Today I caught the ferry to Denarau Port at 2:30 pm and met a really nice Fijian guy on the boat. He is a 35-year old man who works for a resort on one of the islands of the Yasawas. We had a really good conversation and in the end he invited me and my family next time  to come to his village. It’s called Vatulele Village and is located next to Suva. Then he wants to show me everything and that I will get to know his family.

I arrived at Smugglers Cove in the night, had a fabulous dinner there and went to bed.

Today I got up at 6:00 o’clock and caught the ferry to Mantaray Island. It took me three hours to get there by boat. It was a huge ferry which stopped at almost every island of the Yasawa Islands. When I had arrived at my resort, I was absolutely impressed. I had a room of my own again, with my own balcony (tree house bure).

I went for lunch and applied for a dive after lunch. We went out by boat and I had to put on my diving gear. We went down to 17 m, so that I couldn’t take any pictures and for this time I found it too expensive to buy them afterwards. It was a great underwater world, and we swam through some caves and had a great time. During the dive I had to change my  oxygen tank – I got the tank of my instructor because in mine was only 40 left ( minimum is 50).  I sucked too much air. After we had succeeded in that adventurious bottle-changing under water, we could continue our dive. From that diving experience I have learnt, that I really have to do a diving course in advance, if I want to do some more diving.

I got to know some Danish girls who were really friendly. After the dive I went to the beach to tan my skin and relax. There I met two Scottish girls, who wanted to do the Tube Sun Cruise. I didn’t know what it was, but it sounded interesting and I liked the girls, so I decided to join them. On the cruise I met the Danish girls again, and alltogether we enjoyed a really nice sunset, floating on our tubes, laughing, making jokes and drinking.

After dinner I had a long and really interesting conversation with a female diving instructor from Australia. I learned a lot from her. Tomorrow I will check out and will return to Nadi to stay one night in Smugglers Cove.

Today I woke up at 8:00 o’clock on Robinson Crusoe Island, enjoyed my last breakfast there, paid the bill and went off to the boat. On the boat I met a really nice Danish couple and I talked to them all through the following bus tour. The guy is a tattooist, and he told me a lot about tattoos. Then I checked in at my new hostel, and they checked in at  theirs (both were  located on the beach and we were neighbours). I decided to do a horseback-riding along the beach, and I asked them whether they would like to join me. They said „yes“ and off we went for a lovely ride along the beach. I enjoyed it very much, the amazing view from the horse’s back and to “speed” through the water.

After that we went back to our hostels and I joined them for swimming in the sea. After a break outside in  the sun I decided to do my laundry.

I gave it to the reception and it was returned at 8′ o’clock in the evening (really good service in this hostel). Then we went to the city by the local bus. It was only 1,15 FJD and it was a very funny experience. The buses are really old here, and we had to pull a rope to ring the bell, when we wanted to get off. In Nadi we did some shopping, some groceries for the islands. I will go to Mantaray Island tomorrow, and they will go to Paradise Cove. In Nadi I could show them the amazing fruit market, with all kinds of delicious and really cheap fruits.  We ate some fresh pineapple and just enjoyed the day. During our stay in Nadi I realized, that it is a different feeling, walking down the street, three blonde Europeans all by themselves, or being a member of an organized tourist group. Almost every second there was a Fijian Indian saying “bula” or “hey” or “hello my friend” offering something to us. We said no to drugs and finished our shopping. We returned to the hostel by 6 o’clock.

Later in the evening I surprisingly met again the two English girls from my first trip and we enjoyed good conversations.

Today I got up at 8 o’clock. When I had finished my breakfast I decided to go to the reception and reconfirm my next accomodation (Aquarius on the beach). Everything was perfect and I went to the beach. On the beach I had a fabulous idea.

I started collecting sticks on the beach. I built a square out of big ones and put one smaller stick in each corner. Then I started to fix the sticks to eachother. I did that with leaves of the coconut trees, knotted them and put on top of the sticks a large bamboo stick. For stabilization I used two other small sticks and leaned them against the bamboo stick so that I had an angled roof. I put more coconut leaves/sticks on it so that they covered the back and the sides of my small house. After that I formed my own symbol out of a huge stick, a leave from another plant and a coconut.

I put it in front of my house. During my construction

I realized that it wasn’t so easy for me to get all the material together without a knife or a sharp stone. In the end I was proud that I built up my own small house, and I bet, I could survive/live in it for more than one night.  It is definitely not as stable or rainproofed as Robinson Crusoe’s, but I really felt a bit like him building it.

After having had lunch and some cava with my new Australian friends, I went for a walk around the island and explored it on my own.

It was a really nice scenery around me and relaxing in the hammocks during my Fijitime was the best part of it.

After having stayed the night in a three-bed-room all by myself,  we started at 9:30 am. Our first destination was Rakiraki town (it’s the city with the biggest ammount of Indians living on the Fijis). We stopped there for about 20 minutes and I took my chance and went shopping. I bought two really nice shirts for a good price and a new book ( Hemingway- The old man and the sea) Then we drove to the hotel where we had lunch. I took a caesar salad which tasted just amazing.

At 2 o’clock we arrived at the mudpools. First of all we had to change our clothes. We started by rubbing mud at each other, it was very funny and in the end everybody was totally covered with mud.

Then we went into the mud”pool” I would call it rather a mudlake. There we washed the mud from our bodies but not from our faces. After 10 minutes we went into another pool, which was called the “hotpool”. It wasn’t as hot as the hot water beach or the Polynesian Spa in New Zealand, but it was a nice temperature. There we washed our faces and washed off all the mud that was still left on our bodies.

The mud is really healthy for your skin and shall make it softer.

I left the group at 15:00 because I had to catch my bus to the ferry terminal to visit Robinson Crusoe Island. I got there right in Fijitime and enjoyed a really beautiful boat ride on the river. I was the only passenger on the boat, so I had good conversation with the boatswain and some musicians gave me a wonderful welcome on the Island.

It was just amazing. After I checked-in I enjoyed a perfect dinner and another Cava ceremony. I was really exhausted from the day and the Cava so I went to bed pretty soon.

After one night in a treehouse  we started at 8:30 am and after breakfast drove to our first destination: Suva, the capital of Fiji.

Our tourguide showed us the most important buildings and told us many stories about the history of Fiji. It was very interesting and I learnt a lot.

Our next stop was at a village an one- hour- drive from Suva. Because the other guy of our group had left, I was the only guy left in our group, and so I became the chief of the group. In Fijian villages each group of visitors has to appoint one member as a chief, who has to  represent the group, it’s supposed to be a male.

For our welcome we were introduced into a traditional Cava Ceremony and I was the first, who had to take the bowl and drink the traditional drink like a shot.

Before I did that, I had to clap in my hands to signalize, that I was ready for the drink. Then a guy from the village came to me with a bowl in his hand.  I took it,  had the drink  and then I had to say “vinaka” , thank you. It tasted like the roots of the cava smell and I liked it.

shaking hands with the chief

For lunch the citizens of the village had prepared a huge buffet for us which was really tasty. I started to eat and sat next to the chief of the village all the time. It was an old, wise and intelligent man, who showed me a lot. In the beginning I was a bit nervous, because I didn’t know, what Cava will taste like and so I struggled with some Fijian words.

After lunch I bought some braceletts in the village ( the money will be taken to build up schools, buy stationery and help the cititzens). Then we went for the traditional bamboo-rafting. It was really funny in my position as a chief, because I could do whatever I liked. So I did a handstand, jumped a forward somersault from the bamboo float and swam in the river.

After that I had some more Cava and slowly realized what’s the effect of Cava. It’s like a strong drug which make you feel very happy. I said Vinaka! to all citizens of the village, and we had a nice dancing session in the end, the Fijians showed us their dancing moves and me and my group showed them ours.
Then we drove to our last destination “the tanoa hotel” . We were all really tired from the day.

Today we had breakfast at the hostel. At 8 o’clock we started to drive by the bus to the rainforest.   We arrived at a waterfall after one hour walking  and went swimming, jumped from a cliff and enjoyed the sun.

Later on our guide prepared a special hat for us.

Today we started the trip with Feejeeexperience. I got picked up at 8 o’clock (Fiji Time) . Our first stop was the central of Nadi Nan, we had to do some shopping for lunch and dinner. I bought some tropical fruits and enjoyed the experience of visiting a real Fijian market.

Later we drove to a Fijian village. It was really nice to see how the Fijians are living. Our guide told us a lot about the culture, the tribes and different traditions of the Fijians. During our visit in the village we weren’t aloud to wear sunglasses and had to wear a Sorong to signalize, that we are visitors and no enemies.

We stayed in the village for about 2 hours and then continued our trip to a lovely beach on the coast. There I went swimming, got my body tanned and enjoyed Fijitime. The water was just amazing, right colour, right temperature and right amount of salt in it.

The others were having lunch there and waited for their meals longer than an hour.

After that we went sandboarding. Just imagine to go with a surfboard down a huge sanddune. It was a lot of fun.

When we arrived at our hostel we had an amazing dinner there.

I spent the last days in Auckland in the Verandahs Backpackers. One day I went downtown to the city centre, visited a museum and did some sightseeing in parts of Auckland like  Chinatown or the university district.

… beautiful Auckland

Another day I just stayed  in the hostel and learnt some Krishna Meditation by chanting with a woman from my hostel. It was very funny and both of us really enjoyed it. I got to know a lot of nice people in the hostel, and so, saying goodbye today, was really hard. :/ Most of the time in the hostel I spent with Julia. She’s a 23- year- old German girl from Aschaffenburg and is also on holidays. Another really nice guy is called Chris and he was from Italy (Rimini). I hope that I will catch up with many of these nice people again one day. At 10 o’clock in the morning I got my shuttle to the airport. After I had arrived at the airport I checked-in and boarded on my airplane. It was just in Fijitime (30 minutes delayed) . After my arrival on the Fiji Islands in Nadi I got out and was so happy: 28°C outside. A music group played some Fijian music on the arrival and everybody seemed to be happy. I talked to some German girls and found out, that it seems to be quite common to make a trip around the world. Later I got to know some English girls, who will do the same trip on Fiji as me. I got all my tickets from Feejeeexperience, a necklace and we boarded the bus which took us to our hostel.

At the hostel we were welcome by really friendly „Bula Bula“ and I enjoyed a nice Fijian dinner.

 … Ika andd U’ru lolo

It was just delicious and a warm welcome. After that the girls and me went to the pool  and we enjoyed a really nice time.

Tomorrow my trip will continue to Mango Bay. Let’s see what’s going on there.