Travellers Beach Resort Nadi

... to feel sorry for these poor islanders, but that in reality, these are some of the happiest children in the world. <br><br>After nine days in Fiji, I'm convinced it is one of the most beautiful places in the world, with a rich and inspiring culture and some of the happiest, most loving people I have ever met. We met such great friends along the way and plan on meeting up with many of them in the months to come. It is so refreshing to meet ...

... was at the hotel tonight. I had a salad, Mongolian beef, and probably the best vanilla ice cream that I have ever tasted! And for those of you who complain about slow service in the states... you should come to Fiji... it always takes about an hour to get our food... "Fiji time."<br><br>Now we are just lounging in our hotel. As I am typing, all the New Zealand rugby guys are partying it up outside ...

... here seem to take some pride in doing a good job rather than the minimum expected. That's the main problem with getting back-packers to work at your hostel for free board. The work sure does suffer. Look at me; I arrive in a beautiful island paradise and it just makes me whinge about places that aren't beautiful island paradises. There's a nasty English habit I shall be looking to shed along with my pasty-white skin. <br> <br><br> <br><br> On my first full day in Nadi ...

... was in the wrong pile - but the bag was found. All good. Haha, had to squat on the little boat as there were no seats. Chilled on the beach. Watched the English people play cricket - surprise surprise! Chilled, had dinner, played games. This morning, we snorkelled with WHITE TIPPED REEF SHARKS!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh so cool!!! Got a little bit restless with the beach - so SEWED Em's dress and planned New York and LA. That evening, the Bula Boys did a Bula Show. SOOO good. They ...

... took a taxi to the airport. We were already running a bit late, but when we arrived, David realised he had left one of his bags at the hotel. We dashed back for it, but the taxi driver stopped off twice to buy cigarettes and bread! Didn't he realise we were in a hurry?!? I know Fijians are relaxed, but this was just silly! We got back to the airport to find a huge queue because check in had only just opened, so as it turned out we were OK. We took off and 4 hours later arrived in Sydney.

... and waiting to be the first in line! As you can tell, our days pretty much revolved around food! If the weather was bad there wasn't that much to do on tiny islands so meal times were a big event! I did 2 summit walks, one on Kuata which was MUCH harder than the staff let on, and the other on coral view. The views from the top were definitely worth it though! I also got the chance to do a cave snorkeling trip! One of the girls in the group ...

... really big!) hostels! yes! i checked into my 14 bed dorm--the largest dorm i've stayed in throughout my travels--and ended up chatting it up with some of the girls staying in the room with me. they were heading to dinner at one of the bigger hostels next door that had a good (and cheap!) restaraunt and invited me to join them. i was stoked 'cause i was tired of eating by myself and it sounded like fun. i ended up ordering a pina colada and my god, it was one of the best ...

Jamie´s charged with writing about our time in NZ in March, so whilst he gets on with that fairly mammouth task I am just going to plow on with what we´ve been doing since NZ in an attempt to catch up. Before I get into Fiji though, I just want to digress a little bit and mention The List. Jamie bought a notebook somewhere in Vietnam to write down... well, anything I suppose. After scribing down his colema song which he made up whilst we were in the Spa (those of you interested in Jamie´s ...

... spotting many varieties of fish including a school of long jawed mackerel. Soon we were down at 30 metres. There was a sort of chimney in the reef and we got to take turns swimming up through it. It was so cool! After this we ascended a few metres and swam around the reef for a while eventually making our way back up to the boat. That afternoon we had to study for our night dive that night and given the burnt skin we decided to head back to our room to study. We ...

... have their centuries-old land leases renewed, driving more and more to the ever-growing slums of Suva. The well-to-do ones emigrated to other countries. Today the number of Indo-Fijians has dropped to 36%. A couple of things are strikingly different as compared to the Indian Indians. Firstly, these guys are much more easy-going then their co-descendants from the sub-continent. The island air must have gotten to them or maybe it ...