Fiji - 27.01.2013 - 19.02.2013

On the 27th of January in the late afternoon i arrived at the airport of Nadi, which is a small town on the main island Viti Levu of Fiji. In the airplane they had told us all the time that it was going to rain, which was not really encouraging. But when i came out of the airplane i smiled so much, because a nice band was playing music. This is exactly how i had always imagined an island like this in the past.

band playing at Nadi airport in Fiji to welcome the arriving people

I had not planned or booked anything before i arrived at the airport. So when i came out of the airport a friendly girl walked towards me and asked me what i was planning to do in Fiji. I told her that i was just looking for an accommodation for this night. So she led me to some of the local travel agencies at the airport.
The woman from this travel agency recommended me a nice hostel at the beach for about 33 fiji Dollars (1 Fiji Dollar is about 0.4 euros), where i would also get breakfast. When i arrived at the hostel i was just in time to see the sunset. To be honest i would not have imagined the beach of Nadi like this, because people always told me that the big main island was the ugliest of all.

sunset at the beach in Nadi

On my second day at Nadi (the 28th of January) i went a bit to the beach. There were some nice horses at the beach.
Some horse riders offered rides for hotel guests of the hotel next door. One of the riders talked to me,
very friendly and wanted to give me a free ride on one of this horses. I somehow did not want to reject this offer so i jumped on one of the horses and we went for a small ride along the beach.

horses at the beach of Nadi

After the ride, the rider he asked me whether i would like to come with him to the mountains the next day,
where he lives for another horse ride. Someone had told me before that the mountains/ inland of the main island was very beautiful, and i wanted to see it so i accepted his offer.

After this nice ride along the beach, i went to back to my hostel, but got bored quite soon, so i decided to go for a small walk along the beach. While i walked along the beach i saw a girl sitting there stearing at the sea. She was sitting there so alone and lonely, so i decided to talk to her.  The girl told me that she was from Australia and had been in a fight with her boyfriend, which is why she was now sitting here to calm down a bit. We talked for maybe half and hour or and hour. During our conversation i asked her whether she knew any good and cheap places where i could perhaps go for dinner. So she recommended me a restaurant called "The Horizon", which is also a cheap backpacker hostel.
After our conversation i went back to my hostel and then i tried to find the place called "Horizon".
When i arrived at the Horizon there were only tables with couples and exactly one table without couples.
Because i didn't want to sit with the couples i asked whether i could joint the none-couple table. The people at this table were very nice. At this table there was a girl from sweden and she asked me whether i would like to come with her 2 days later to an island called "Mana". I like spontanous decicisions so, i told her that i would come with her. She gave me her number and we decided to meet again on the next evening.



On the morning of the 29th of January i got picked up from my hostel, and someone brought me with a car to the house of the horse rider in the mountains. After my arrival in the mountains, the rider welcomed me at his house in the mountains, and we started to ride. We rode through very beautiful landscapes, which probably 99% of the tourists who come to fiji, will never ever see, because they just hang out in their hotels at the beach.

the inland/mountains of Fiji

Somewhere on the top of a hill we stopped, and my guide took a foto of me sitting on the horse. For the first part of the ride he was guiding the horse, so i didn*t have to do much. But on the way back i was allowed to ride the horse all by my self :), which worked quite well, because the horses were trained quite well.

me on a horse in the mountains of the main island Viti Levu

In the middle of our trip we stopped at a river in the middle of nowhere, where i went swimming in the river. The horses could take a small break as you can see on the picture down below and eat some gras. Well the horse i was riding loved eating gras. It was eating all the time during the ride ...

horse eating gras in the mountains of Viti Levu

After the ride the man who guided me through this beautiful landscape invited me to his home and offered me some nice lunch. His ancestors are from India so they gave me something typical Indian, which was also vegetarian. I really enjoyed this trip to the mountains. But the trip also gave me a different view on the inland of Fiji. On my trip i saw some poor people and houses, but i didnt take any photos of it because i would have found it disrespectful.
If people tell you that all the citizens from Fiji are rich, this is not true, they just don't see the real country if they sit around in their expensive hotels all day.

I returned from my horse ride on the at around 4 pm i guess. After this nice trip i set down in on of the cafes at the beach, were i accidently met the girl from sweden, who i had met the night before. She told me that she would pick me up later from my hostel, and we might go to some of the clubs in the town of Nadi.
At this evening i waited for her to pick me up. But she didn't show up. So i decided to walk to her hostel, maybe something or someone had crossed her way. You never know.
Finally i went to her hostel, and there she was sitting and talking to a girl from India and a guy who is originally from Fiji. The guy told me that he is a pilot here at fiji, and does flights with smaller airplanes for lets say "private costumers". The girl from India was her friend and she came all the way from India to visit him. We talked for a while and then went to a bar next door called 'bamboo'.

Road Trip around Viti Levu - 30.01.2013 - 3.02.2013

On the 30th of January at around 9 o'clock i went over to the horizon hostel, where we should get picked up for our boat to Mana island. I was surprised to see the girl from India again, she was coming with us, which was really nice. After all we got picked up and were brought in a car to the ferry.
At this day the sea was quite rough lots of waves, and the boat which should bring us to Mana was not the biggest. During the boat ride it was shaking a lot. And then suddenly after maybe 15 minutes a chines woman on board started to throw up all over the floor of the boat. The smell was disgusting. We were driving for another 45 minutes, until i realized that we were heading back to the main island Viti Levu. I was a bit sad that they cancelled the whole trip.
So they refunded us our money and brought us back to the hostel. After we got back to the hostel in Nadi, the Indian girl told me that she wants to call her friend so he might perhap take her to pacific harbour with the car.
I was not sure what to do, whether to wait a day and try to go to Mana again, or go to another Island or whatever. But then an opportunity came up, and i took it. The girl from India and the fijian guy asked me whether i would like to come to Pacific Harbour with them. Spontaneous as i am i decided to say goodbye to the girl from Sweden and to come with them.
This is how or road trip around the main island started and how me, the indian girl and the fijian became friends :).

So on the first day we headed towards Pacific harbour. On the way we stopped at several nice beaches along the west coast of the main island viti levu like the one you can see in the picture down below.

lonely beach on the way to pacific harbour

beach on the way to pacific harbour

In the late afternoon we arrived in Pacific harbour. Because it was quite late already we decided to look for a room in a place called ''arts village''. Arts village is a beautiful small ''town'', which contains the remains of the old english colony. For this night as i said, we stayed at a hostel in ''arts village''. The interesting thing about it is, that we were the only guests in this very large hostel. The hostel itself was a bit spooky and inside the hostel there were some strange paintings. The bathroom in this hostel was large and empty and reminded us a bit of the bathrooms in Hogwards.

garden of  Arts village

On the next day, we decided to leave arts village, and decided to go to a hostel 10 minutes away from there, which was directly at the beach. The name of this hostel was ''Uprising''. We stayed in this hostel at the beach for 2 nights until we continued our journey to Suva, the capital of Fiji.

the beach at pacific harbour (as seen from the uprising hostel)

In Suva we stayed with a local for one night. During the day we visited the museum in Suva which was
quite interesting.
This night we went clubbing a lot, to many different clubs...
it was really fun, but im not going into further details here ;) .
On the next day we went on to a place called 'Katalana', which is famous for the fact,
that you can go watching dolphins there.

the sea as seen from the resort in katalana

We stayed there for one night. On the first day we were just chilling in the resort. On the second day in the morning we went for a small hike to a waterfall.At this watefall there was a rope which you could use to jump into the water , like tarzan :).

me swinging into the water like tarzan

On the way back from the waterfall, we saw some wild pinnaple growing in the bush.

wild pinnaple on the way back from the waterfall

After we had returned from the waterfall it started raining horribly. It rained so strong that you could barely see whats some meters infront of you. Nevertheless one of my friends wanted to go and watch dolphins.
So we went down to the beach where a boat should pick us up. The boat didn't show up, so we decided to take some of the kayaks, and drive on the water. Because we had no paddles we used palm leaves as paddles which worked excellent :).


Market of Ba 04.02.2013
After our stay in Katalana we returned to the north of the island Vitit Levu, to the home town Ba of my friend. On the next day , the 4th of February, we went to a local market in Ba to buy something to eat. This market looked really interesting, and very colorful. We cooked something to eat and then, i cannot remember, maybe we watched a movie or something.

the market in Ba

the market in Ba

Ba - 05.02.2013
On our second day in Ba we were planning what to do next. It's long time ago so i cannot remember everything. I just know that we decided to go back to Nadi on the next day. This day, the 5th of February, was the day before the Tsunami warning. At this day, we drove around, with the car, and saw a rainbow.
We were talking about the meaning of the rainbow, and that in the bible the rainbow is a promise from god that he would never flood the earth again.What i didn't realize when i took the picture is, that on the photo, it looks like the tree was a figure, pointing at the rainbow.

rainbow on the day before the Tsunami warning

In the evening we went to the river of Ba to see the Sunset, which was amazingly beautiful, the red colors were undescribable.

sunset at the river of Ba

Tsunami - 06.02.2013
On the 6th of February we headed back to Nadi, because my friend from India had to return to India on the 8th. On the way to Nadi we got a warning for the Tsunami. I remembered the rainbow from the day before, and reminded my friends, that this might be a promise by god. Nevertheless i proposed to go to higher ground, where it is save. So at this time we were in Lautoka, where we drove to a small mountain, to wait for the Wave to arrive. But we were lucky, because there was no wave at all.

me and my friends waiting for the tsunami wave to arrive, in the "highlands"

So after this small adventure, we went to Nadi, where we stayed in a hostel for two nights. In the first night, we were just hanging out around the beach. In the second night we went clubbing in some of the clubs in Nadi, which was quite fun. The fijian people are having so much fun, dancing, they are not as stiff as europeans.

Mana Island - 08.02.2013 - 12.02.2013

On the 08th of feb I started a new try to reach mana island. This time the sea was very calm and the boat was a lot faster than the last time. On the boat to mana island I met 2 guys from norway and 3 german girls. I had planned 4 nights in total, because there was a special offer with "stay 4 nights, pay 3" . Most of my time on the island I spent with these people, although sometimes I didnt feel 100% comfortable around them, especially the german girls, because they were a lot younger and so a bit immature.

On my first day at mana island I met some people who went snorqling at one of the coral reefs around the island. I decided to join them because I found this a good way to find some snorqling locations. For the snorqling we went to a lonely beach on the other side of the island :).  It was quite nice to snorql at that beach :). Here some pics.

We even saw some tiny baby sharks. During my time on mana I went snorqling almost every day, but I never saw a bigger shark. Probably, because I never went to where the water is getting deeper. I always stayed above the coral reefs where it's shallow. Bigger fishes don't go there, which is why all very small fishes stay there. The corals keep them safe. People told me that the big sharks weren't dangerous and there had never been a shark attack in fiji,  but nevertheless I didn't want to meet one. I don't trust these animals.

I originally had planned to stay in mana for 4 nights. In the beginning I wanted to visit an other island perhaps, but then I realized that there wasn't enough time left and it would have costed me a lot of money to get to other islands. So I decided to stay one more night at mana and instead do a small half day trip to that island where they had made that castaway movie in the past. I went to the castaway island on my 4th day. The trip was really fun. First we went snorqling around the island. Then we went for a small hike up to the,mountain top. On the way back, we realized that there were lots of coconut trees on the island. We also saw some small trees growing out of the nuts on the ground:

me on the mountain top of the castaway island

young palm tree growing out of a coconut

We tried to pick some coconuts from the trees by throwing nuts from the ground against the nuts on the trees. It worked once for me. Some nuts from the ground were also good. I took one of them too.