Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Day 152: BULA from fiji!!
This blog is slightly belated as we couldn't log in properly in Fiji!
We spent an amazing 2 weeks Island hopping in the Yasawa Islands - a group of islands about 5-6 hrs from the mainland. We were also joined by Daisy (aka Dizzay/Diz/Dizzlar/Dizzy Rascal) which was fab!
We had an Island hopping pass, so could go to a different resort/island each day. We stayed in many different places, some being very luxurious (on a backpackers budget at least!) and others being very basic. The more basic places tended not to have electricity, which meant no fans/air con at night = boiling!! However, they were usually owned by the locals, so there was plenty of the Fijian hospitality and pretty good food.
On our first night we celebrated Dizzay's birthday, and managed to get a birthday cake from a lady who owned a tea shop on the beach! The staff on the island also sang happy birthday in Fijian, complete with banjo and guitar.
We met many characters in the Islands, our favourites being a very camp duo known as 'Wendy Ho' and 'Kim Kardashian' (we are not sure who Kim Kardashian is - possibly either a reality tv star or pussycat doll). They worked at one of the smaller resorts and had us all entertained with the game of 'coconut swing'. This involved tying a string around you waist with a coconut attached, then swinging said coconut to hit another on the floor!
We were entertained every evening with the Bula song - a traditional Fijian welcome song. Often this would turn in to the Bula dance too - imagine the macarena with some extra tropical island style moves and regular shouts of 'BULA!' and you've got it.
One of the funniest games they got us to play was called 'bula, viking, knight'. For this you had to pair up, and then either do a piggy back, firemans lift or sit on the other person's knee depending on what command was called. The resort owner decided our pairs for us; John Robbins was paired with a large Fijian lady, Louise with a dutch boy and diz with a german boy. John Robbins' partner refused to let him lift her and so we all laughed a lot as she tried to scoop him up in to a firemans lift!! They were out first. Likewise, Louise's partner was struggling to lift her - in fact each time she launched on to his back he would stumble forwards a lot and almost fall over. At one point he exclaimed 'this is really hard work' exactly what a girl wants to hear when being lifted!! Dizzay, however, was much more agile and stayed in the game a lot longer than either of us!
After lots of sunbathing, swimming, eating and generally being lazy it was time to head back to the mainland. We took a day trip out to some mud pools and hot springs in the foothills of a dormant volcano. The water in the hot spring was 70C - far to hot to sit in, but there was a slightly cooler pool that we could sit in. We also got to swim in the mud pool and the throw a lot of mud at each other! We didn't really notice any benefit to our skin from having done it but it was a lot of fun!
Then it was time to say goodbye to Dizzlar, and fly to LA. We got an evening flight, and with the time difference being 21hrs, we managed to land before we'd even taken off - a very strange and long day! We followed a black lab on to the plane at the boarding gate - he looked like he was a search and rescue dog as he was with a lot on men in khaki. We didn't see him on the plane though - probably got upgraded to first class!
On to the last week of the trip now - where has all the time gone?!
Lots of love xxxx
- comments