After being greeted by a live band in Nadi Airport and passing immigration (the passport is looking pretty good now) we were met by Nathalie, an old Uni house mate and as of recently girlfriend of a very good friend of mine back in London (I think I can claim some credit for that  ). Nathalie, once recovered from the shock of how much hair I’d amassed over the last 11 months or so, lead us to our nearby hostel, serving as our local guide. She had just started her own round the world trip, going the opposite direction to us, Fiji being her first stop. By part coincidence, she arrived two weeks before us. One day during our stay in Fiji happened to be one month in for Nathalie and one month left for us of our respective trips. Seeing Nathalie so fired up about her trip reminded me of what I was like at the beginning of our’s and served to show how tiring this traveling lark can be (not that I’m complaining mind).

Without a guidebook we were relying on what Nathalie had discovered and wanted to see and so we made our way over to Suva before getting on a boat for a sixteen hour voyage to the Island of Taveuni. Not before we spent a night in an old Colonial era hotel (now a backpackers) along with a large group of Indo-Fijian laborers who invited us to join them for the national drink, Kava. A relaxing slightly narcotic drink made from roots of some kind of plant (kava plant?) which the locals drink by the bowl full, or in this case, washing up bowl full. This was a pleasant way to spend the evening and Nathalie was especially impressed as although she’d tried Kava on numerous occasions before we arrived, they were all specially put on for tourists. This was drinking with the locals, about as authentic as you can get.

We spent the best part of a week on Taveuni, a pretty remote and judging by the number of tourists, untouched island. We tackled the Lavena Coastal Walk after an arduous two and a half hour bus journey round the island on a potholed and gravel track. The walk was good taking us past some strange rock formations and rock pools (filled with bizarre minuscule life forms) and at the end we were treated with a pair of waterfalls with a large plunge pool for swimming in. After twenty minutes of having the place to ourselves a small tour group turned up. The braver amongst us (not me) after being shown by their guide slid down the small waterfall. And the very brave (only the guide and Nathalie) jumped from the top of the big pool, some fourteen metres. Something of which, Nat was understandably proud.

Also while on Taveuni we went diving on the much heralded Rainbow Reef but I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed. It was our first time in the water for a while so took a little while to get comfortable but the organisation of the dive masters was a bit poor and the dive briefing missed several key points (things I should have asked about… the joys of hindsight) which culminated in Espe and I due to a number of factors being separated from all the others for the whole dive. This would normally have been no real problem, except that the other group saw a hammerhead shark. The second dive was better but the coral and fish life didn’t live up to the “world class diving” status this place claims. Espe and my thoughts were echoed by those of Nat who had just completed her open water course elsewhere in Fiji surrounded by all sorts of colourful, pretty and moving stuff.

We also managed to visit the natural water slide at Waitavala. Fiji’s equivalent of an aqua park, the gradual waterfall has carved some smooth channels and at weekends loads of local families turn up with the kids hurling themselves down it. We naturally had a go. A few bruises were inevitable however over one fall I rammed my toes into a boulder shortly followed by my shin. At this point I retired to heal my wounds and watch the locals do it their way. Instead of sliding down on their arses, they go down standing up, surf style. Once again, very impressive.

We were lucky to time our visit with the Indian festival of Diwali. Given the vast number of Indians in Fiji this was bound to be a good celebration. The Brit’s shipped Indians over to work the plantations back in the coloneal days and although race relations are good at the public day to day level, most of the recent military coups (of which there have been plenty) are race related. We wandered up to Somosomo, the island’s biggest town to see what was going on. Besides all the fancy illuminations on the houses to celebrate the festival of light, the kids were out in force playing with fireworks. Everything we were told not to do as children growing up in the UK, these kids were doing with fireworks. They were lobbing sparklers at each other, catching spent fireworks as they fell from the sky, hurling bangers in every direction and shooting rockets across the street to opposing groups. It almost felt like a war zone. Needless to say the kids were loving it, as were we with our $5 butterflies and 20 cents sparklers. As the night went on the bigger kids came out to play and things became even more chaotic. Espe was not surprised by all this madness as she was brought up on Las Fallas, but for Nat it was a little too much excitement, running away like a proper girl (which from the abuse she hurls at JB we know she’s not) every time someone (including herself) lit a firework near her.

From such a small community I wasn’t expecting much in the way of celebrations (especially having witnessed the celebrations of 30,000 Indians at Wembley for Diwali several years back), but it was a fantastic evening and a true highlight of the stay on the island. Coming to Taveuni instead of hitting the uber-touristic Yasawa group was definitely a good idea.

I must admit I was surprised by how expensive things were here in Fiji. It is cheaper than New Zealand but way more expensive than Asia which I was foolishly expecting. Also a bit unexpected was the weather. It was really changeable with fierce sun and high humidity usually followed by cloud, wind and rain.

That was more than made up for by the friendliness of the locals. The Fijians have a reputation for being some of the friendliest people on the planet and it is easy to see why. They will happily stop for a chat, and unlike some of the places we’ve been to on this trip, none of them were out to scam us. Add to that the free lifts we were given about the island and the free food that was often thrust upon us, one can’t help but feel welcome here.

And on a final note, typically, I find out about Camper Van Racing just after I leave New Zealand…