Grand Eastern Hotel Labasa

... might change hands for a job and we'd be off. It was getting dark and I was starting to get anxious but these guys were as cool as cucumbers. We finally made the pier for the delivery. But it as now after dusk. And the boat was no where in site. It started to sprinkle...... OK... now at this point I'm going to have to wait a bit before finishing. You see I just wrote a wonderful conclusion to this story and was typing the ...

... are moaning about it, just shows how mad the weather is everywhere at the moment. Saturday I booked onto a half day trip. This included visiting a market in the second city of Latouka. Once again there is a real feel of indian culture ( about 50% of fijians are of indian descent ) There were so many items of fruit and veg I certainly had never seen in Tesco !! The second part of the trip was to visit some gardens that are called "The Gardens of the Sleeping Giant ...

... while), lots of pasta and noodles and soup and COOKIES!, and all together three pairs of shoes (that seems like alot but one of the pairs of shoes cost 1.5 pounds, English Money.) On our way back we caught a bus, it was around 3 o'clock and the bus went a different way to usual. We stopped outside a school for 15 minutes while we waited for the children to finish and catch the bus. We could see them playing in the field and some of the children waved at us ...

... the bus isn't too hot, all the windows are open and it doesn't stop much. Some of the buses don't have windows, just canvas flaps for if it rains. Anyway, we made it to the right bus and got to our new hostel, by the beach for F$9, ALOT cheaper. This hostel is absolutely amazing. It is where "Celebrity Love Island" was set, I never watched it but apparently it was. There's writing on the walls in the dining / seating area where the "Celebrities ...

I arrived on the afternoon boat onto Beach Comber. Beachcomber is known as the party Island. It is really small and first people I bump into are Alexis and Alice, whom I bumped into in New Zealand! Beachcomber is famous for its 120 bed dorm but I ended up staying in a 34 bed dorm. It was ok, but I wouldn't leave anything valuable in the room. I had a shower and joined the girls ...

... s consisting of a large variety of coral and fish. But then we went to this wall called sunflower that was really special. It conisted of a plateau filled with all kinds of fish but the real treat was the 10m wall with all kinds of overhangs and caves. It even had some small swimthroughs at about 10m letting Jeff test his freediving skills while viewing all kinds of snapper and other shy and nocturnal reef fish. The grand finale was on the "sandbanks" which you ...

I was welcomed into the village community today at the sunday church service, a humbling experience, because I had not been paying much attention to what was happening as it was all going on in Fijian and I didn't understand a word that was being said. I was also still angry about the shooting comment from the previous evening. It took a while for me to realise that I was being addressed in English by the pastor, when ...

... through the window in the casket, of the deceased. I admit that I found that particular photo a strange request, but people remember in different ways, and it is not for me to judge which imagery is appropriate for the family to use for remembrance. I will send copies out to Fiji once I return home. It was strange in many ways, to take photographs of life at a funeral, but I was not only permitted, I was requested to do so. It was a humbling experience.

... of fun places to choose from...Tahiti(don't want to put up with the French)...New Caldonia(same and expensive to boot)...Niue(hard to get to)...talked to some Kiwis...Fiji wa sit. Found a wee resort on a distant island in the Yasawa group of outer Fijian islands and booked a resort called OCTOPUS..go there, it is wonderful. Getting there was a ***** though. Left Dunedin one morning,flew to Auckland and waited around the airport ...

Flew into Labasa and got picked up by the tribewanted crew to start my adventure. Go to www.tribewanted.com for more information on Vorovoro. Well Ive put a lot of detail into my pics so most of what Ive done can be gleamed from there. In summary i had a fab time and met some nice people and learnt alot about a totally new culture that surprisingly didn't take too long to get used to.