We’ve just spent a week in the remote eastern Fijian island of Taveuni. We traveled here by twin prop 12 seater plane, on a beautifully clear day giving some extraordinary views. The plane was hilariously administered and as expected ran to Fiji Time (45mins late take off despite no apparent reason for delay other than a pilot with coffee to finish).

Leaving the airport was a breeze, no carousels as we grabbed our bags straight out of the planes hold. Matei airport (code TVU) is one of those delightfully small airfields which I adore, affording private aviation to every man.

So Matei is meant to be the hub of enterprise on Taveuni. Interesting, since there is not a shop in sight on first arrival. We hiked 500m down the road to Jim Bibi’s 20-acre copra plantation where we would hire a cottage for the week. Jim is a delightful old gentleman (ex Fijian government) who is full of stories and wisdom. His personal cottage is an Aladdin’s cave of things which may at some stage come in useful. It looked like Grandad’s garage.

Day One

Jim Bibi, owner of Bibi's Hideaway, Matei

Spent chatting to Jim and then wandering down to ‘downtown’ Matei to Bhula Bhai & Sons general store; think pound store circa 1986. We bought a few carbohydrates, desperately hunted in vain for vegetables and then gave up and walked home stopping only to buy roti from an incredibly polite but simple chap called Kumar. He has since thanked us on a daily basis for spending 60p at his stall and tells us daily how wonderful our country and Queen are. Jingoism is not dead.

We went to Tramonto restaurant and it was shut so we ate corned beef bolognese cooked on the gas camping stove. Mmmm

Day Two

Wairiki Catholic Mission (click to see inside)

Taveuni is wet and windy, these are serious pacific island storms which conjure up visions of Captain Cook battling through the shark filled waters. Anyway, we took a taxi to Wairiki village and decided to visit the Catholic mission. Gilly now understands the term mission, since these places are a mission to get to. First we took a wrong road and walked up the mountain side to a village, it was only when he pointed out the cross on the hilltop about 2-miles right we turned back. I don’t think the villagers here had ever seen vulagi before.

A pitstop at the delicious Taveuni bakery restaurant later and we were back on track, soon to be lost again. The church is magnificent inside, as are most catholic churches. We couldn’t find the track to the cross on the mountain top, Lonely Planet is totally wrong in its instructions here. A boy from the village ended up giving us a guided tour (we gave him $FJ 3 as a reward) and showed us a shortcut which was a little hairy; a 45 degree muddy jungle incline. Needless to say, he motored up it barefooted without blinking. He wants to join the British Army when he finishes school, and good luck to him – we need characters like him.

International Date Line, Waiyevo, Taveuni

Next, we walked a few kilometers down the road to Waiyevo to visit The International Date Line to get those all important Today-Yesterday photos and see how many crap puns we could come up with. The International Date Line is a wooden signpost at the far corner of a rugby pitch with a bench on either side of the line, what a great tourist attraction and well worth travelling so far for! We also visited the Taveuni Hospital up in Waiyevo which was rather cute and remarkably well equipped, although the nurses were waiting until 6pm for the electrical generator to start up so they could administer medicines. During the night, they operate with Florence Nightingale style kerosene lanterns.

We went to Tramonto restaurant again, and again it was closed so we once again ate pasta and this time chilli, tomato and tuna cooked on the gas stove. Gilly seems to really enjoy this muck.

Day Three

Tavoro Waterfall 1, Bouma National Park

Another taxi ride, this time to Bouma national park, The road is just unbelievable, African dirt tracks would have them green with envy! When we got there, the park was lovely. Green and lush like you would expect on The Garden Island. We climbed up to the second of three waterfalls, not the easiest of ascents along a muddy narrow path. The Fijians really overestimate their visitors expedition skills I think. We had lunch at a viewpoint, corned beef sandwiches, bombay mix and a packet of Bongos, washed down with waterfall water.

On descent we had a good swim in the lower waterfall plunge pool. Lovely fresh clear water and I went free diving for prawns and fish.

Finally we made it to the fabled Tramonto restaurant, payed 10 quid for a pizza and it was crap.

Day Four

Tramonto restaurant at sunset

Stormy weather prevents play, and in any case we’ve done everything there is to do on this island. Went to Audrey’s tea house for a prolonged afternoon tea and met a nice English couple who we went for dinner with later and who were also staying at our place. Tramonto provided a better fayre tonight with fish and chips which were rather good and only cost $10, a third of the price of a crap pizza.

I probably sound unfairly negative in my recount of Taveuni, and in reality it will be an experience I look back upon with great fondness. This is real Fiji, no big yellow boats and flashpacker hostel with wifi. This is how rural Fijians live, and staying in a place like this allowed us to rub noses with the delightful chirpy locals and understand the difficulties of daily living in a developing Pacific community. You have to bear in mind, we visited during the dry season and I just cannot imagine how difficult life is here during the cyclone season.

Interesting note, petrol prices are leaving us all out of pocket recently, it’s nothing compared to the hardship they’re going through here. They need petrol for everything, from powering the fishing boat so the island can eat, through to powering the hospital’s generator so the surgeon can operate.

Taveuni Travel Tips

Not many make it to Taveuni and there are a number of pitfalls to watch out for which can make travelling around there frustrating so I’ve assembled together a few travel tips on this page.

Taveuni Travel Tips

I’ve posted Taveuni photos but no stories yet, for that you will all have to wait until tomorrow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danfascia/tags/taveuni/

I’m not going to write much about Oarsman’s Bay Lodge on Nacula (pron. Na-thula). I will just post a few photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danfascia/tags/nacula/show/

Sunet over The Blue Lagoon on Nanuya Lai Lai, the location of the setting of the film Blue Lagoon

This spot is right at the top of the Yasawa group and is meant to have the best snorkelling possible. It is also the location of the setting of both the original Blue Lagoon movie and the more contemporary remake starring Brooke Shields.

There are a number of swanky resorts including Nanuya Lai Lai Island Resort and the highly opulent Turtle Island Resort, where Britney Spears chose to spend her honeymoon. Jennifer Aniston is currently staying there at the time of visiting.

Our Accommodation

The Locals at Nanuya Lai Lai, Sunrise Lagoon resort... Don't go there

So, The Blue Lagoon is full of mega-stars and upmarket resorts… great!

We managed to choose the only shithole on the island then, Sunrise Lagoon resort on the East side. Thats a 2km jaunt over an extinct volcano or around the rugged shoreline to get to The Blue Lagoon. Dreadful food, poor quality accommodation, clueless retarded staff but thankfully great company amongst the other guests with a Euro-melange from Sweden, Germany Ireland, NZ, Belgium and ourselves.

Lazy days on The Blue Lagoon

We stayed for 2-nights as we have everywhere, but rapidly gave up on the supercarb loading diet they offered us to eat healthily over at the Nanuya Lai Lai island resort which is glorious and is placed right on the best corner of The Lagoon.

The snorkelling was, as promised fantastic. You really didn’t need to swim out too far to hit beautiful reefs covered in fascinating sea flora. Fish I spotted were also pretty exotic: Swordfish shoals, Angelfish, stripy black ones, stripy blue orange ones and everything else. I hadn’t a clue what most things were but they were lovely.

Every night we watched the sunset over The Lagoon, simply magical before trekking back to Poverty Island Resort as I have now renamed it.

 Nights in Sunrise Lagoon

30 second exposure taken under the moonlight

On our last night they shocked us and pulled out of the bag a tasty meal with a carrot and ginger soup starter which was really delicious. Nights were usually spent chatting to the Euros and sipping on Fiji Bitter, our new found poison. It’s not as good as Samoan Vailima beer.

At 2300 every night, Poverty Bay turned off the diesel generator and electricity was no more, so we would wander down to the beach and listen to the iPod and finish our beers under the moonlight. It was so bright you didn’t need power there on a clear night.

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

As we touched down in Nadi (pron. Nandi hence the airport code NAN) I felt that lovely warm humid heat on my face again, just like Samoa. “Fiji Time” was instantly recognisable as our driver certainly took his Fiji time to get to us and take us to Nomad’s Skylodge.

We met a couple of other guys going to the same place at the airport who were nice, Matt and Ross. They’ve both been on the road for a long time and are reaching the end of their travels. We got stuck into some Fiji Bitter and then wandered down to the fabled Ed’s bar for a heavy night with the locals.

Nadi itself… not a lot to write home about. Not as nice as Apia, Samoa and nothing to do. Crap shops.

The highlight was spending a relaxing 2 hours of serenity in the Hindu Temple. See pics

Well, I’m currently sitting in Auckland airport transit lounge having survived 3/4 of the journey so far. Air NZ has seriously improved since my last trip with them and has a great in-flight entertainment system with on demand movies, sound and TV. That and a comfortable seat kept me sane for the last 22 hours.

Chinese Medicine and Dr Gilbert

Hong Kong airport was not a highlight, vast expanses of space and great minimalist design but absolutely nothing to do. Gilly found a traditional Chinese medicine shop with some interesting
products which we can only guess the use of. He is now seriously
thinking of incorporating them into his practice, they’d go down a storm with
the Geordie clients up in his Newcastle practice no doubt.

Tonight, we had a little send off party by meeting up with the old Edinburgh gang in Soho for a Lebanese meal in Kaslik, Greek Street.

Needless to say, they will all be following our progress on this blog.

Gilly and I are getting pretty excited (dare I say totally stoked) about tomorrow even though I still have so much preparation to do in the morning. Always a last minute person.