Hi guys, I have just arrived in Auckland after an amazing 10 days in fiji!! I think fiji may be my favorite place so far actually!! The people are so friendly and there is so much culture and the people really want u to get involved with them. Bula! is the greating in fiji and everywhere u go everyone is shouting bula! at u!

As i said i was meeting my friends out in fiji, but i arrived a day earlier than them and checked into my hostel, which was more like a hotel, was really nice and only 4 quid a night!! i met loll and rich the next day at the airport and we started planning our trip! We flew into nadi, but there isn't much there so we booked a trip where we went island hopping. we decided to to six places in so many days, so it was a bit hectic, but worth it as all the places we went were gorgeous and all very different as well which was quite suprising.

The first place we went was manta ray island resort, which was a lovely island, all the accomodation on all of the islands was pretty basic (no hot showers etc) but this one was pretty good! We got there mid morning and didn't really do much all day, just lazed on the beach!! The water was crystal clear and even without snorkells u could see lots of fish, although lauren did get bitten on the toe by a fish when we were sat in the water looking for shells!!! it even drew blood!! We did get a bit more active in the evening when we played volleyball with the fijians and other people on the resort. That night people from the local village came and we saw them do some dancing and singing and they got us up to do the snake dance which was very funny! Me and lauren also were dancing with one of the guys and he asked us to show him our dancing and we did some silly dancing and he found it hillarious!! They posed for photos afterwards and they loved having their pic taken! The next day me an loll went out on some sea kayaks, and paddled to another desserted island which was fun, while we left rich lazing in a hammock!

We then headed off to oarsmans bay lodge, which we had been told was the prettiest beach in fiji, and when we got there it did look beautiful. Agian, we just did topped up the tan a bit more!! That night we were given kava for the first time. Kava is a traditional drink that they make out of root of some kind and basically tastes like muddy water, but has an anestetic effect so does make ur mouth go a bit numb, like after sucking a strepsil!! Rich took a liking to it and had about 10!!!

The next day we headed to kuata, we arrived at about 4pm which was just in time for a hike to the summit of the mountin on the island. so we decided to do that and although it wasn't very far it was hard work in the heat, but when we got to the top the views were awesome. That night they put on crab racing and we bought a crab, which came second, but luckily they are a bit backwards in fiji and the 2nd prize was actually better than the 1st prize!! Another example of that would be at the previous place where they had free tea and coffee all day apart from 3-4 where they had afternoon tea and cake and they charged 1.50 for the cake and 1.50 for the tea!!! U would have to be pretty stupid to buy the tea and coffee!!

We also had more kava at kuata and the guys taught us a fijian song which was cool! The next day we went snorkelling with sharks!! This was the main reason we picked this island to go to as it had this activity! it was a really good experince and we saw about 10 sharks, they were only reef sharks so were friendly and u could actually go down and stroke them! They were about 4 or 5 feet long and looked like mini great whites!!

We then headed off to beachcomber which is a tiny little island, but is labelled the party island!! So we thought we would go there for a night. We were told they had dorms of 120 people and that it was a bit basic, but we were really lucky and managed to get our own room with ensuite!! We went out that night and they had polyensian dancing and fire dancing and fire eating show which was really good!! Although it was the party island we didn't really drink that much and went to bed about 1am, but that was pretty late as on the other islands we had been going to bed about 10pm!! unfortunately that night it started raining and didn't stop for the rest of the trip! We had been really lucky to get 5 days of hot sunshine as it is actually wet season over there at the moment. We left for an island called mana the next day, which turned out to be really really fun, even though it was raining. We arrived at the hostel, which was the most basic of them all but agian the people were so friendly. We met some really cool english people and we ended up playing poker (which rich won luckily which meant me and loll didn't have to pay the 5 bucks entry fee, even tho we were the first two people out!!) We then played touch rugby and chucked a ball around in the sea. Agian we saw some fire dancing which was good. That night turned out to be the latest night and we were all rather drunk and ended up staying up till 4 in the morning playing drinking games! The place was a bit like a soap opera tho, as all of the guys there weren't quite as traditional and had white girlfriends and they kept arguing as the guys would be flirting with all the girls!! Was very funny to watch!!

After mana we headed back to the main land were we got on a very old and crowded bus and headed 2 hours south to another resort. this was the resort where they filmed celebrity love island in 2006!! It was a very nice place and actually had hot showers so was a luxury to have our last night somewhere nice! We went on a village visit here too, wish was really interesting, saw the school and church and learnt about the culture more. All the villages have a cheif, which basically runs the village! Some of the houses are very basic with no furniture but those who have jobs in resorts and things have furnature and even some have sky dishes on the roof!!

so headed back to nadi after that to catch the plane, was really good to spend time with lauren and rich again, especially in such an amazing country. i would definately like to go back there.

As i said i'm in auckland now, staying in a nice hostel (thanks steve for reccommending it...its lush!!!) and am going to leave in a couple of days to start travelling new zealand so should be hectic but fun! !

Lots of love
laura xxxxxxx