Bula and Welcome to Fiji !!!

The 26th of November we left to Fiji (Nadi) from LA. We travelled two days in time and arrived the 28th of November. Luckily the flight was only about 10 hours :-) The Fijians are said to be one of the friendliest people in the world, and indeed they are!! We flew to the biggest island of Fiji, namely Viti Levu. Upon our arrival, we were welcomed (it was 5.45 in the morning!) by a group of Fijian gitar players singing the "Bula" or "Welcome" to Fiji song. However, we had to fly with a propellor plane (ahh..) to 2 other islands, firstly Savu Savu and then to our final arrival point Taveuni. The views were really stunning as we could see all the different islands, colours of water and reefs!

Taveuni is a beautiful tropical island, thick with vegetation and tropical flowers. Therefore it is also called the 'Garden Island'. It has only 12.000 people living on it and is 42 kilometers long and about 11 kilometers wide. Actually we've chosen to go to this island because there are not many tourists and resorts. You really got the oppertunity to see how the real Fijians live. Well, for the first night we reserved a 'bure' or a typical Fijian home. We were picked up by a friendly guy and he drove us to our place (which was 5 minutes from the airport). This was actually in someone's garden! We were welcomed by a girl who was working there. The "bure" was great and even had an outside shower with ocean view. For the rest there was actually nothing, even not a specific city centre. It was quite a culture shock because we just came from busy LA to the middle of nowhere. But, we were quickly adapted again... finally a little bit of relaxing!

We decided to take on a walk to find something to eat and ended up in a rain storm. But we had a great lunch, cooked by a very friendly (again) Fijian lady. For dinner we ended up in a different place called "Coconut Grove." It supposed to be a restaurant, but again it seemed like we were eating inside someone's home. We had to remove our shoes and were welcomed by a group of gitar players sitting on the floor. There were two other couples and that was it. This was the first evening when we experienced the 'KAVA'. Well, we had to sit around the group of gitar players and around a bowl of some sort of 'mud'. Then, we were invited to drink this mud from a little bowl that was passed on from one person to the other. You had to clap once before drinking, and then finish with three claps. Everyone had to drink it, because it was seen as an insult if you didn't do that. Hesitantly we drunk it as well. It really tasted like bitter, mud water and was far from a treat! It was really weird because it made your lips and tongue numb. Luckily this was normal...

Kava is actually a kind of narcotics, namely a tranquilizing, non-alcoholic drink that numbs the tongue and lips. It comes from the waka (dried root) of the pepper plant. Fijian people drink it very often and it is used in ceremonies as well. They also believe that is has medicinal and relaxing purposes. When another girl explained to us that it was completely normal, we were a little bit more relaxed... One good advice: Always check about people's cultures and habits before travelling to the country ;-)

The food was great and really fresh! We had a chat with another couple and asked them why there were not so many people on Fiji. Then it turned out that there was a negative travel advice for Fiji because of a military coup... We walked back in the dark to our bure and had to hurry otherwise the electricity would be cut off. And then we were actually UNPLEASANTLY surprised by a giant spider as big as a person's hand!! When we made a picture of it, its eye reflected in the camera... so you have an idea how big it was. We had to catch it (actually Sois had to, hihi) because the electricity (and light!!) would be turned off in about 8 minutes. But, my spider man managed to do this and we could safely go to sleep after all...