Fijian Village Life

 In this post, I will point out some amazing examples of friendliness I received while in Fiji. Especially in villages. 

   

My first experience with a Fijian village was when we accidentally drove to one. While I was staying at Bamboo Backpackers, my friend Andres and I became friends with a Greek couple who had rented a car and we went with them to go to Natadoli Beach, which was at a different part of the island. But we took a wrong turn on the way and drove into a village. Many people yelled "Bula!" and came to greet us.

I took this tree for a test drive

The man in the middle of the above picture was the village chief. We called him Big Boss. 

After visiting the village for awhile, we finally did go to Natodoli which was nearby. This is Natodoli.

This is a glossy version of the same picture above this one

My friend, Andres

the water was beautiful and warm

Super beautiful but also a bit touristy... 
I met a few friendly fish while I was there.

These rocks were painful

Oh shit, well, I guess I'm getting a little off topic. This post is about Fijian village life! But I wanted to include my beautiful Natodoli pictures in a post somewhere but had difficulty figuring out which one. 

Anyway, I should get on with the amazingly fucktastic experience I had living in a village! I found myself overwhelmed by Fijian hospitality.  

The Fijians who worked at the hostel I was staying at highly recommended that I go North to Taveuni Island. They advertised it as off the beaten track. Of course, most people who go book their trip to Taveuni and the accommodation ahead of time and through the hostel. But the prices didn't looks so great to me.. :/
In Fact, they looked pretty horrible.

I owe my amazing time in Taveuni to a man named Thomas. Tom was an interesting fellow who had been in Fiji for 2 months when I met him. He had already been travelling for a long time. A lot longer than me at that time. He had long hair and didn't like to wear shirts very often and hadn't worn shoes for about 2 years! except if he has to to get into a club or something. Tom had recently gotten back from Taveuni and told me "Don't book through the hostel, mate!" 
He said that he had stayed in a village for free and also bragged about smoking lots of weed out of a papaya stem. While there, a man decided to give him a cave. Although it's legally the man's property he said Tom could come back anytime and that it was Tom's cave.
Tom said he planned to go back to the village in June and cement the cave floor and build it into his own room! 

Well, that sounds fucktastic! O.O
    Thomas said that they told him before he left that he could send friends and that I should go towards the village and ask for Joe and tell him that Thomas sent me. Everyone knows Joe and he's a cab driver.  

So, that's what I did.

To get to Taveuni, I had to go to Suva, which is another city on the mainland island that I was on. From Suva, I got on an overnight ferry to Taveuni island.

Before getting on the ferry, I spent a couple hours wandering around Suva.  I also learned  that there's a  Real estate agent named Hooker! O.o hahahaha!! 

On the way to Taveuni, I was with other foreigners. The ferry was nice. At night we watched a moon rise on the water. It looked just like a sunrise except with the moon. Everyone just slept on the floor and the ferry played a lot of movies along the way. 
 I was the only foreigner without any accommodation booked and when we arrived, I was nervous. My only plan was to go and find a guy named Joe.
 After I got off the ferry, I did what Thomas told me and walked toward the big cross that I could see in the distance.

Wow, Beautiful... 

Along the way, I ate some small purple flowers that I knew were edible. I probably looked strange as the only white guy in sight and walking around with a big backpack and a beard.
I was hesitant to start asking people if they knew Joe.

Nearby, I saw something that interested me. A store which read 
"The First Shop To Open In The World" 
I walked inside and said to a worker "is this really the first shop to open in the world?" He informed me that it is true indeed. 
The International dateline runs through the island!
I apologize that the picture of the store below is so full of sunlight.

I really was interested but part of the reason I asked about it being the first shop to open in the world was to start a conservation and then ask about Joe since my overwhelming shyness restrained me from asking random people on the street.
and it worked! The worker asked "where are you staying?"
I told him about my friend Tom who said I should find Joe.
"the guy with long hair? he used to come in here all the time!"
The worker knew Joe and said he drove along the road in front of the shop frequently. We walked outside and waited. "Joe will be here soon" he said.
After overhearing our conversation, another guy walked over and began talking to me. He said he was a school teacher and pointed to a house and said, "if you don't find Joe, you can stay at my house over there." 
A few minutes later Joe showed up and said something like "You're a friend of Thomas? Come, No worries!" and drove me to his village.


Joe had a wife, a son and a daughter. Most of the village houses were basically sheds. A ton of food grew there! Most of the food we ate everyday was from the land. We also drank Milo at dinner.

During the daytime there is no electricity. Every night at a certain time, the village runs a generator that gives the whole village electricity, but it's only on for a few hours. I don't remember exactly the times but I think it was about from 7-11 P.M. 
During that time everybody takes advantage of the electricity and watches movies.
 In case you're wondering, No,there was definitely no internet there! :)



Next to Joe's house was his sister and brother in law's house.

Joe's father also was visiting at the time. The old man proudly declared "Fiji is the greatest country!" He also said I should bring my parents to Fiji to show them how amazing it is and that they could stay with him.

During my time there I didn't actually see much of Joe. He was always busy and hardly around except at night when he came home from work. However, I spent a lot of time with his brother in law, the man who gave Thomas the cave. 

He had his own property where he grew lots of food, had the cave, and had his own private waterfall! We would often spend time underneath the waterfall to escape the heat.

These plants are edible but they have to be cooked. They eat a lot of it in Fiji. but damn it, I forgot what they are called :(

He also walked with me up the mountain. Now I must tell you what is special about that mountain and Taveuni...

A flower!
Yes, there is an extremely rare flower on Taveuni. The only place in the world that the flower grows is on Taveuni Island!

  

That's Taveuni circled in the picture above. It is the 3rd largest island in Fiji, but that island seems so small to be the only place on Earth that people know of that that particular flower grows! 

But it doesn't just grow anywhere on the island. It only grows up in the mountainous area on that island. 

The walk was a bit harder than I expected. Actually, I think that was the most I had ever sweated before because the humidity in Fiji was crazy. It got a little colder as we got higher, but still not as much as I expected.

Walking in the jungle and looking for the flower was difficult.

Normally, they are easier to find but the season for them had recently ended! :( 

Luckily and finally, we were able to find one. Yes, only one.

So, this is the flower! yay! we did it!... right? 
Actually, this indeed is the flower. but it's not complete. 
It is supposed to have a white thing inside all of those red petals.
But they had all fallen out probably because it was off season.
:(  ...but I did find one with an unblossomed white thing inside.

He explained that normally water drips from those white things inside.

 At least I did get to see the super special flower although not complete, so I am partly satisfied. 

Another special thing about Taveuni is what I mentioned before.. It's on the International Dateline. It is a different date on a part of the island. I took a visit to that line.

Here is the line. The line was near someones house and a church and there no were tourists in sight when I was there. Just a sign.  Notice One side of the sign says "Today" and the other "Yesterday".

Apart from two other Fiji islands and two other countries in the world, the line crosses no other land.

My ass is in one date and my dick is in another

Wow, A flower that only grows there and the dateline. Taveuni is a special island indeed!

There is another special place on Taveuni that the kids took me to.

I  hung out with the village kids sometimes. They LOVED to swim.
Usually they would come here to swim..

They also loved to eat fruit. Especially Papaya! Fruit grew everywhere and we would stop to eat some all the time.  

The Papayas in Fiji were Huge!! and also delicious. 

And there were many, Just like the oranges in Kalalau, there were more growing than could be eaten. I had never eaten so much papaya in my life. One kid said papaya was "the taste of Taveuni"  

In the Fijian language, Popo means papaya. I think that is funny because in Turkish, popo means butt.

In the villages, well, actually in Fiji in general, people liked weed. At least that's the impression I got. The stem from the papaya tree makes a great pipe.
This might be very immature of me but my dirty mind thought it was funny to hear someone say "grab the pipe out of the popo" 

Oh yeah, the special place that the kids took me to. On the island is a natural water slide!

Me sliding frontward

And it was amazing!!! :D

The rocks were super slippery and some of the kids were able to do this standing while sliding thing and I don't know how the hell they did it. 
They said that they go there every week on Sunday.

Some footage of the water slide and the kids are in the video below.

On my last night, Joe and I drank a coke and rum and I stayed up late afterwards drinking Kava, which in the village was called grog, with many Fijians.

If you don't know what kava is, I wrote a description about it in another post. 

http://benjaminbridgefordtravel.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-best-hostel-i-have-ever-stayed-at.html

I liked the village life. Nobody cared much for money. People ate healthy food grown from the land, and people seemed to be in good physical shape. Everyone was good at climbing trees and the children don't have internet or video games and play outside and go swimming. I like electronics but it was nice and interesting to live simpler with many friendly people for awhile. I was amazed at the hospitality I received in Fiji. Before I left they said I could come back anytime.

On the morning of my departure, Joe gave me a ride to the ferry. I had been housed and fed everyday for free. I offered to pay a little money but he didn't accept it.  

I hope you had a Bula time reading this!

A Week on Mana Island, Fiji

After spending a week on the mainland island, I departed to a nice little island known as Mana. 

departing by boat

One the first things I noticed was how fucktasticly beautiful the water was!

 And yes, of course fucktasticly is a word.  :p

As soon as I and the few other travelers on my boat arrived, the hostel workers began clapping and sang us a welcome song!

Ok, Now let me give a little bit of info about Mana. I didn't know much about it but decided to go based on a Fijian guy's recommendation. The island is small and has a couple resorts, the hostel I stayed at and a village. That's about it.  

So there are no stores or anything on the island and for that reason when booking a stay there, meals were inclusive. 

So you're forced to spend at least a set amount each day plus any drinks you might buy at the bar. It was a little more than back on the mainland but still a pretty good deal. Of course I choose the cheapest possible price. Even cheaper than the dorm price.  The tent price!

Yes, they allow you to bring your own tent and camp on the property while giving access to the shower/bathroom and meals for quite a bit cheaper than using a bed in one the dorms.

 Although the price includes meals and a place to sleep, they informed us that the water is safe to shower with but not to drink from tap and that we could buy our drinking water from the hostel. I didn't do that. I figured out another way to keep myself hydrated without having to pay for it. 

I collected coconuts and drank coconut water everyday!

So I brought my tent. But one of my tent poles was fucked up, however I still got it to stand upright. I was surprised to see that nobody else but me chose the tent option. 

Personally, I think sand is very comfortable. 

So my tent was in front of the hostel but they play music and have lights at night since it's a party environment. So I thought maybe I would have to wait until late at night if I wanted to sleep or just chill. 

They didn't have anywhere else to put me and maybe because they were concerned the lights and music might bother me or that it looked strange that I was the one person camping in a spot where many hang out or that my tent was also a little bit not right, they insisted I move into a dorm and didn't charge me additional.

 The people who worked at the hostel were really cool! Anyway, In the middle of the island is a hill that allows to get a view of the whole island. 

It really isn't very big. You can walk around the whole island in about 2 hours.

 4 hours if you are on Fiji time. 

For the those that don't know "Fiji time" is an expression used often in Fiji. Fijians are considered laid back and not in a hurry. That's probably why they like to drink kava. For example, when I was in Nadi, the bus was always late because it runs on Fiji time. 

It was hot in Fiji. I hate being so white. The sun was too intense for my sensitive skin!  Reflective white sand beaches don't help either. I'd try to stay in the shade during the heat of the day. 

 The snorkeling was incredible at a place called Sunset Beach! I apologize that I was  not able to get any pictures because I lost the waterproof back on my Gopro.  :(

 I walked around the island once and made the mistake of not wearing shoes. Sand did not go all the way around like I hoped, sometimes the beach disappeared and I would have to walk on rocks until I got to the next beach. 

Another interesting thing I should mention is that the island used in the movie "Castaway" was nearby. I could see the island from Mana. It really is uninhabited, however, it is right next to several other islands that have resorts on them. What a buzz kill! He probably could have swum if he really wanted to. haha

You can pay for a boat to go to the island but it seemed really pricey just to hop over to a nearby island. I heard that Wilson is still there and some nature but that's all that I know of.   

I could be wrong but part of me expected something like: OK, here's Wilson, that's cool, oh and also here's a cave that looks just like many caves on many other uninhabited islands but This is The Cave as seen in a movie! wooo.  so I decided not to go.  I knew the reason it's pricey is probably just because it was used in a movie and other islands are perhaps just as good.

 I thought about swimming to it. But I also thought about currents and the fact that it could be further away than it appears. 

 Fuck. Now, I'm getting just a little bit worked up wondering if the price was worth going to the island from Castaway. If anything just for the ego points gained from bragging to people who've seen the movie.  >(

Anyway, Let's move on to something else...

           

Kava! Of course the hostel also had kava. It wouldn't be Fiji without it. 

I wrote about kava in my previous post. You may have also noticed that I used this same picture in my previous post as well. I think I did a pretty good job of describing kava in the last post but for those that possibly may just be tuning in, I'm going to give a brief description:   Kava seemed to be a huge part of Fiji. It has been said "No kava, no Fiji." So what is it? I've heard it called a muscle relaxer? It comes from a root that they smash into powder then they mix with water in a big bowl.  Kava looks like muddy water and it also kinda tastes like muddy water. It is scooped from a big bowl and drunk out a coconut shell and usually in a group. Kava has no alcohol by the way. The effect doesn't get you stoned like weed or fuck you up like alcohol can but it does make you relaxed. It's difficult to describe exactly.

Read the last post for the full description.

I would describe kava like a mild drug. Many travelers drink a few bowls and say they don't feel much other than a numb tongue.

It was on Mana that I drank the most kava I ever have. For some reason, I decided to indulge one night. There was one other traveler that also stayed up drinking with me. I remember him looking at me with glazed eyes and at a slow pace saying  "dude, this stuff isn't even affecting me" while looking obviously nearly asleep. We drank about 20 to 30 something bowls of kava. I slept well that night. 

Some people left Mana after a few days or so and then sometimes new people would arrive. After the sun went down was my favorite time. Bula time! It got lively. The children from the village would come to the hostel and join the dancing. They often had fire shows.

 he's standing on his back

 I noticed one of the guests who had recently arrived at the hostel was practicing spinning a machete. Well, that looks interesting, I thought and I walked over to speak to her. She taught me a little and I practiced spinning the machete some too. 

 Her name was Anja and she was from Norway and was visiting Mana with her friend Gabriel from Uganda. "you know Hakuna Matada? That's my language!" he said. 
We all became friends and also later with an asian girl from California named Mel. She had a lot of interesting tattoos and was really into fire spinning. She even got a tattoo of her first burn in the location of her first burn. She also performed a show at the hostel.  They became my main homies while on Mana.

I practiced sometimes spinning the firestick things while on Mana, but without the fire part. 

 

 One night Gabriel and I went out to get coconuts. On the way, we passed by a group of Fijians sitting in a circle drinking. I knew them from a previous night when I was walking around alone and they invited me to drink with them. They seemed to be in that same spot getting drunk every night! 

So we sat down for awhile. One guy really liked Gabriel's shirt and surprisingly they decided to trade shirts! The others guy's shirt looked cool but it was a little dark on that beach at night and It wasn't until we got under light again much later that Gabriel realized he had been given a very dirty shirt. :(

Anyway, the group of drunk Fijians wanted us to stay and drink with them but we said that we must continue to go get coconuts. 

While Gabriel was climbing a coconut tree he fell from a high distance and landed on his face with a loud thunk noise. To my amazement he soon lifted up his super sandy face from the ground and was laughing pretty hard!  

I had a great idea the next day and took a coconut in the bar and had vodka poured in it. Later I tried another coconut with rum. There were good times in that bar. 

Gabriel, Anja and I in the bar.

Mana was a great time. Perhaps someday I will return. 

 I spent my week on Mana snorkeling, swimming, laying in hammocks, drinking kava and alcohol, crab walking across the dance floor, doing some parkour, climbing coconut trees, and trying to improve my stick spinning and machete spinning skills! 

 I think that's about all I have to say about it for now, so I will close this post with a few pictures. I hope you enjoyed reading this internet journal like blog. 

My Bula juice is your Bula juice! 

that's me in the tree.

These guys were everywhere

Me preaching that this is more than water, It's cloud juice.