The Yasawa Islands: Waya and Waya Lai Lai

Sand Bridge connecting Waya to Waya Lai Lai (Little Waya)

We’ve just spent 2 nights staying on the mid Yasawa islands of Waya and Waya Lai Lai (Little Waya) which was a wonderful experience. The nice thing was how much the villagers integrated with the vistors and how keen they were to show us their crafts (fishing, weaving, cocunuts, fire dances) and; to let us have a go and then proceed to roll about in laughter at our efforts!

Updated! Photos added now (17/8/8)

Arriving

We got off the Yasawa Flyer and swapped to the small traditional landing boat (driven by Moses) and cruised up a few hundred yards onto a white beachy sandflat where we were greeted by the rest of the village and a Ukulele playing traditional music – finished naturally by a big shout of Bula!

Bula is a lovely word in Fijian which seems to mean everything from Hello to Cheers, How are you and Bula vinaka – thank you very much/ you’re welcome. They say it with such enthusiasm and insist that all visitors adopt it as at least one word to their Fijian repertoire.

Activities

The great thing about Waya was the sheer range of things to do to occupy us, willingly provided by the villagers. Every day at 4pm the locals take on the visitors at Beach Volleyball. They ship in all of the tough athletic boys from the village to ensure a good performance but I have to say the (unexpected) star was a big Fijian mamma called Esther who had a mean serve.

On the second day there I persuaded Tavida (David) the village ace fisherman to take me out on his boat for some line fishing and harpoon fishing. As expected he chuckled away to himself for a good 15 mins before showing me how it was done. After his tutorial I caught a nice snapper which I ate for my dinner only 1 hour after catching it, nice!

Gilly went for a mountain jaunt with Messi, the island playboy (or so he reckons) who took him on a punishing 6 hour hike up to the top of the volcano and then swimming in a waterfall to cool off. After, they went to visit the whole family from Grandpa down to babies for some refreshments in the bure (wooden house).

Medicine

Unfortunately they got wind of it that we are doctors and suddenly the whole village started turning up one by one to show us their anomalies – and boy do they have great medical signs! The sort of stuff you only see in text books back home but sadly not a lot we could do about it other than say you need to see a doctor in Nadi.

Nights

Messi, fire-dancing for us at Waya

Nights were great, kept company by Hannah and Amy our English sidekicks we drank gallons of kava (Herbal root plant with alleged hallucinogenic powers) and danced to the local Fijian island pop music, which is like Europop with a ukulele (Burke, get composing some). We were also treated to a firedancing extravaganza by Messi and his local boys which was hugely impressive.

Currently on Nanuya Lai Lai right at the top of the Yasawas on The Blue Lagoon and not able to post photos but right now I have to go because it’s 1745 and time for sunset – time to get the camera out.

When I can I will update this post with some photos

Tags: fiji, fire dancing, islands, pacific, waya, waya lai lai, yasawa