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.