That's so fiji..

bula bula bula!Hello,firstly sorry for the lateness of this next post,fiji's internet is pretty primitive!OK sooo,Sydney.We are in a group of 8 now which is alot more hectic but awesome fun (very much a hawkins/rawlins style of travel, family...). So there's now six boys and two girls so alot of laddish tomfoolery has become prominent (to the girl's pleasure..), Sydney was a really cool cosmopolitan city,it's the first place where we've found loads of travellers all quite similar to us,especially in the hostel we were in (5 bunkbeds a room,and thousands of rooms so very good fun!). Got a bus to Bondi beach which is absolutely huuge,full of beautiful beautiful people of all ages making me feel particularly pale and english,weather was a bit dodgy all the time we were there but it didn't matter,it's the kind of city where you can just walk around and keep entertained.The prices are ridiculousy expensive (2/3rds of a pint for 3 quid..) but apparently it's like it all over oz,me alex and rich tried to hit the zoo but the weather scuppered our plans-however instead we went to the biggest imax screen in the world (literally.) and watched alice in wonderland in 3D which was mindblowing-didn't feel like much of a traveller though coming all the way to sydney to go to the cinema!Our hostel was right next to Darling harbour and a short walk from sydney harbour,it was a little surreal being up close to a landmark that everyone world round knows,but lived up to expectations!Had a very weird nigth during a rainstorm when we sheltered under the Opera house-not the worst place to hang out overlooking the lit up opera house.Only in sydney for 3 days though but didn't regret being there for such a short time too much..
So we flew on to Fiji,the first real leg of our travels,the forecast was for 10 days of thunderstorms but these never really came to fruition thankfully...I think i've lost about half a stone through sheer sweat throughout fiji,it is stupidly hot-in the middle of the day it is seriously unbearable,me alex and rich stayed for 3 nights in Nadi Bay which was a really quaint little resort,had a pool and the people are so so friendly,a particular highlight was a fijian george michael lookalike playing and singing very dodgy eagles covers on his guitar every night. Nadi itself was more undeveloped than I expected,there is no wool pulled over your eyes to make it seem a tourist attraction which I quite liked (and i'm sure mum is pleased i saw some REAL culture..) We found our local haunt on the first night,ED's bar down the road which was a funny place lots of initmidating men and pool tables but loads of travellers aswell so a nice late introduction to Fiji!We lazed around in Nadi for a day,indulged in a chicken burger which was very much not Fiji (and not a touch on Roosters Barley..) and flirted generally with middle aged Fijian women.
When the 8 of us came together we set off on our trip round the islands,I can't even explain how beautiful the scenery is,it's not just white sandy beaches and palm trees(though these are a standard-its a hard life) but some awesome mountain terrains,it was quite reminiscent of Halong Bay in Vietnam just mountains that seemed to have popped up in the middle of the ocean. Our first night was at Coral view resort at the most northern of the islands (the plan was to just work down north to south)-i succeeded at getting burnt to within an inch of my life (sorry mum..) but the pain only lasted a few days,resort was pretty huge and the group came to 11 with the introduction of 3 posher than posh girls from Clifton college bristol,lots of bantah and gap yah which gave me many opportunities to me rampantly hilarious about their private schoolisms,they were really really nice though and sured up the male female balance..We only stayed at Coral view for a night and got the boat to white sandy beach for literally the best 3 days of my life. As we approached the island on the boat the whole staff greeted us in a gaggle of sarongs,guitars and ukeleles on the beach-they were amazing from the word go. The fijian women have that rare quality that only the greeks seem to have of growing mesmorising facial hair,the leading lady of the resort (who i nicknamed 'Burns' due to her admirable sideburns and moustache combo) was the perfect host. I 've always had an unerring ability of being able to charm middle aged mothers (mainly dinner ladies admittedly..) and the 'dinner lady charm' was used throughout,they couldn't say my name for starters (the 'th' sound just doesn't exist in fiji) so i was dubbed 'fredrick.' or 'cheeky boy' which was fine with me. However the women were one thing, the men however were the absolute highlight,the main man was Epi, who for those interested (mostly joe and dad) is Moses Raulini's brother (no joke)-he had the body of an adonis and the biggest grin in the world.His right hand man was Joe who was our age and was Joe Rocococko's cousin (no joke again). They became such good friends in the 3 days we were there we just sat around all day chatting to them while they lolled around in hammocks with guitars. Everyone in Fiji can 1. play the guitar and 2. all have cracking voices. On the first day in the twilight of the Fijian day we had our first game of beach rugby with the Fijians-and got destroyed. Rugby is everything here and the sheer speed of these men is scary-Epi merely shouted 'touch!' across the island and 10 fijians wondered on to the beach,there hands our lightning and they seemed to float across the sand while the gaggle of us 6 burnt english waded through the sand in their wake..
Rugby played a huge part in our stay-on the we moved on to their 'rugby pitch'-i say pitch,it was more a huge patch of scrubland with grass at places up to your shins,the staff absolutely loved it- we woke up in the morning to see the activites board containing the message '4.00 rugby, England vs Fiji'. So we rocked up to the 'pitch' at 4 and faced 5 minutes of absolute embarassment before we admitted defeat and we mixed the teams up-we must have played for at least 2 hours,it was very surreal playing touch rugby in scorching heat against a backdrop of rainforest and mountain with a group of 10 or 12 muscle bound fijian athletes but an experience I'll never forget.I don't think i've ever been more tired,at the end after many handshakes and hugs I almost crawled into the sea-a shambles of a man. All the fijians were sure i was Matthew Tait's brother-probably due to my prodigious rugby talent(although they are all related to fantastic international rugby players I had to reveal that in fact I was not..).What Epi had failed to mention about the guys we were playing with was that two of them were current Fijian age-group internationals (joe was under 18 fiji and the chef,Sammy plays for Fiji under 21's), which made sense considering they were untouchable on the rugby pitch. And afterwards we all,Fijian and English sat around and had a great chat and alaugh,we formed such a close bond with all the guys on the island from that one match,it's funny how sport (especially rugby) can do that-I got the impression that they liked us so much because we took a real interest in their lives and culture whereas alot of people only stop over for a night for fleeting visits.
So every day we got breakfast lunch and dinner,the food was a-mazing,every night was a buffet (awesome),the first night was a selection of currys and we even saw the snapper that was used for the fish curry being caught and gutted in the sea by Epi and it was all so so fresh. The food is so healthy-so i used it as an excuse to eat massive amounts of it (that makes sense right Mum?). I haven't even mentioned the nightly entertainment yet,blimey.After dinner Burns got up in front of us and introduced the fijian dancing-now the Fijians can move,every evening a selection of four or five of the men in grass skirts and traditional Fijian gear strutted their stuff supported by the rather more restrained women (check the photos.). They seem to have boundless energy the Fijians, they all start the day about 5 am(Epi runs up the mountain on the island and along the beach before he starts his day-madman.) And after plenty of dancing from the staff it was our turn and we played loads of games with the staff all partnered by a fijian,the dancing was so so funny and went on late into the night-the fijians particularly liked alex whos 6 foot 6 but moves like Rudolf Nureyev..And after we all sat and had a long drink on the beach,Fijian and English alike-absolutely mindblowing. On the 3rd day we went to the local village in the day,I was fully expecting a bit of a tourist trap with lots of people selling tat but it was really nice actually. We started off with a kava ceremony,now kava is some kind of root juice (i think?) which has hallucinogenic effects in large doses and numbs your tongue and mouth,it is foul,tastes like muddy water basically but has funny effects and you have to drink all of it out of respect.We then visited the school,the village seemed so close-knit and friendly i like that in Fiji it just seems to be one big neighbourhood,everyone knows each other-the kids all came out and did a show for us,each year sang us a song from the little ones to 13 14 year olds and we were also treated to a crazy fijian war dance by 6 8 year old jokers-there were very surreal renditions of english classics and a cute song from the little ones "banana for you,banana for me,banana for the monkeys up in the tree". I'm not really sure what everyone does in Fiji, just relaxes as far as I can tell which is ace,I guess they are all basically self sufficient,but so welcoming of these 6 loud boys invading their village.
A big player in our trip who i have mentioned is Avram,Henry's guitar which has been played non-stop. The people on white sandy absolutely loved it and at least one of the staff seemed to be strumming it at any one time,they sang their fijian songs (and the odd baffling cover of 'Hotel California'..) while we sang our English ones late on in the night.And so we decided on the last night to give them the guitar as a thank you, we all wrote our names on it and they were so touched (I think,it's so hard to tell because they just seem to smile all the time..) the last night was the craziest dancing yet, and taught Epi and Joe some English drinking games.it had been preceded by another seminal rugby game on the scrub (gatecrashed by some annoying americans who we proceeded to embarass at rugby and they soon went away) and afterwards we celebrated our last game with Epi and Joe on the beach with some coconut juice (we were sooo fiji.). And as we left the next day with Epi's words still in my head ('the best friends we've ever had') I felt ever so protective of White Sandy and so sad to leave,it was worth going to Fiji for White Sandy alone,not for the sscnery (which was amazing) but the people there who were phenomenal and I'll always be able to tell people about the time I played rugby with Joe rocococko's cousin and 10 fijian machines on a beach,only in Fiji...It was hard afterwards to not compare anything to White Sandy but had a funny time handline fishing in the middle of the pacific in a storm,only Jack caught something-don't think I'm cut out for fishing I tend to be viciously impatient.. We stayed that night on the island where 'castaway' (with tom hanks) was filmed but were all really worn out from white sandy so had a nice quiet night chatting with the 3 posh girls. And then me and Rich had to go back to the mainland,I desperately wanted one more night in White Sandy but it didn't work out-I almost regret only going to Fiji for 10 days but it leaves me wanting to go back and some of the best memories. One more night in Nadi Bay then we flew to Auckland yesterday for the first of out long stays, we are here for 6 weeks and I cannot wait to get going,New Zealand appeals to me already,Auckland is a really quaint city (a bit like cheltenham and san francisco mixed together is the best way to describe it family) and had a night of debauchery last night in the NZ bars and clubs-it is not cheap but hey ho got to know the city pretty well and Tom WP was right-the beer is crap. It has a lovely harbour but me and Rich will try and have a little nosey around north island for 3 or 4 days before meeting the others who fly in on thursday.Oh yeah,went to a super 14 game last night as Eden Park,Blues versus the Stormers and saw Bryan Habana and Rocococko live which was amazing,really odd style of rugby but something to induce jealousy in Joe and Dad hopefully!
Missing everyone tons and hope Easter was as fattening as usual in paradise,very jealous!Having the time of my life out here though, so spiritual and political and cultural yah yah,thinking about getting involved in some camper van action tomorrow which could prove amusing,soon to trek out to lord of the rings country and seeing some real mountains,can't wait!
Lots of love everyone
T xxx