The day of our departure from Mana Island, we received an E-Mail letting us know that our flight to L.A. has a delay of 10 hours and so instead of flying the next evening (Monday) we were supposed to fly Tuesday morning. As information in the internet were quite contradictory, Lawrence recommended us to go directly to the airport and ask. That was actually really handy, as Karl (from Wellington) arrived soon from Auckland, so we spontaneously decided to surprise him after talking to Fiji Airways. Fiji Airways clearly told us that our actual flight was cancelled, but also that we could take an earlier flight on Monday morning. Before we wanted to decide that, we went together with Karl for lunch and a cold beer and had a chat for 2 hours. He gave us a lot of tips for our travel through the States and offered us to ask a few friends in San Francisco whether they could host us. Again a short but amazing meeting with him!

After catching up with Karl, we decided to catch the flight the next morning, but unfortunately at this point the flight was booked out why we had to wait until Tuesday morning. But it’s not that bad and we were supposed to get a hotel close to the airport for that night. Back at Lawrence, we had a relaxed afternoon and went in the evening together with Dee to a fire show in one of the hotels.

Also the next day was full of relaxing and in addition the Canadian girls and the Californian guy from Mana came back and we chatted with them for a long time. In the evening, we had a farewell Kava from Lawrence and afterwards we drove to the airport to get a hotel for the night. As we arrived quite late, most of the people were already accommodated and we got a taxi to the hotel quite fast. Our hotel figured out to be further away from the airport than we would have been at Lawrence’s place. So the whole driving wasn’t really worth it, although we got a free dinner and an airport shuttle in the morning at 5.30, as our flight should depart at 8h.

Then the shock. An incredible amount of people tried to reach the check-in, and of course we were at the end of the queue including all the others of our hotel. But we had enough time and slowly the queue moved forward. Finally arriving at the counter, the fun continued. The nice lady already looked at us quite sceptic, just to tell us that the last seats in the plane were just given to another couple. WHAT??? She tried to push us in the business class, but there was only one seat left. So we went off to the service desk to get another flight. We were accompanied direction service desk by annoyed faces of 4 other Americans and 2 Norwegians, who were together with us in the hotel.

Again a long queue! At least, after one hour of waiting (the same time our flight departed) all of us received a voucher for food and drinks upon request. As there were no chairs in the service area, we tried to make ourselves comfortable in wheelchairs and played cards with two Americans. When it was finally our turn, we were told that the only possibility is to fly the next morning, so we got another hotel for the night. Shit happens!

At least the (btw really kind) man at the service desk offered us on request a nice resort close to the beach instead of an ugly transit hotel at the airport. After we talked with the others, he even put us all in the same resort and we got again food vouchers while the service employee organised the hotel. A second breakfast and an hour later, the shuttle to the hotel arrived.

This time a really nice resort including pool, big rooms and delicious lunch and dinner. We spent the most time at the pool together with the others and gained a few new friendships. There is always something positive in negative situations, and we didn’t have any time pressure either.

The next morning, the shuttle bus brought us to the airport and as promised the day before we were allowed to check in at the business class desk, which saved a lot of waiting. Finally (!), our flight to L.A. departed, where we found a couchsurfer during our time on Mana Island, but this is a new chapter!

The skipper of the jetboat is a friend of Dee, that’s why he picked us up from her house which is on his way. Once arrived, our last doubts were gone. We paid exactly what Dee told us and went on the boat. After one stop on another island we arrived at our destination Mana Island after approximately 1 hour and were welcomed by one of Lawrence’s cousins (who didn’t remember us in the beginning, he obviously had too much Kava 🙂 ) and they introduced us to all important rules on the island. We even got an upgrade to a private room, but together with a Tasmanian guy. Anyway, better than a dorm, as we had a private bathroom and shower for ourselves.

Everything else is told pretty quickly. After the first steps on the island you instantly feel completely relaxed. Breakfast was around 5m apart from the ocean, there was a hammock between two palm trees and surprisingly good food (of course nothing really extraordinary for such a cheap price) and a few casual activities (e.g. an awesome fire and dance show at our last evening). Besides lying on the beach, we walked once around the island (which takes around 2 hours), climbed up the sunset point for the sunset and rented a kayak in order to go to a small sand dune offshore the island.

Additionally, we got in contact with some very cool people. First the Tasmanian (who should be on the same flight to LA as the two of us), two Canadians (who were living at Dee as well), a Californian, a Texan and last but not least even one from Lapland. How funny is that? We had to go 25000km away, to meet someone from the northern Arctic Circle. We were quite happy that there were almost no Germans on the island.

For everything else just have a look on the pictures. After 4 unbelievable days we took the boat back to the main island to move in again in Lawrence’s place.

Abfahrt mit dem Jetboat / Departure with the Jetboat

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After three hours in the plane, we landed in Nadi, Fiji and were finally back in summer! We found a local couchsurfer, Lawrence, who wanted to pick us up from the airport, why we didn’t have an address of him. Unfortunately, the police at the customs wanted to know the address of our first night. He didn’t really accept the answer “we stay with a friend who picks us up”, so he took us in a little office and another policemen took care of us. Hi read our conversation with Lawrence and tried to call him, but without success. After a while he stopped trying and just wrote something weird on the immigration paper and we could continue. Lawrence was already there with a little sign, he took us out of the airport. There we found out that he didn’t have his own car (which is obviously very uncommon in Fiji) because suddenly a white minivan showed up and we were asked to enter. Of course we did, but we didn’t have much more choices…

That’s why we drove in the middle of night in a white van with two totally strangers in an unknown country. Sounds a bit scary? That’s what we thought as well. The driver of the van said “no worries, all people in Fiji are very friendly”. It didn’t really help to build up the trust 🙂 We tried to relax, as Lawrence had some good references and just followed the way on the GPS. Finally we arrived at a huge door to a quite big house and Lawrence showed us our room and directly wanted to welcome us with a traditional Kava ceremony. We heard something about this drink before, but the whole situation was still a bit suspect. First the slightly scary drive and then we should drink a completely unknown alcoholic drink? But then all clouds disappeared. Kava is no alcohol. It’s the crashed root of the Kava plant which is just added to water. Then everyone sits around a wooden bowl and one after the other drinks out of a small bowl out of the shell of a coconut. If you drink two of them, your tongue gets deaf, but besides that we couldn’t figure out another effect. It’s assumed to have a relaxing effect and makes you sleepy. Well we just did it and drunk a bit, of course we didn’t want to be rude or give them a reason to kick us out directly 🙂 It literally tastes like mud water, but Fijians love it anyway and many of them are kind of addicted to it. Other countries other ways..

During the evening we found out, that the house is actually owned by an Irish woman called Dee, who is married to a Fijian and lives there since 17 years. She rents out rooms of her house to Korean and Japanese students, who are in Fiji to improve in English. Additionally, Lawrence and a lot of his relatives live there, brothers, cousins etc. That’s why we got in contact with at least 20 other people while drinking Kava. Most of them work in one of the backpacker hostels on Mana Island, just coming to the main land every few days or weeks. You see it became quite late until we finally went to bed, but all sceptic was gone due to all the nice chats!

The next day, Lawrence showed us around in Nadi. We went to the handicraft market, the Hindu temple and purchased a SIM card (WiFi is incredible expensive here so nobody has it, but we had to do some organisational things…). Afterwards we went to the local market in order to buy some fish, vegetables and fruits. Lawrence wanted to make a traditional Fijian dish for us, and we needed some fresh fish for it. Let’s say it like that, in Europe you wouldn’t be able to call this fish fresh, because the storage was not really cooled… When we saw it we were a bit afraid that we’d get some problems with our stomach, but we can spoil a bit, nothing happened 🙂

Back at home we helped Lawrence preparing, which started with removing the hovel from the fish with a knife. We heard that it’s not very delicious to eat them… Fortunately the bowels were already removed 🙂 So we continued preparing the coconuts, which are essential for the coconut milk. We should grate three coconuts, obviously without the wooden shell. In order to make it the Fijian way, you sit on a wooden board with a small greater at one end. Then you take half of a coconut and rasp it into a bowl underneath. Quite primitive for European thinking, but a very interesting experience to do it by yourself. While Lawrence’s sister in law finished the fish in the oven, Lawrence showed us his hobby: He goes to competitions in coconut climbing, which includes harvesting them. He demonstrated us the technique and we could eat/drink the harvest 🙂 The fish came with a local kind of potato and we ate it typical Fijian with the fingers. Very delicious, maybe we can try that by ourselves one day.

We also planned our trip to one of the islands that day. We asked for one in Auckland at STA Travel, but they didn’t have anything for a good price, why we didn’t go on with this idea. We thought, it’s Fiji, it couldn’t be that bad on the main island. Unfortunately it is. There is nothing to do on the main island and the water there is grey and muddy. All postcard pictures are taken from the islands. So Dee made us an offer that we couldn’t resist. There is a hostel on Mana Island, which costs 55 Fijian $ per night, including three meals a day. After staying three nights, the fourth is even for free. That sounded pretty fair, but the next question was the transfer to the island, because we already knew that the regular ferry is 120$ per person one-way. But Dee had an answer on that as well. There is a local kind of speedboat, which takes up to 12 people for only 75$ per person. So we just did it and after a few phone calls Dee organized everything for us and the next morning we went off to the paradise for 4 days. But that’s a different story…

mit Lawrence auf dem Künstlermarkt / with Lawrence at the handicraft market

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