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.

The Best Hostel I Have Ever Stayed At

The best hostel I have ever stayed at so far anyway. I suppose if I do happen to find a better one then I would have to write another blog post with this title. As I'm typing this post now, I've been traveling 20 months straight and I checked into the hostel that I'm writing about near my 4 months of travel mark. Before that I was living with hippies in Hawaii.
So where is it?

Fiji. I knew nothing about it. I had only recently learned that the country existed before going there! It is a dot on the map. The reason I went there was simply because someone suggested it.

For awhile,  I had planned to go to New Zealand after Hawaii. I got a cheap flight deal To Hawaii but since it was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and not really near anywhere, I didn't find as good as a deal out.
And just in case any of you may be thinking I could have sailed or gotten a ride on a merchant ship to get a good deal like a skillfully cheap vagabond might consider, uh no. I had gotten out of the Navy about 6 months before and I definitely wasn't going to consider getting on any kind of ship just yet.
I found that a plane ticket to New Zealand was expensive. "You should go to Fiji first man, it's off the hook and you can see another country on the way!" my friend Kai said. He was right. Fiji is in between Hawaii and New Zealand and a little closer to Hawaii than New Zealand is and so a cheaper plane ticket. OK, why not?      
I bought the ticket to Fiji.

I didn't need a visa to go to Fiji. Actually, what is surprising is that I'm allowed to stay up to 4 months without a visa!
However, I did have to show an ongoing flight ticket out of the country.
Before arriving I booked a hostel online. Wow! Online the price said 6 US dollars and something per night.In Hawaii, the hostels are about $30 US dollars a night! 
The hostel had free airport pick up and I read that it had free kava parties. Kava? Kai had been to Fiji before and explained it was like a muscle relaxer that everyone drinks over there.
Should be interesting.

When I stepped off the plane the first thing that I thought was What the fuck?!!!  I thought I had stepped into an oven. I thought Hawaii was hot. Fiji was a super humid place and it was the first time I ever experienced that amount of the sticky type of heat. I arrived on December 30th and it was summer in Fiji.

They picked me up at the airport and for the first time in my life I got in a car designed to drive on the left side of the road and they drove me to Bamboo Backpackers.

well, here it is..

So what was so great about this place? keep in mind that this my personal opinion. But I must point out...

-Free airport pickup
well, that was nice.

-  Swimming
It has a small swimming pool and also it's on the beach. The humidity and the sun in Fiji was pretty intense but I would often go swimming in the ocean around sunset and the water was so warm, almost as much as a hot tub.

- bar/restaurant

-ping pong table

-fire on the beach

and sometimes fire shows!

- Volleyball

- Free access to kitchen
You can store your food/drink in a big refrigerator. There is a shop within walking distance of the hostel so I would buy my beer there instead of the bar because it's cheaper and store it in the refrigerator.

- Mango and coconut trees
they are on the property!

- Party every night
It was super hot in the daytime but every night is Bula time! Bula is Fijian for hello, cheers, and pretty much what everyone screams when they feel excited.  Every night I was there many people were socializing, celebrating and partying. but don't worry if you want to chill,  plenty of people just chill out too.

-lots of hammocks

- Kava
Free kava every night. But in Fiji, free kava is very common. I was even given kava in a store,.. before they aggressively begged for me to buy something. 
Anyway, it has been said "No kava, no Fiji."
I drank lots of kava while in Fiji and I never once had to pay for it. Kava seemed to be a huge part of Fiji.  So what is it? I've heard it called a muscle relaxer?
Well, it comes from a root that they smash into powder then they mix with water in a big bowl.
 

notice all the different sized bowls behind him.
this man gave me a welcome to Fiji kava ceremony.

Kava looks like muddy water and it also kinda tastes like muddy water. Drinking it is done in a ceremonial way.  It is scooped from the big bowl and drunk out a coconut shell and usually in a group. After drinking a bowl of kava, it is common to clap 3 times.  Before drinking a bowl of kava, people will usually say Bula and clap once. I was told, "Clapping is a sign of respect for the kava." 

 As with many things that are natural, there are also health claims about kava. I even had someone tell me that it has been used in cancer treaments.  I've also heard a few people tell me that their body did not respond positively to too much kava. Personally, I have no idea if it's healthy or not. 

Fijians have been drinking kava for years and many are proud of it.  At Bamboo Backpackers, they had kava every night. 

Before I tried kava, I thought that it might feel like a drug or something like that but it was very mild. The first thing people notice is that it makes their mouth feel numb.  Many people drank about 5 bowls or so and said they didn't feel much. 

After about 10 bowls, I was feeling relaxed. Kava has no alcohol by the way. At night many people drink kava, and the Fijians at the hostel play guitar and sing. They often play things like Bob Marley. One of my personal favorite songs that they often played is "Please Don't Touch My Papaya"

 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. 

The Fijians typically stayed out there drinking kava longer than all the tourists. I would often see them still in the same place at about 2:00 A.M. still drinking kava!

- Good price
The price for the cheapest dorm room was 12 Fijian Dollars a night. About 6 USD. At least that was the price and the exchange rate at the time I was there.  That is for a bed in a 12 bed mixed dorm with fans. It costs a few dollars more for an dorm with air-con. Private rooms also available. 

- People
The hostel itself is great but what really what made my experience staying there great was the people that I met there.  

 I have made friends at other hostels around the world but never as many as my stay at this one. Perhaps If I went back there now, it wouldn't be as great. It depends on who's there at the time and maybe I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. 
Maybe the kava and alcohol contributes to the already social ambiance of the place itself.

Another reason other than the heavy social energy that it was easy to meet people was that the hostel was in Nadi, which is a main entry/exit point in Fiji.

Fiji has 333 islands!!! Most of those are small though. Nadi was on the major island. So the hostel was kind of like a home base. Travelers enter and stay there and go and visit other islands and usually come back before leaving Fiji.

Also, I'm not choosing my greatest experience while at a hostel. This is just the best hostel in my opinion, the actual physical hostel itself along with it's perks. It's possible to have an awesome experience at a not awesome hostel too. Even If one does have better experiences at other hostels that doesn't necessarily the hostels itself are better. 

Another exceptional hostel I must mention is on Mana Island, Fiji. I had a great time there. There are no shops on that island so 3 meals are inclusive with the price. I will write about Mana in the next post. 

What I didn't like:  Bamboo was advertised online that they had free wifi. They give you a limited amount of free wifi. 
I don't remember how long.
After using that amount of time, you can buy wifi by the day or for 1 week. It's not too expensive but many people figured out some glitch in the system and were able to easily access the free wifi over and over because of some technical reason.
 Some countries are stingy with wifi and some are not, maybe it's just Fiji because it was the same on Mana Island with having to buy wifi if you wanted it but don't let that detain you from having an amazing Bula time!  

Thanks for reading my blog/internet journal. By the way, yes I realize that about half of this post is on a white background and the other on a dark one. This was partly on accident but then I decided that I liked the way it looked. 
 I'll close this post by sharing a few pictures. I'll be writing more about Fiji and putting more pictures soon!

Living with Hippies in the Woods

Me looking cool

When I first arrived on Kauai island in Hawaii. I was alone and slept on the beach. I have to say, I'm proud of my sleeping hole/shelter that I made. I wrote about it in my previous post. I spent over 3 weeks on that island and I never stayed in a room even once. After, I had been on the island for a few days, I met a very important person.

I stunk. The look on that one ladies face in the convenient store confirmed it. I didn't have any clean clothes.  I hadn't yet mastered my vagabond lifestyle of super cheapness.
I actually decided to spend money on a hostel room for just 1 night so I could conveniently shower and do laundry and then continue camping out the next day. I had been walking around, exploring, and also sweating a lot. I was also carrying my big backpack with me.

I started walking toward the hostel I saw in that town earlier to ask if they had a bed.
 On the way, I saw a guy about my age sitting on some steps in front of a closed shop.
When I walked by him he looked at me and said, "hey man, sit down, I need somebody to talk to!" I was shocked. What a strange thing to say to a stranger on the street. Bwaaaahh! 
"Uh, I'm not a therapist" I replied. " No, I don't need therapy. I just want someone to talk to."
I wondered if I should keep walking, but I decided to sit down.

The man's name is Kaia or Kai for short. He said he recently had gotten out of jail, which is why he really wanted to talk to someone. He was from Big Island but had lived on Kauai before. It had been 8 years since the last time he was on Kauai but he came back because of drama on the Big Island. Just like me, he had only been on the island a few days and was alone. 
A couple minutes after meeting him, a hippie walks over to us from around the corner.
 "hey guys", he pulled out a big clump of marijuana and offered us some. By the way, he was a stranger and didn't know Kaia either. He had a guitar and was carrying several didgeridoos which he said that he made himself.  A little while later, he left and said he was on his way to Kalalau Valley. Somewhere that Kai knew about.

Kaia and I became friends rather quickly and got along. Although we just met, It felt like we had known each other a lot longer. I didn't get that hostel room that night. We were both homeless in Hawaii and we slept on the beach, showered in the public rinse off stations, and did our laundry at laundromats. 

 I also learned that hitchhiking was common on that island, which is something that I'd never done. It's not as common in mainland America and it was something that I never thought I would actually do. The bus doesn't go everywhere and we used hitchiking to explore some great places on the island. Like this place...

 

Kaia is an expert hitchhiker. He taught me how to hitchhike with Aloha!



                             

Ok,  so I suppose I should get on with the hippie part that is in the title of this post. 
The place is like an unofficial community living in the woods. It's not too easy to get to it though and that's something that makes it more rewarding once you do get there.
To get there you must go on an 11 mile hike which goes up and down and up and down and so forth! 
 Well, I guess it's possible to take a boat in but I don't have money or a boat and the waves and conditions can be monstrous! I saw the biggest waves I have ever seen along the Napoli coast. The trail is also gnarly and dangerous, people have died doing it before.
Just don't lean too much while on the trail...    or do it while drunk like I did once ^^ 
Anyway, the trail is beautifully fucktastic!

My shitty backpack.

Finally we arrived in Kalalau Valley exhausted. The beach and the waves there were HUGE!
Also, many people run around naked on that beach. Sometimes the waves overtake the entire beach! I met a guy who lost his wallet to the waves by leaving it on the sand at the wrong time.

caves

After collapsing on the beach for awhile, I set up my tent. Below is a pic of my friend, JP.

who slept in a hammock with tarps over it...   it didn't work out too well for him when a rain  

storm came.

Kalalau is a truly magical place. Some people stay there for months and years with no money and live off the land. Yes, there is so much food that just grows there on it's own and they also hunt wild goats and pigs and there is plenty of water from the waterfall.

Here I am with some goat horns

                                                                                   

meat!

goat eyeballs

It was very surprising how well we ate out there. Everyone shares and as long as you help hunt, cook, pick fruit and veggies, start the fire, gather firewood, and just help out with whatever is needed then you can eat! 

There are also hikers and temporary travelers that come and go. Some people visit every year or so around the holidays. People don't use money there but trade and share. So sometimes people will hike in with supplies like cheese and pepperoni and we have pizza.

I hope you are starting to see why this place is one of my favorite places that I visited on my long trip. 

Tobbacco, weed, cheese, spices, rice, alcohol, etc. are great things to bring to trade.

Now, let me tell you about some of the vegetation growing there. First, the Noni!
There are Noni trees Everywhere!

Noni is a fruit that is known as a super-food, it's supposed to be super healthy and full of antioxidants but...  it's super disgusting!
It smells kinda like vomit and tastes like Satan's ballsack! 

(I have no idea what Satan's ballsack tastes like, I'm just trying to be dramatic).

Well, that's my personal opinion. I like to call it the Oh No-ni. Some people develop a tolerance for it and/or mix the juice with lemon juice which makes it a little better... People also rub it on wounds to make them heal faster. 

Anyway, the leaves of the Noni tree are also edible and unlike the fruit, they don't taste bad, so everyone always uses the leaves as plates, eating the food and the plate too!
I ate spaghetti out of a leaf burrito! :)

                                      

Noni leaves taste great when cooked evenly over a fire to make Noni chips.
 They become crunchy like a chip and get stronger flavor when cooked.

   Anyway, spinach also grows there as seen being cooked in the pic below... 

As well as sugarcane, lettuces, mangoes, passion fruits (we call it lilikoi in Hawaii), lemons,  lots of oranges, and etc. It was Orange season when I was there and those were the best most awesomely fucktastic oranges ever!!! They taste Waaaaayyy better than any store bought orange or Any orange I have ever had and gave a jolt energy. They were like our Redbull. I was amazed at the power of those oranges. I probably ate about 20 day. Seriously, and there was still plenty more oranges there than we were able to eat. To gather them we have to climb and shake them out of the trees. I swear they always fall better when making monkey noises.

Me in a tree

Ok, so I've written A lot about food so far. Let's move on to activities and people.. well it has a great place to swim and jump off rocks.

They also play volleyball on the beach and every night many people gather around a fire and some play instruments, sing, and chant.

I also learned how amazing and powerful it sounds when a big group howls or OM's in sync. 

This is a special and fun place I will someday go back to. before I left we had a party... 

and this is what I woke up in the next morning.

For some reason a dog who I didn't know was also sleeping inside with me and please don't ask why there is a rock halfway in...  But that story is too long (and a little bit embarrassing) to put in this post so maybe Ill save it for an e-book or something.

So I think, I'll finished describing this place by describing the people. What kind of people are in this place? What can you expect? You might be wondering. 

           

Well, you'll see a lot of outdoorsy loving travelers that come and go. They are tougher than the typical tourist. You'll also see a lot of hippies and hippie-ish people and you'll see a lot of laid back people. Oh and also a few naked people as well.
I also noticed that people like to hug others quite a bit in that community. Even if they hardly know you.There was a guy who became really embarrassed because he got an erection in front of several others after a naked girl hugged him.

I certainly met some interesting characters. A few go by names like Izzy,Grizzly,Space Dog, Uncle T and Josh. Josh was an interesting guy.. Just not his name. 
I met a guy who actually told me that Shiva told him to go there. But don't worry, no one else I met was quite as Out there as him...  At least not that I know of.

Damn, there's so much I could write about that place and this has been my longest blog post so far. I hope you enjoy it. You probably have at least some if you are still reading this. It's been over a year since I've been to Kalalau as I write this now.

This post isn't over yet. I'll explain how to get there for anyone interested.

How to get there:

So, the airport in Kauai is in Lihue, The furthest the bus goes is to Hanalei. After that, If you don't have a car then you either have to hitch-hike or walk about 7 miles or so to the start of Kalalau trail, which is the very end of the road.

It was never too difficult to find a lift.

After that, there is one problem... as usual, it's the government.

Warning: this next part will contain complaining

Technically, everyone is supposed to have a permit to camp. and the price is an unreasonable $18 per night!  The hostel I stayed at in New Orleans was $16 a night. 

A hostel with a bed and a shower for Less than sleeping in a tent that I own in the woods?

I don't believe in paying for nature. 

Sometimes I don't mind paying a little for a spot at a campground because campgrounds have a bathroom and sometimes a shower and public facilities like a kitchen area and often an outlet that I can charge my laptop with. In my point of view, I'm paying for the facilities, not for the nature and it still must be less than a hostel price...   but Kalalau wasn't a public campground.  They Seriously wanted $18 a night to take a walk in the woods..  nature that they didn't create.

 $18 a night is ridiculous. 

So Kaia and I and 2 others that we also met, JP and Michael,  all went to the start of the trail and had some ranger in a green shirt walk over to us and demand we have a permit.

I didn't  know that a camping permit was required before arriving and I was shocked to learn that. Michael, who we met the night before already a permit. So, he said " well, later." and began the hike on his own.

"Ok, fine. I won't camp if I need a permit. How about I just leave my tent here and lay on my tarp on the ground?"  I said. "That's CAMPING!" he said angrily.  

"If you spend the night in the woods, you have to pay $18 a night for a camping permit!"

"I don't mind paying if it helps support the department of forestry" JP said and pulled out a 20 dollar bill. The man wouldn't take it. "No, you can't buy a permit here. You're supposed to buy one from the office building in Lihue." 

We were very far away from there.

Then that asshole made a suggestion. We were out of cellphone signal range but he said that if we walk 1 mile down the road there is signal and we could access the internet from a cell phone and then go online and buy a permit from the website and walk back and show him the receipt and then we'd be allowed to hike the 11 miles!

JP didn't do it, he ended up sneaking on the trail. Someone mentioned to us "hey, this guy gets off work at about 4 p.m. and then no one is guarding the trail."  So we came back later that evening and hiked in as the sun was setting.  We hiked in about 2 miles and camped when it got dark  and did the other 9 in the morning.

Well, I think that's finally all I have to say for now.  wow, this has been a long post. Thanks for reading.