While I definitely enjoyed the pretty islands through the Yasawas, it was the bus tour through Viti Levu that I was really looking forward to. The itinerary for the Feejee Experience bus sounded awesome, and I was ready for more action and less lying around in hammocks.
We’d had our one recovery night back in Nadi, and the little blue Feejee bus came to pick us up at 7:30 the next morning.
Day 1 Nadi, Nadatoli Beach, Sandboarding, Mango Bay Resort, Kava, & Hermit Crab Races
We had about 18 people on our trip, all around our own age. Our driver’s name was Eliza, and he was fairly quiet, but our guide Emi was so cool and full of energy and she kept us entertained.
Our first stop was downtown Nadi. We’d spent two separate nights at our Nadi hostel, but we hadn’t actually seen the city yet (or any Fijian city for that matter). We had an hour or two on our own to wander around the town markets and do a little shopping.
We picked up a few large bottles of water since we’d been told the tap water at our next resort was not drinkable, two Fiji sarongs to wear on our village visit in a couple of days, some gorgeous wooden carvings (a turtle with a beach and huts carved into it for us, and a beachscape for my parents), a tropical shirt for Lewis, and lunch for me since I wasn’t willing to pay the $10 for the group beach barbecue at our next stop when I knew I’d barely be able to eat any of it. Nadi itself is not too impressive. I wouldn’t say it’s an overly rundown city, but it’s still developing.
I had been excited to get away from beaches after the last week of our travels, but of course our next stop was a beach. Specifically Nadatoli Beach, apparently at some pointed voted one of the world’s best 10 beaches by Forbes. I don’t know why. I can think of ten beaches off the top of my head that are better than Nadatoli. I would even say the beaches on the islands the week before were better. Oh well.
It did have size going for it. It was huge. A third of it curved around a nice resort, another third was on the straight bit where we’d stopped, and the last third curved back around by some forests and trees. The waves were really high. I mean, it was a nice enough beach, but it was an overcast day and we were stuck there for three hours. We laid out and read books for a bit, joined the group for lunch, and took a couple walks down both sides of the beach. They had horseback riding available, but I didn’t have money for that.
I was excited to get back on the bus and head to the Sigatoka sand dunes for some sandboarding. There was one steep, sandy hill that we all took turns riding down. I knew from my previous sandboarding experience in Oz that the fun of sliding down is slightly hampered by the exhausting walk back to the top. Due to that, most people only went down once or twice (we did it two times to get the most out of being there).
Our final stop for the night was our resort, Mango Bay. Lewis and I had opted to book private rooms through the whole tour, and I’m so glad we did! Our accommodation was a million times nicer than everyone else who had booked dorms at every stop.
At Mango Bay, we had our own little safari cabin. The porch was out back looking at the forest, and the inside was a cute hut with a straw roof. The bathroom was not fancy (there wasn’t even a curtain on the shower), but we were psyched to have hot water. The bedroom had a wooden floor, canopy bed, and dim lighting. I liked it.
We took a quick shower and rushed over to the main lodge since the kava ceremony was meant to start at 6, and it was already 6:15. That was no worry as I had clearly forgotten what country I was in, and they’d pushed it back to 6:45. We went back to chill in the room, came back to the lodge early, saw that nothing was going on yet, and went to explore the resort.
Mango Bay was really nice. There are walkways beneath the very tall palm trees which connect the bures, cabins, and buildings. Frogs were jumping all along the paths. The dining hall has a bar, stone tiki statues, a pool table, and a separate room with booths. There’s a pool out front and a small beach where we took a minute to sit in the chair hammocks and just enjoy looking out over the still water.
We went back to the room with the booths then and decided to kill time by making use of their shelf of board games. I kicked Lewis’s ass twice at Connect 4 and once at Jenga before we realized that our entire group was sitting next door in the dining room with drinks waiting for us. Oops. We had been waiting around for the kava ceremony, but apparently that had been postponed until whenever at Fiji Time PM.
Our meals didn’t come until after everyone else’s since we were late, but I got the best pina colada ever and we finally got to know some of the others on our tour. After the meal, we all went back to the booth room for hermit crab racing.
They had a collection of ten numbered hermit crabs, each representing a country with names to match. The guy leading the race took bets on each crab which took ages. People would put money on each crab and we’d have to wait until he talked it up to the highest bidder. First and second place would each get money. I think they made it up to $200 on the first pot. (I also think I opted not to bid my dwindling money on a hermit crab.)
There was a pit in the middle of the room, and we all crowded around while the crabs were dumped into the center of a chalk circle. The first two to cross the line would win.
They held another race after, but I was too busy playing with the contestants to pay attention to the bidding process. I must have had some bad karma built up from abandoning my homeland, because USA crab pinched me.
It was finally time for the kava ceremony after the last race. To explain kava… well, I still kind of don’t understand the point of kava. It’s a drink made from the kava plant used socially and ritually in Fijian culture. It’s not alcoholic, but apparently if you drink enough of it, it causes paralytic and numbing effects. Why is that enjoyable? I don’t know. I asked a million questions and still don't get it.
We all went and sat outside near the surf shop in a circle. I was next to Emi who was in charge of making the kava (which apparently she is no big fan of drinking). Basically, they put a bunch of water in this big wooden bowl, then they wring the kava plant in so that it turns a murky brown color. Going around the circle, everyone takes turns drinking kava out of a coconut half-shell. You say “bula” before drinking, and you clap both before and after. Honestly, the taste wasn’t as bad as people say! If you’ve ever tried flax seed, that’s what it tasted like to me. We had two cups before heading off to bed.
Day 2 Namosi Highlands Rainforest Trek & Uprising Resort
We left Mango Bay and continued onward in the morning to our first and only activity of the day- a rainforest trek. It was absolutely the coolest activity of the trip though!
It was a rainy day, so it wasn’t too hot out, but it was wet. Lewis and I took off our jandals (I like that I was using NZ slang at this time so am going to leave that term in) and walked barefoot through the mud the entire way. I did fall behind a little due to sliding all over the place.
We walked through trees, climbed up and down hills, and crossed rivers. It was so pretty and so much fun. One of the Fijian guides (not from our bus) got to talking to me and Lewis and even invited us over that evening to partake in a kava ceremony with his family. We declined so we could stick with the group and so I didn’t feel paranoid about going off with a random local to an unknown destination, but it was nice of him to offer.
After about an hour, we reached our destination, a three-tiered waterfall in the middle of the jungle. From the bottom, you can only see the last bit of the waterfall which empties into a large pool. To get to the top, we climbed along a steep path to the side by grabbing onto ropes and trees. Up there was a longer waterfall, and you could climb up and jump off the side to the pool at the bottom. About half the group did, but I wasn’t feeling it. Not because of the jump- that part looked fun- but because I thought the water was cold.
Of course, on the walk back down, we walked through the water which included areas where it was rushing down pretty heavily, and I slipped and fully submerged myself anyway (think I tried drowning Lewis again for the second time in a week). I was sufficiently freaked out by that, so when the guide told us there were two ways to continue down at that point- back on the path the way we came or through the water- I took off for land with no hesitation.
At the bottom, I joined back up with the people who hadn’t been swimming at all and watched the rest of the group sliding down the natural rock slide over the waterfall and into the pool.
We took a different route back which was even better! It was all knee to waist-deep in a river surrounded by trees. We really were in the middle of the jungle. Such a cool feeling. That took another hour or so, then we waited in the water for a small motor boat to come pick us up. It brought us the rest of the way out of the rainforest, then we climbed out of the shallow water there to get back on the bus.
We headed straight to our next resort to spend the rest of the day relaxing. We had been told that this place, Uprising Resort, was the nicest that we would stay in on the trip. Well, it exceeded even what I was expecting! It’s the nicest place I’ve EVER stayed.
Lewis and I were meant to stay in a garden bure, but they were booked full that night, so the staff upgraded us to a garden villa. A guy came to walk us there, and he took us around this path up to the back door of what looked like a house. He opened it up, showed us inside, and my mouth just dropped. I think one of the first things I said was, “This is all for us?” It was amazing!
There were three little rooms all connected with sliding doors. We had walked into the living area which included a kitchenette, wraparound couch, and revolving TV/mirror which could be flipped between the bedroom and living room.
The bedroom had a gigantic king bed.
The bathroom was almost as big as the bedroom and was really sleek looking. There was a sliding glass door crossing both the living room and bedroom which led outside to our front porch looking out over a garden neighborhood full of identical villas. It was like a little utopia. We knew the Polish guy rooming in the house next to ours and kept waving at each other from our porches like neighbors.
But that’s not all. Finally, the guy showing us our room goes, “Oh, and let me show you your outdoor shower,” and I nearly lost my shit. That is a feature from my dream house!! I’d never even had the opportunity to use one and now we were staying in this gorgeous private villa with our own freaking outdoor shower! How is my life real? (I'm easy to impress.)
There was this alcove out back with tiled floors and cobblestone walls, plants, a little bench built into the side of the house, and the palm trees outside visible over the top. I took a shower immediately (like, after the guy left, of course), and it was beautiful.
After satisfactorily freaking out over the place, we headed to lunch where we could make everyone in the basic dorms jealous. I got nachos, cheesy garlic bread, and a fantastic cocktail composed of butterscotch schnapps, Baileys, almond liqueur, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate and strawberry syrup.
We also explored the rest of the resort which was very nice. There was an outdoor dining and bar area, a long private beach, and a pretty pool with huge circular lounge chairs around it.
It was a rainy day, but I was excited to have an excuse to just stay inside and enjoy the hell out of our unbelievable accommodation. I took yet another shower, we had coffee out on our front porch, used wifi which we hadn’t had in six days, then after dinner we brought back cocktails to drink in the bathtub. Sleeping on the bed that night was like sleeping on a cloud. It was all just fantastic.
Day 3 Suva, Nasautoka Village, & Rakiraki
I was sad to say goodbye to our beautiful villa so quickly in the morning, but I took one more glorious shower (that’s three showers and one bath in 24 hours if you’re keeping tally) and very much enjoyed the breakfast selection the resort provided. Along with the basics, they also had things like pastries, rice, spinach, and an omelet station. It was a huge variety.
Our first stop of the day was Fiji’s capital city, Suva. We only had a half hour there, so we just stayed in the shopping mall. I grabbed replacement sunglasses for the ones I had lost to the rainforest river the day before, we picked up toys for the kids on our school visit later that day, and we got two really cool Fiji photo albums made of woven wood to hold some of our pictures from the trip.
We did a little Suva tour from the bus on the way out passing some government buildings like the president’s house, diplomat housing, and Parliament.
Before long, we reached our main destination for the day, Nasautoka Village. We were invited to a formal kava ceremony by the locals, so we changed into sarongs and covered our shoulders before going to stay outside the entrance to the town hall. We were greeted and given palm leaf necklaces, then we removed our shoes and waited to be invited inside.
We had been told to elect a chief, so we’d chosen a Canadian, Josh, from the bus, and he was invited in first followed by the men then us women. The hall was large and extremely bare. It had a straw mat covering the whole floor, plenty of windows, and white wooden walls. We lined up on the two opposite walls, and Josh sat with the village chief against the back wall. Closing the square in the middle were three young local guys with a large kava bowl. All of the other villagers who attended were sitting scattered behind them around the rest of the room, not in the circle.
This was very different from our informal ceremony a couple nights before. We all went to the front to shake hands with the chief, everyone was very quiet while we were being welcomed and the kava was made, and there was an added routine where another man came up behind the guys with the kava bowl, dipped in a long bamboo pole, and then the young guys would stand up and bring each of us a coconut in turn to drink from.
After we’d each had kava, we were told to relax and talk again. We shook hands with all of the locals in the room before heading back outside, then we were encouraged to buy crafts from the village ladies selling things on their tables. Apparently the only money from the outside that these women earn is from their crafts.
A bunch of women had been in the back room cooking lunch for us, so when that was ready, we headed back into the hall. They had plates and plates of food laid out over a long, narrow carpet, and we sat on the floor on either side to eat. It was traditional again, so no silverware.
It was a vegetarian’s dream! I could eat almost everything there. There was SO much spinach. One of the village guys joked (or not) that their mothers knew 33 different ways to cook spinach. We had spinach balls, spinach rolls, spinach pancakes, and more. It was all delicious. They also had fried eggplant, squash, taro, and kumara among other things. It was easily and by far my favorite meal in Fiji.
Afterwards, we headed down the road to visit the school. All of the kids were sitting out front, and they started singing as soon as we arrived. It sounded so happy.
We sat down and watched them perform songs and dances for us in groups by age and gender, then we each went up in front of the group to introduce ourselves and hand our gifts to the teacher to open later. They sang us a farewell song after, and we had about five minutes to sit and hang out. They all wanted photos with us!
I did also take a minute to wander into the schoolroom and check it out. They had crafts hanging up around the ceiling, and everything was oddly in English. They even had posters on the wall labeling the queen and a fact sheet about New Zealand.
After the school visit, we walked to the river to do some traditional bilibili rafting. Thankfully we were allowed to take our sarongs off, but the girls unfairly had to keep our shoulders covered while the boys were welcome to go shirtless.
The rafts are made of long bamboo poles tied together. We had about five people on each raft spread out down the length as well as a guide at the back rowing with a long pole. The raft did very little to keep us dry. It sinks into the water, so your bottom half is soaked.
We rowed down the pretty river surrounded by green jungle for about twenty minutes, and everyone else on my raft decided to jump off and swim, but I had honestly had enough of water activities at this point in time and opted to stay semi-dry.
After banking on the shore, we headed back to the town hall one last time for a formal ceremony to wish us farewell and thank us for visiting. It was all such a nice experience!
We headed straight to our final hotel after, Rakiraki. It was nothing too special. The rooms were all in a separate building motel style and looked like any basic hotel room. I had a pretty average pizza at dinner with everyone, then we all had cake to celebrate a couple birthdays. We had an early night.
Day 4 Udre Udre, Sabeto Mud Pools, & Nadi’s Hindu Temple
We had one last big activity left that I was looking forward to, but first there were a couple small stops on the way.
We learned about the last cannibal king of Fiji, Udre Udre, who ate over 800 people (possibly upwards of 900!) in his life. The man actually holds the Guinness World Record for “most prolific cannibal” because that’s a thing. Emi told us that the tribe would sound the warning with their drums when he was hungry, and that was the cue to run away as far as possible. This was just in the 19th century, not even that long ago in the grand scheme of things. Apparently, there was the belief that eating 1000 people would have granted him immortality. Sadly for him and luckily for his human prey in Fiji, he died before reaching that goal, and we stopped to visit his grave.
We also stopped for photos at a pretty overlook by the water where you could see the outcrops along the border of Viti Levu coming out into the sea.
Finally we reached the Sabeto mud pools, the activity I had most been looking forward to. I don’t know why. I like to get dirty, I guess. Emi brought out a few buckets full of mud, and we just covered ourselves in it. We looked like swamp people.
We let it dry in the sun which didn’t take long at all, then we stepped into the pool to wash off. The mud pool was simultaneously gross and cool. The water was all murky brown, and your feet just sank straight into all of the thick, goopy mud at the bottom. It went halfway up our calves.
I had been very thorough in coating myself, so it was a bit of a task getting it all off. Once we were acceptably clean, we went to the next pool over, a hot pool. This would have been a lot nicer if it weren’t also sweltering outside. As it was, the water was scorching. I believe it was 46 degrees C which would be 114 Fahrenheit. It was too hot to enjoy really, and we hopped out soon after.
They took us back to Nadi to drop us off for the last time afterwards, but since I had been wanting to see this Hindu temple in the city, Emi and Eliza said they’d drive me and Lewis back since they were already taking another girl to the bus station anyway. So we dropped our luggage at Smugglers Cove and then headed into town.
The temple was cool. It was surrounded by a fence with peacocks on it, and it was all so colorful. We paid $5 entrance and they gave us pretty sarongs to wear. I don’t quite know how to describe the temple itself. There were so many columns, detailed ceilings, purples, blues, reds, oranges, greens, and so on, and shrines both inside and outside that you can donate and pray at. An Indian guy approached us and explained some of what we were looking at. The last thing he took us to was a statue of a calf where you’re meant to whisper a wish in its ear and it will be granted.
We caught a cab back to Smugglers Cove afterwards, checked Lewis into the dorm, showered, bought some touristy tank tops at the souvenir shop, then went outside for a nice meal at a table right next to the beach while the sun was setting.
Well, it was nice until I felt something drop onto me out of the tree and reached up to brush it out of my hair. It was stuck, so I had to fully drag it through with my fingers at which point I looked down and realized it was a GIGANTIC FUCKING COCKROACH. On my hand. About the full length of my fingers and clinging to me with its disgusting legs. AAAHHH. I shook my hand very violently a few times until I flung it off, then it flew straight onto Lewis’s shirt before he was able to send it off towards one of the straw huts. Too late though. Damage done. I spent the rest of my meal highly on edge.
I packed my things afterwards, and Lewis took a cab with me to the airport. We said goodbye there (although they were offering a few hundred bucks and a free night of accommodation if I’d bump my flight to the next day… sadly, I had made plans to surprise my parents, so I couldn’t really consider that), and I caught my flight back to the US on Fiji Air. It’s a nice airline! They give you a flowery pillow and soft blanket, and they play calming music through takeoff. I was stuck in a middle seat on the middle section and still didn’t have a terrible flight.
I had a wonderful time in Fiji, especially on this second half of the trip, but I hadn’t seen my country, family, or friends in 20 months at this point, so I was even more excited to finally go back home.
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