Fiji again. We're surrounded by chiefs.

Our laptop has unfortunately decided to play silly buggers and is refusing to switch on. So this will be an entry without any photos. For those of you who think I talk to much and usually just scroll through to look at the pictures, I apologise. We're going to try and get it fixed tomorrow.

On day 3 of the Fiji Experience we felt really pleased because the group who had arrived the previous day, and who we would be spending day 3 with were small (there was 5 of them, they weren't midgets) and quiet. After the stupid girls from the other day it made a nice change. Despite the fact that one of the main reasons for booking the Fiji Experience was so that we could meet people, you may remember from earlier entries that we don't really like people, so despite our best intentions we were glad we didn't really have to do lots of chatting.

We left Pacific Harbour at around 7:30am and we thought that the first stop of the day would be in Suva, the capital of Fiji. But it turned out to be just a "driving tour" which basically meant that they needed to drive through Suva that day so on the way through our guide pointed out a few nice buildings. We actually ended up stopping in a small town just outside Suva for an ATM and supermarket shop - why we couldn't have done this in Suva we're not quite sure...

The real first stop of the day was at a school - the children there ranged from age 5 to 14 and were very funny. As soon as we arrived a number of them took us by the hand and interrogated us. We were shown to some seats where we were welcomed to the school by one of the teachers and then a group of children sang and danced for us. It was great but we did feel slightly awkward, like we were on some kind of royal visit. Except we ain't royals. After the singing the teacher assigned a child to each of us to show us around the school and we were taken by the hand and lead in completely different directions. Chris almost caused a riot by getting his camera out in one of the classrooms as all of the boys clambered to have their photo taken. Jen ended up singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" with Class 3 and Class 4, before meeting the head girl and getting a load of attitude from her. We were both handed scraps of paper with kids names and addresses on and heard stories of "One boy here, a Fiji Experience person sent him a letter and some books and some chocolate...". Jen nodded and smiled. Chris ended up agreeing to send some kid a rugby ball and a David Beckham football shirt.

When we had finished our tour of the school there was more singing and dancing, before more clambering for photos with Chris as we left - all the boys at the school loved him. We will definitely need to send back some kind of package from the UK at least with photos and maybe some chocolate...!

Our next stop on day 3 was a visit to a local village for a traditional sevu sevu (kava) ceremony. Before stopping our guide said that we needed to nominate a chief and a spokesperson and they would have special roles in the ceremony. Chris was chosen as spokesperson and another guy was chosen as the chief. When we arrived at the village we had to wait outside the chief's house to see if he would allow us in; once we were inside Chris had to give the chief some kava and say some words. Then the village chief made a very long speech (all in Fijian) whilst we all sat around nodding as if we completely understood what he was saying, and trying not to fidget. Once the ceremony started we had to try and remember all the clapping and words we'd been taught by Reuben on day 1 which was a bit of a stretch but we seemed to do OK and they didn't order us out of the village so we must have done alright. After we had all drunk a round of kava the chief wanted to know a little about us so we went around the group saying who we were, where we were from, and what we do for a living. Jen didn't want to tell the chief that she is technically unemployed in case he frowned upon her, so instead she opted to lie to the chief and tell him she worked in marketing. Once we had all done this it became clear that Chris's other duty as the spokesperson for our group was to say whether or not we would drink another round of kava, but by this point all of the girls in the group had been taken to do bracelet making with the village chief's wife so there was only Chris, our chief, the village chief, his son and our bus driver drinking the kava. They had 6 rounds before it was all gone. Kava is not alcoholic so they were not drunk but they did start to feel rather mellow.

When all of the kava had been drunk we made our escape - thanked the chief and his family and left to go river rafting nearby. It had been advertised that we would build our own rafts and race them down the river - but as it turned out the rafts were already built and we just sat on them whilst two Fijian guys leisurely punted us down the river. It was all very nice but not exactly the thrill ride we were hoping for.

Once we had dried off from the rafting we had about a 2 hour drive to Volivoli beach where we had booked to stay for the next 8 nights. When we arrived they told us that the dorms were full and we would be upgraded to a private room for one night. We couldn't believe that we had been upgraded again and much high-fiving ensued. Although slightly prematurely. As we were looking for our lovely private room one of the staff came to find us to tell us that actually they had found room in the dorms. Maybe our cheeky upgrade luck is running out.

We had booked a package of 6 dives each at Volivoli beach but we found that it didn't cost much more to increase our package to 10 dives each so we thought we may as well as this would be our last chance to do any diving on this trip. And so we spent the next week at Volivoli beach resort doing 2 dives almost every day. And it was bloody lovely. The resort was beautiful, the diving was great and the weather was hot. We could describe it on a day by day basis but there's little more that needs to be said. We managed to meet up with a few people we'd met at Mango Bay on the Coral Coast and it was really nice to spend the week together. We felt very sad this morning when it came time to say goodbye to both the resort and the people - definitely somewhere we would come back to.

Today was our last day on the Fiji Experience bus, so we really made an effort to talk to people and make some friends. No of course we didn't. We did chat to a couple of people but most people seemed a bit annoying so we kept to ourselves most of the day. We left Volivoli Beach around midday and stopped in a town called Lautoka mid-afternoon for a bit of shopping and 5 pakoras for $1. Mmmm.

Our final stop of the day was at the Sabeto valley mud pools and hot pools. Which, to be honest, was absolutely disgusting. Still fun, but disgusting. We knew it wasn't going to be some kind of deluxe mud spa but when we arrived it was like we had driven onto a farm and decided to go for a swim in their pond. Their grubby mud-filled pond complete with frogs swimming in it. But we thought that since it was our last day in Fiji we may as well get involved. As we may have mentioned, it was disgusting. On climbing into the mud pool you realised that it wasn't full of mud, just water, but as you put your feet down on the ground, through about a foot of weeds, you found the mud. And it was hot and squelchy. Oddly enough, not everyone jumped at the chance to get in but those of us who did, covered ourselves in the mud which was a lot of fun. After a few photos we rinsed off and headed to one of the hot pools which was a lot less disgusting, the water was very hot and clean with no weeds or frogs. It did make you feel a bit light-headed from the heat but was welcome relief after the mud. Once we had all gotten out we used their handily provided shed showers and got back on the bus.

And now we're back in Nadi, spending one night here and heading out to Hong Kong tomorrow morning - via a 10 hour stopover in Sydney which means we don't actually arrive in Hong Kong until the day after tomorrow. Yuk. We are really gutted to leave Fiji, we will definitely come back here at some point in our lives as we've now found out about a hundred different dive sites that we didn't make it to on this trip. But we are excited for Hong Kong and China - we have a feeling it may be a little more fast-paced than Fiji.                              

More Fiji. Chris is a massive chief.

When we were about halfway through our time in Australia we started to think about what we were actually going to do in Fiji. We knew that diving was our main priority but also we wanted to look at some nice things and do trips and that. So we booked onto something called the Fiji Experience - which is basically a bus service which stops at 4 place around the main island in Fiji and on the way to each place you do a load of excursions and stuff. When we booked it they were offering 20% off so that pretty much sold it for us. Also the fact that we had heard there were not as many WOOHOO douche bags on Fiji Experience as there are on Oz Experience and Kiwi Experience which we had carefully avoided.

So on our first morning in Nadi the little Fiji Experience bus arrived to pick us up. Almost all of the people on the bus were girls so Chris felt a little outnumbered but everyone seemed nice enough and our guide Rueben was quite funny. But also possibly a little stoned…

Our first stop of the day was Nadi town to have a mooch around the shops and buy a sarong or sulu (a kind of long skirt) which Rueben told us we would need for the village visits we’d be doing on the Fiji Experience. We wandered round trying to find a suitably manly one for Chris and ended up settling on a nice navy blue one - which did have flowers on it, but not loads. Butch.

Chris: They’re not flowers they’re pictures of a nautilus. So hah.

Chris in his man-skirt.

Our second stop was called Natadola Beach which is apparently listed in Forbes Top 25 Beaches in the World or something. It was very beautiful but Chris was slightly unconvinced by it’s alleged top 25 status as there were no loos. We did a bit of sunbathing and some paddling but no swimming as the waves were bloody huge. In the Fiji Experience brochure it had photos of people snorkeling at the beach but we’re not quite sure how they got past the death waves to actually be able to do any snorkeling. While we were on the beach our guide and driver cooked a barbecue lunch for us which had only cost us the bargain price of $5 each. We had lamb sausages, chicken legs, bread, salad and tomato ketchup in a tin. It was nice. After lunch we all had to put our sarongs on as we were heading to Malomalo village to learn about traditional village life.

Jen: Now that I think about it, couldn’t you have just put your jeans on?

Chris: Let’s pretend that’s not true.

Rueben took us on a tour of the village which had a population of 400 people - but it was the afternoon by this point so most of them were enjoying a siesta. We saw their church, their community hall and we went into the chief’s hut which is not where he lives but is a massive hut specially built for him to just hang out in. There were also some very cute small children that followed us around and waved from the houses. Inside the chief’s hut Rueben explained to us a little about village life and about the traditional Kava ceremony that we will be taking part in on the 3rd day of the Fiji Experience. It involves a lot of clapping and shouting out words all together - hopefully we will remember it all.

 Reuben showing us around the village.

Jen's new best friend.

After leaving Malomalo we drove to our final stop of the day which was the Sigatoka sand dunes to do some sand boarding. We were supposed to do sand boarding at Fraser Island but it never happened, and in the mean time we had heard a number of stories of how easy it is to break an arm or a neck if you don’t do it right. So when we arrived at the sand dune that we were boarding down and saw how steep it was we had our reservations. Well actually just Jen had reservations. Her exact words were “there is not a f*&%ing chance in hell I’m doing that”. But Chris got straight into it and despite nearly burning the soles of his feet off, on the walk up the dune he loved it. And after watching everyone else have lots of fun Jen swallowed her reservations and had a go too. And once you got over the initial terror it was actually awesome.

Once we’d finished the sand boarding everyone was tired, sticky and covered in sand so we couldn’t wait to arrive at our first accommodation stop on the Coral Coast. It was called Mango Bay Resort and they had a dorm especially for Fiji Experience people so we were all put in together. Rueben told us there would be a traditional Kava ceremony at 6pm if we wanted to practice what we had learnt at Malomalo earlier that day but we were desperate to shower and put some laundry on as we had a distinct lack of clean pants. And towels. And t-shirts. Basically almost everything we had was started to hum. So by the time we’d sorted all that it was long past 6pm and we’d missed the ceremony.

We all sat together for dinner and the food was nice. Jen had mud crab which was the most expensive thing on the menu at $25 but when you work out that that is around £8.50 it’s kind of a bargain for fresh crab. When the waiter brought it over he said “Sorry we don’t have anything for you to crack it open with - you’ll have to do it Fiji style. Just watchRueben who had ordered the same thing. Fiji style means cracking it open with your teeth and picking and prodding it to get all the meat out, and when that gets a bit too difficult using a beer bottle and a napkin. OK, that last one about the beer bottle is more “Jen & Chris style” than “Fiji style” but it was effective nonetheless. Jen was the last on our table to finish dinner but it was totally worth it. After dinner we did a quiz and then ended up going to bed around 10:30 as we felt a bit knackered. Half of the group came to bed when we did - the other half crashed in at around 2am after vomiting loudly outside the door. Nice.

The Fiji Experience buses come and go three times a week so you can either stay at each place or if you want to you can do the whole thing in 4 days. This seemed a bit pointless to us but apparently not to the majority of our group who left the following day. We spent the morning on the beach and after lunch Jen did basket weaving which was one of the many free activities organised by the resort. That night we ate dinner and had some drinks with the 3 other girls who had been on our Fiji Experience bus and had stayed at Mango Bay with us which was really nice.

Jen's awesome basket weaving skills.

The next day the activities board said there would be guided snorkeling at 10am but when we arrived they said the current was too strong at the spot where they were going to take us and we couldn’t go. Chris wasn’t pleased so we went snorkeling off the beach where the water was much shallower and the current was ok, and still saw some pretty cool stuff. After lunch the activities board said there would be a cooking lesson which we really wanted to do. But that was also cancelled - and instead we did egg-throwing. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Then we played volleyball. Truthfully, Chris played volleyball - Jen stood on the volleyball court hoping that the ball wouldn’t come anywhere near her and occasionally ducking. Earlier in the day one of the activities guys had told us we could take a kayak out in the afternoon to do some snorkelling at the reef but when we asked they said we would have to wait until 5pm - which is about when the sun goes down. So we decided we would swim out to the reef - it didn’t look that far… As we were swimming there a few girls passed us - in kayaks! They said they had just asked at the activities hut and they had given them the kayaks. We felt annoyed but carried on swimming because we were on a mission. When we got to the reef, which was much further away than it looked, we encountered the current that they had warned us about earlier in the day and after about 10 minutes of floundering around decided we would swim back to shore. Against said current. It took us about half an hour! That night they showed a movie in the bar - it was supposed to be “Deception” but it turned out to be “What Happens In Vegas” - which we’ve already seen. They like to mix it up at Mango Bay.

On our last day there it pissed it down with rain all day, but they still decided to run the guided snorkeling trip that they had cancelled the day before. We went out with one of the activities guys and a fairly big group of very splashy people - splashy people make Jen cross - and we basically swam out to almost the same place we'd been the day before, but the current was not as strong and we saw some really cool stuff including a couple of stingrays. However, on the swim back the tide was going out so we pretty much got beached and then cut our feet on sharp rocks and coral walking back to the beach.

In the afternoon Jen did coconut jewellery making which actually involved sanding down a coconut, choosing a shape, watching the activities guy cut out that shape and drill a hole in it, and then sanding down the shape. So, not so much coconut jewellery making as coconut sanding. But still a good way to pass some time. Because it was so rainy they discounted the price of the massages so later that afternoon we each had a 30 minute full body massage which was dead nice. That evening there was another Kava ceremony as the next Fiji Experience bus had arrived, which we would be leaving on the following day. We went along to the ceremony and practiced our clapping and chanting and drank the Kava. It is a traditional drink that they drink in the villages which is made with cold water and ground up Kava root. It looks, smells and tastes like muddy water. But we’re reliably informed that after about 7 bowls you feel incredibly mellow and happy with the world. Jen had 1 bowl, Chris was named as chief for this ceremony so he had to drink 2 bowls. It was also our first encounter with most of the people we would be on the Fiji Experience bus the following day. They were mostly stuck-up English girls and when one of them said “I can’t drink that, if I put it in my mouth I’m going to be sick” to the Fijian guy who was leading the ceremony, we quickly took a dislike to them.

Chris: I didn’t dislike them, as much as hate them and I'm one to hold a grudge and hate people for no reason.

After the ceremony we had dinner and a few drinks with our friends from the first Fiji Experience bus and met the new guide, Joe. Then went back to the dorm around 10pm to sort out our bags as we were leaving at 8am the following day. We didn’t think there was anyone in the room as it was still fairly early but after a few snippy comments came from behind various mosquito nets we realised that the stuck-up girls were already in bed and had to be very quiet.

The next day we ate breakfast and checked out ready for day 2 of our Fiji Experience. The main activity of the day was a 3 hour trek in the Namosi rainforest which we had been warned would be very muddy and very wet, but would end with swimming in a waterfall - and we love a waterfall…! The trek was optional and if you didn’t want to do it they would drop you off at the next resort where you could meet everyone later. We though the stuck-up girls would take that option but they were ready for the trek, By “ready” we mean they all had full faces of make-up and little plimsolls to wear. The trek was harder than any we’ve done so far on this trip but a lot of fun. At points we were ankle-deep in thick mud, at others we were thigh-deep in muddy water, it was very hot and we had to walk through very long grass - and climbing up the waterfall was very slippy and steep. But when we got to the top and had a swim it was very nice. Of course the stuck-up girls whinged the whole way round about how muddy it was, about how unattractive they looked and about how they had injuries. Although, to be fair to one of them, she had been bitten by a dingo on Fraser Island.

Chris: I wish she’d been eaten by the dingo.

They were incredibly patronising to the Fijian guys who were guiding us and kept calling them “Excuse me little man” - we also heard one of them say at one point, in between saying how much she hated it, “Why can’t they just put some planks down or something so we don’t have to walk in the mud?” BECAUSE IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY RAINFOREST YOU IDIOT!

We had a slight drama on the way back down the waterfall after Chris opted to take the local route down which involved walking across the slippy rocks rather than through the mud at the side. Jen watched in slow motion as Chris slipped on some rocks and disappeared under some fairly fast moving water. Luckily one of the guides managed to hang onto him until the last moment so he didn’t fall very far and apart from a few grazes on his back he was fine.

At the end of the trek we got into a boat that took us down a river through the rainforest back to our bus, which was very beautiful and also gave us a chance to wash all the mud off our legs in the river. When we got back on the bus they drove us to the next place we were staying at called Uprising Resort which is in Pacific Harbour - on the way there Joe told us we would have about 10 minutes before meeting for lunch, so there was no time for showers before sitting down with sweaty faces for lunch. As it was Sunday they do an all you can eat barbecue which we happily tucked into as we were bloody starving after the trek.

After lunch we had Coconut Carnival which was organised by the staff at the resort and involved them showing us lots of different items that can be made from the different parts of coconuts and coconut trees. Then they dressed Jen and our friend Molly in traditional clothing that was made from coconuts and coconut trees and they pranced about whilst everyone took photos - very funny. That night we all had dinner together and we were a bit sad as it was our last night with our 3 friends from the first Fiji Experience bus; they all had to move on to the next stop the following day as they didn’t have enough time to stay at all 3 places, and could only stay at 2. In the morning we waved them off, along with the stuck-up girls who we were more than glad to see the back of.

That day we went to the nearest town, Navua, as Chris was in desperate need of a haircut and Jen needed a tape measure to send bridesmaid dress measurements back home! We were going to take the bus there but as we were waiting at the bus stop a taxi pulled up so we jumped in. It wasn’t a very big place and most of the shops seemed to sell an odd combination of shirts, trousers, flip-flops, deodorant and aftershave. We needed some more sun cream but nobody seemed to sell it, and in one place she offered us skin whitening cream which contained SPF 15. In the end we found some in the pharmacy and Chris managed to get a haircut for $3 which is about £1 so he was pretty pleased. After hunting down a tape measure we caught the bus back to our resort where we had some lunch and sat by the pool. Chris went on a quick fact-finding mission and came back to say that he had booked us on a snorkelling trip the following day and 2 dives on the day after that. There aren’t as many free activities here at Uprising as there were at Mango Bay which is a shame - but it’s much more sunny and their pool is nicer so we manage to console ourselves.

The snorkelling trip the following day was great - we were in a group of 5 and they took us out to the reef on a cool little speedboat. The water was very flat and crystal clear and we had a lovely time bobbing around - our only complaint was that it seemed like we weren’t there for very long. Although once we were all back on the boat it became obvious why they’d cut the snorkelling short. We could see loads of sea birds hovering near the surface of the water and the guys on the boat informed us that we were going fishing. They drove the boat towards where all the birds were and pretty quickly caught a tuna! The birds moved on and so did we - once they had hooked a fish they asked if anyone wanted to reel it in, and Chris jumped at the chance. It took a while but eventually reeled in a skipjack tuna, and felt very chuffed with himself.

That afternoon we went for a walk along the beach and Chris accidentally deleted his entire memory card of photos. There were very nearly tears before bedtime. Luckily Jen is a genius and advised him to look online to see if there was a way he could recover them - and there was. So Jen saved the day.

Chris: Alright get over it.

The next morning we were picked up from the resort to go diving with a nearby company on Beqa Lagoon. We had booked two dives with them and after the clear waters of the day before we were really looking forward to it. However on this occasion the sea betrayed us somewhat and was very choppy, on the first dive the current was quite a bit stronger than we’d expected and we had to do some pretty frantic kicking. But we swam through some awesome tunnels and saw a fantastic variety of corals that we haven’t really seen before on this trip. On the second dive the captain of the boat tried to take us somewhere that was less choppy so there was not as much current under the water, this meant it was a much more leisurely dive, until we came up to the surface. It had started to get really choppy again and the boat ladder was designed in a way that it moved with the waves - so trying to get back on the boat was a bit like riding a bucking bronco. Chris managed it but Jen has stubby legs and struggled a bit. After about 5 attempts, a couple of bruised knees and a near-drowning she managed to get on. We’ve already got 6 dives booked at the next place we’re going to so hopefully the ladder will be different, or else Jen will just have to man up.

When we got back from diving we were starving so we ate some lunch and then decided to have a little sleep. We woke up from our “little sleep” at around 6pm. We were still full from lunch so we skipped dinner and just had some beers with some friends we’d made.

Today Chris managed to get a place on the infamous shark dive that we kept seeing posters for. It was with the same company that we went diving with yesterday, and some of the friends we’d made went too which was nice. Basically they dive down to 30 metres and hide behind some rocks whilst the dive guides tow big wheelie bins full of fish heads down there. All of the big fish that are attracted by the fish heads, in turn attract big sharks. It is one of the few places in the world where you are able to get that close to a wide variety of sharks - and he absolutely loved it.

Chris: Don’t forget to tell them about that massive shark that tried to attack me and I fought it off with my brute strength.

Jen: That never happened.

Jen opted not to do the shark dive and instead lay by the pool working on her tan. A rather more sedate morning. Once Chris got back we had some lunch and then a little sleep. Tonight we have to make friends with people who arrived on the Fiji Experience bus today, as tomorrow we’ll be leaving with them and doing our 3rd Fiji Experience day which includes a trip to the capital, Suva, a visit to an orphanage and another village visit where we will have to take part in a kava ceremony and Chris will have to wear his man-skirt again. We end the day with river rafting which sounds pretty awesome.

PS for some reason they spell it “Feejee Experience” but we can’t work out why…

More Vanuatu then back to Fiji. It's a hard life.

They told us we’d be picked up for the tour at 9:00am at our accommodation - so they turned up at 8:30am and were astounded that we weren’t ready to go. They said they had to pick up some more people so we sent them off to do that while we finished doing important things like getting dressed. When they came back for us (at 9:10) we discovered that “more people” meant one other couple. Who were a bit old. But they seemed very nice so we set off for our Grand Tour. Our guide was Mary who told us that Robert, who was our guide on the waterfall tour, was supposed to be running this tour but had been late for work so she had to take over. Naughty Robert.

Our first stop of the day was at a small traditional village to watch them do fire-walking. Getting there basically involved us turning off the main road and then driving down a mud track next to a jungle. When it seemed that we had arrived in the middle of nowhere. the minibus stopped in the middle of the mud track and we go out. Then our guide shouted into the jungle and after some shouts came back we set off down a tiny path into thick jungle. As we walked further in Jen decided to take a few photos of the jungle and after aiming her camera at a particularly thick part, nearly shat her pants when a scary tribal man who was hiding there starting shouting at her. We were both a little terrified that we’d inadvertently gone the wrong way and strayed into the territory of a tribe who would probably murder us with spears - but the smile on our guide’s face reassured us that this was all part of the experience and we had no need to fear a speary death. On the walk into the village more scary tribal men jumped out and shouted at us and hid behind trees and things. Then the chief came out with a big leaf that meant that they wouldn’t kill us - which is always nice to see. Once that had happened they all stopped being so terrifying and shouty and welcomed us into the village where they told us about how they make fishing nets out of spider webs and showed us some traps they had made for catching lobsters and chickens and things. They also showed us a massive hollow tree that they hide in if there is a cyclone, and a sort of pit that they can store bananas in during the cyclones to make sure they have food afterwards. It was all very interesting!

Learning about spider web fishing nets.

Inside the cyclone tree.

Then we walked through to the area where one of the blokes did the fire-walking. They had a fire burning on top of some stones and that was what he actually walked across, barefoot, with only some chewed up leaves that he spat onto the soles of his feet to protect him. He walked back and forward on it about 4 or 5 times and afterwards they tipped some water on there so that we could see how hot it was when the water turned instantly into steam. Very impressive. When it was time for us to leave their village they walked with us back to our bus and helped us to get all the mud out of our shoes with some handy pointy sticks.

Our next stop on the tour was supposed to be Blue Lagoon but when we got there the gates were locked, and despite our guide doing some more shouting into bushes nobody came to let us in, so we moved on to our next stop Eton Beach which was a very pretty little beach with nobody else there. We did a bit of swimming but the weather had been a bit rainy so the water was quite chilly. After swimming they served us morning refreshments which was an awesome selection of local fruits including passion fruit, lady finger bananas, wild apple and grapefruit. They’d obviously catered for a lot more than 4 people so we ate our body weight in fruit before getting back on the bus to head to our next stop which was a boat ride up the river to another traditional village. On the way there it started to hammer down with rain so we donned our trusty pack a macs before getting into the boat which was made of two hollowed out trees held together with some planks of wood. Very cool. They also gave us headbands to wear made of leaves and flowers - Chris looked particularly manly in his.

The boat ride was really nice and when we arrived at the next village the chief was there blowing on a conch shell. Another guide met us and told us to stand in a particular place with the men on one side and the women on the other and told the men to get their cameras ready. After already being scared shitless once that morning Jen thought she was dead clever because she’d spotted some guys hiding in the bushes before they had chance to run out. However she didn’t see the two who were standing right behind her and ended up screaming like a massive girl for the second time that day.

The chief welcoming us.

Jen after being terrified again.

 Traditional dancing.

All the men in the village then performed some traditional dances for us including a war dance and one where they pretended to be a dragonfly. Then they welcomed us into their village where they played some music and sang for us. We were expecting traditional songs but the first song they did was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” - they looked a little baffled when we chuckled at it but we had a little dance and it was all very nice. They also gave us some sweet potato and yam to eat that had been cooked in an underground oven like the hangi in New Zealand. They served it on banana leaves and we drank coconut milk straight from the coconuts. As we were leaving some of the boys in the village shouted “Bye! I love you!” and then ran to eat all the leftover sweet potato and yams. It was very funny.

Chris drinking from a coconut in his lovely headband.

Sweet potato and yams cooked wrapped in leaves in the ground.

We were then driven back down the river to a small shack where we were served lunch which was made up of traditional dishes including more yams, a kind of savoury banana, rice, chicken curry and chicken stew. There was also a kind of coleslaw made of coconut and wild apple and some bread. It was all lovely.

We like lunch.

Our next stop was a cave but we didn’t have any torches. Our guide shouted into some bushes and an old lady came out with a very cute little puppy and a torch that was crap. Inside the cave we could just about make out a kayak in some water and the old lady said we could paddle through to another cave but due to the lack of light and the fact that our guide didn’t seem to think it was a great idea we gratefully declined.

The final stop of the day was Gideon’s Beach which is also known as “Survivor Beach” as they filmed some of the Survivor Vanuatu series there. It was a beautiful secluded beach and we did some great snorkeling there but Jen decided it was time to get out when we saw a banded sea snake which we had been told are deadly and did some of the fastest backwards swimming ever seen. Not backstroke you understand, just mainly splashing whilst moving backwards and shouting rude words through our snorkels. Chris knows no fear so after composing himself did some more snorkeling and saw an octopus which kept changing the colour and texture of its skin. Very cool. After tea and biscuits it was time to head back to our accommodation. We had a brilliant day and we made sure we told them so. Our guide Mary told us that their tour company is one of the few that is actually locally-owned - the owner is also a pastor - so the money they make from tours gets put back into the community to help with building schools and improving roads. This made us feel warm and fuzzy.

That night we went to a free barbecue at Nautilus, the place where we were staying. We were invited by the owners so we assumed that there would be loads of customers there but it turned out to just be the instructors, the owners and a couple of their friends. They cooked some fish that had been caught earlier that day and some marinated steaks - it was all bloody delicious. Afterwards we went out into Port Vila with the instructors Harry and Emma - on previous nights when we’d gone into the town it all seemed very quiet and empty but they took us to two bars where it seemed that everyone else in Port Vila had gone too. We had lots of drinks, a bit of a dance and an all round good time.

The following day it pissed it down with rain all day, so apart from a quick run to the supermarket we hid in our room all day watching shows on the laptop and nursing our hangovers.

The sun came out the following day so we headed back across to Iririki island to us their posh infinity pool, eat a delicious lunch and generally spend the day pretending we can afford to stay at a 5 star resort.

On our last day in Vanuatu Chris treated us to one more dive with Nautilus. On every single dive that we’d done beforehand we’d been hoping to see turtles and we’d always been disappointed. At almost every place we’d been diving, both in Vanuatu and Australia, people had told us there was a good chance of seeing turtles but so far no luck. But on this day we felt particularly hopeful as we had seen two turtles swimming in the distance whilst we were on the boat. It was a very long dive and we were about to come up as we were running out of air, when our guide Emma spotted a green turtle! It was about 80cm and came really close to us! We were very happy to see it and popped up out of the water with big smiles on our faces. And  almost no air left in our tanks…!

That afternoon we were going to spend more time at the posh infinity pool but it decided to continue pissing it down with rain so we hid indoors again apart from a walk down to City Lodge, where we had stayed on our first 4 nights to ask them why they hadn’t refunded us yet for the other 10 nights we paid for didn’t stay there. (We are still waiting for said refund but have been assured it is in process…hmmm).

On our last day in Vanuatu we walked down to the fruit market in the centre of town and had a mooch around. At the back there were a load of old ladies cooking food and selling it so we had an absolutely bloody delicious lunch of home-made chicken curry and rice for about £3.50. Then we headed back to Nautilus to get our bags and say our goodbyes, before another quick stop at City Lodge to remind them about our refund we headed to the airport feeling a bit sad to be leaving Vanuatu.

The flight back to Nadi was only about an hour and a half and they gave us a nice little sandwich. When we arrived we headed back to Nadi Bay resort where we had stayed for our first 2 nights and they promptly upgraded us to a double room with air-conditioning! Hooray for free upgrades! We had some dinner and talked about watching a film in their little cinema before deciding it was a much better idea to go to bed at about 9:30 as we were pooped.

That was a week ago now so there is still a lot more to say but we this entry is getting a bit long so we will leave it there for now and post again in a few days!

Australia to Vanuatu via Fiji. And the small matter of jumping out of a plane.

We didn't get to do our skydive in Cairns. We got up and got ready to leave for 9am, only for the skydiving man to arrive and tell us the weather was still not good enough but maybe we'd be able to do it at 12:30. We needed to be at the airport to check-in for our Brisbane flight by 1:30 so we had to say no. We felt a bit gutted but we got a full refund and it meant we were able to hang out at the hostel for a few more hours and take advantage of their free Saturday morning pancakes! Yum. We ate two each, with maple syrup, and then felt a bit sick, but it was fully worth it as they were free.

After a short flight to Brisbane we found some sofas in the international departures terminal and spent a fairly comfortable night in the airport. We celebrated our departure from Australia with sausage rolls for breakfast. The flight to Nadi in Fiji was with Air Pacific and the only film they showed was Alvin & The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel. It was not great. But they did serve us more breakfast which is always nice.

When we arrived in Nadi we were told to get in a taxi to our resort and that the resort would pay for it when we arrived. We were slightly sceptical but another man came with us who was also staying there and we were a bit too tired to care. When we got into the taxi we were admiring his impressive stereo system and his massive sub woofer in the boot, when we noticed he had a small screen on the front dashboard showing the music video of the song he was playing. As we watched he reached across and made another, slightly larger screen appear from the glove box, in front of the other guy in our cab. Before we knew it he had reached behind, pressed a button on the ceiling and a massive flat screen came down in front of us in the back so that we could watch too. I think it's safe to say that his cab that looked pretty shabby from the outside had been well and truly pimped on the inside. And true to their word the resort payed for the taxi when we arrived.

We were staying in dorms but the whole place was quite a big resort with hotel rooms, two pools, 3 bars, 2 restaurants and a small cinema. We were dead impressed. The beds were comfy and the air-conditioning was lovely so that night, after dinner, we went to bed nice and early.

The following day was our only full day in Nadi. After the cancellation of our skydive in Cairns we had emailed the only skydiving company in Fiji, who happen to be based in Nadi, and tried to get a booking with them for that one day. But on that first night it had rained loads and the forecast was for more rain so we weren't feeling too hopeful. That morning we were awoken at around 8am by a woman from the hotel standing next to our beds saying "Are you Brennan?" - it turned out to be a phone call from the skydiving place asking if we could be there in half an hour. We could not. They said they would schedule us in for 3pm that afternoon, as long as the rain held off. So we got dressed and enjoyed a delicious free breakfast of toast and fruit, before sitting by the pool for a few hours. Then we decided we would walk into Nadi for some lunch as the woman at the hotel told us it was a 10-minute walk. She lied. It was about 2 miles and it was very hot. When we got to Nadi it was already about 2pm, and we needed to be at the skydiving place by 3pm - which was back near our hotel. So we quickly looked for somewhere to have lunch and all we could find was shops. There was a pizza place but when we went in he said they didn't have pizza, only cake. Helpful. Eventually we found a cafe and had some lunch - by the time we had eaten it was 3pm. We quickly jumped into a taxi, and even though he had no idea where the skydiving place was we found it together and got there by about 3:15pm. A woman greeted us, showed us inside and then started playing a DVD about skydiving and giving us forms to fill in. And suddenly it all felt a bit real.

Before we knew what was happening we had filled in the forms, had our briefing and we were in the minibus to the airfield with the two guys we were going to be jumping with. Thankfully they were very nice and funny and made us feel a lot better about the whole thing. Especially Chris who was cacking his pants. When we arrived at the airfield they strapped us into a load of gear and then a little plane drove up and the 4 of us got in. We were slightly concerned as it appeared that the interior of the plane was made of old carpet and gaffer tape, but we had taken off before we really had time to think about it. We quickly realised that whilst we had paid to jump from 14,000 feet we actually had no concept of how high that is, especially when we both thought it was nearly time to jump and then realised we were only at 4,000 feet. But we found that once you get to a certain height your brain can't really comprehend it so you almost don't feel scared because you actually have no idea what's going on.

hang gliding Jen went first and Chris was left alone and afraid. It's hard to write about just how awesome and terrifying it was, so we bought the DVDs and you can watch them when we get home. All you really need to know is that we absolutely loved it and nobody died.

That night we had dinner at the hotel again and watched Invictus in their little cinema. The we headed to bed early again as we had to leave the following day at 6am. We took a taxi back to the airport and checked in for our Air Vanuatu flight to Port Vila, Vanuatu. Then we had sausage rolls again and a little sleep in the airport before it was time to board. Air Vanuatu was very nice and they gave us croissants and muffins for breakfast. As we went through customs at Port Vila a band played traditional music and sang and we started to feel like Vanuatu was going to be awesome.

We took a taxi (this time with flashing coloured lights in the back but no flat screen TV) to City Lodge, where we had booked to stay for the next 2 weeks. It was a bit like the Vanuatu equivalent of a Travelodge so the room was basic, but clean, and we had an en suite bathroom and a TV. Although the TV only had one channel, which was the English-speaking Chinese news channel. There's only so many reports about the Shanghai World Expo, and adverts for Chinese resorts, that one can watch before it gets a bit old.

On our first day in Port Vila we decided to do a walking tour from the lonely planet book which eventually led us to the National Museum of Vanuatu which was a funny little museum but very interesting. 

However, in general during our first few days we felt a little bit bewildered. We weren't really sure about City Lodge, but it was the cheapest place we could find. However, the fact that it didn't have a kitchen meant that we couldn't make any of our own food and had to eat out all the time - so it became a bit of a false economy. The flights between Port Vila and Nadi only go once a week on a Tuesday so we were committed to staying two weeks here. We knew we wanted to do diving and go to some of the outer islands, but Australia had stolen lots of our money and we weren't really sure if we could afford it. So we spent a few days fact-finding (luckily City Lodge had free internet), going to the tourism information office, and doing some sums. In the end we agreed that we couldn't really afford to go the outer islands but we did find a diving centre in Port Vila called Nautilus. We went down there to speak to them and the lady who ran it, Leanne, was really nice and kind of saved us a little bit. She told us that they had accommodation there and showed us their dorm room and their private room which were both really nice. She said that if we wanted to stay in their dorm she would match the price we were paying at City Lodge and that she would do a cheaper rate for the diving if we stayed with them.

We decided we would leave City Lodge and move up the road to Nautilus. This meant telling City Lodge a few white lies to get our money back but Chris is very good at all that. We had to stay with them 2 more nights so we booked a tour with one of the local companies to the Mele-Maat Cascades waterfalls. Our tour guide, Robert, picked us up from our hotel and we went with him and a load of Australian tourists to the waterfalls which were beautiful. We went on a walk through some jungle to get there and when we arrived the water was crystal clear and we were able to go swimming. It kicked the arse of any waterfalls we've seen before on this trip. After the swimming they gave us some tasty beef sandwiches and drinks and then they took us to Mele bay where we did some sea-kayaking across to a reef to go snorkeling. I'm happy to report we were a much better kayaking team this time around. The snorkeling at Mele bay was fantastic and we couldn't believe all of the sea life we saw in such shallow waters. After the unsettled feeling of our first few days in Vanuatu this day really helped to remind us why we were here and we felt really happy.

When we arrived at Nautilus the following day, Leanne told us that as they had nobody currently staying with them that we could stay in the private room, for the same price! This meant we had our own double room, with en suite and kitchen and a balcony with sea views. We felt really really pleased - our stay in Vanuatu had started off not great but was getting better and better all the time.

We booked a package of 10 dives with Nautilus which we were able to share between us meaning we could do 5 dives together. On that first day their boat was booked out for a private trip so we booked ourselves onto a dive for the following day and spent a day over at nearby Iririki island. The whole island has been turned into a luxury resort but the snorkeling there is great and day visitors are welcomed. The boat trip over there is free and when you arrive you pay the equivalent of around £10 to spend the day there, but that £10 can be redeemed against food and drinks so we spent the afternoon snorkeling and then went to their pool bar for some delicious late lunch and some happy hour beers whilst the sun went down. It was quite a blissful afternoon. That evening we cooked dinner in our new kitchen and felt really glad that we weren't spending money in restaurants.

The next day we did our first dive  a reef dive - which was very nice with lots of cool fish to see. It was in the afternoon so we had a nice lazy morning in our room and cooked dinner there afterwards. We watched some shows on the laptop and then went to sleep.

The day after we did our second dive which was a wreck dive, and Jen's first ever wreck dive. It was a small boat called the Konanda but we were able to swim through parts of it and Chris sat on the toilet which was very funny.

The following day there was no diving so we went to another nearby island resort called Hideaway Island to do some snorkeling. The reef came right up to the beach so there was loads to see and it was fairly quiet there with not many people on the beach. There was also an "Underwater Post Office" - which was basically a hut and a post box, under the sea, about 50 metres from the shore. They sell waterproof postcards at the reception but we thought the whole thing was a little bit gimmicky. We ate some lunch on the beach and stayed there until the sun went down, before heading back to Nautilus.

Yesterday we went out on the morning dive boat which meant that we did two dives. They were both reef dives and really good. Chris got some great photos on his underwater camera and the people who we were diving with were really nice and interesting. In the evening we went to a cafe in Port Vila town where they show films outside on a big screen and you can watch for free as long as you buy a drink. They show films on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays so this was our third time there! We watched a film called Adam which we really liked and we went with a guy called Harry who is one of the diving instructors from Nautilus. He's only 18 and he hasn't really got any friends to play with as there isn't much of a young party scene here, so we think he's quite pleased to have us to hang out with...!

Today we did our last dive with Nautilus which was another reef dive to a place called Honeybone reef where we had been told we might see hawksbill turtles. On every dive we have done so far we have hoped to see turtles and seen none - and today was no exception. Boo. But there was only the two of us and another instructor, Emma so it was a nice leisurely dive and we really enjoyed it. Also we saw two lion fish and Emma said they very rarely see them around here so we were pleased.

Tonight we went over to Iririki island again, where we met up with Harry and a few people he had met, and had a few beers during happy hour. Then we came back over to our room, cooked some dinner and are going to spend the evening watching some films on the laptop. Tomorrow we are going on a round the island tour which we booked with the same company who took us to the waterfalls. The same guide, Robert, is taking us so we're really looking forward to it as he was really interesting on the trip to the waterfalls and told us loads of cool stories about how people live here and the islands where his family are from. In the evening there is going to be a free barbecue at Nautilus which we're almost looking forward to more as we always seem to miss the free stuff wherever we're staying!

We've got a few more days here in Vanuatu before we head back to Fiji, where we have booked onto the Fiji Experience bus. It will be weird to go back to travelling around as staying here for two weeks has really felt like a holiday from all that!