet goat, traditional Fijian dance shows, and avoiding the people who'd caught bed bugs from the Beachcomber resort, all added up to make my time in Fiji. . . interesting. Exceptional. And downright bizarre.
P.S. A quick something has to be said about the Fijian people themsleves. I wasn't really sure what they would be like, having never met a Fijian before, but they were wonderful. They kind of put our definition of the word 'friendly' to shame. They know your name within two seconds and never forget it. They run on 'Fiji Time' which basically means doing everything whenever you feel like it, and they will always say 'Bula' to you (Google will tell you it means 'hello' or 'welcome' but it's actually more like 'hiya!' and 'woop!').
However what I would see every time I met a Fijian, was a look of confusion pass over their ace. I quickly discovered this was because apparently, as each one of them told me, I look like a Fijian girl. In fact this was said to me so many times that when I got back to the mainland and the woman showing me to my room turned and said "You know you look. . " I threw my head back and shouted "Like a Fijian girl, I knoooow!" while shaking my fists in the air, which quite terrified her. So if I randomly burst out a loud 'Bula!' when I'm next around you, don't be alarmed- it's Fijian alter ego Salote (which is Charlotte in Fijian).
P.S. A quick something has to be said about the Fijian people themsleves. I wasn't really sure what they would be like, having never met a Fijian before, but they were wonderful. They kind of put our definition of the word 'friendly' to shame. They know your name within two seconds and never forget it. They run on 'Fiji Time' which basically means doing everything whenever you feel like it, and they will always say 'Bula' to you (Google will tell you it means 'hello' or 'welcome' but it's actually more like 'hiya!' and 'woop!').
However what I would see every time I met a Fijian, was a look of confusion pass over their ace. I quickly discovered this was because apparently, as each one of them told me, I look like a Fijian girl. In fact this was said to me so many times that when I got back to the mainland and the woman showing me to my room turned and said "You know you look. . " I threw my head back and shouted "Like a Fijian girl, I knoooow!" while shaking my fists in the air, which quite terrified her. So if I randomly burst out a loud 'Bula!' when I'm next around you, don't be alarmed- it's Fijian alter ego Salote (which is Charlotte in Fijian).
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