Thank Goodness for Grilled Cheese!

My trip started off at 6am on Sunday. I had a tearful goodbye with my parents. The night before we celebrated my farewell at a Bonnie Raitt concert and my dad made one of his special meals – was a great night! I met up with Kerry in Atlanta and then we flew to LA. We had 12 hours to kill in LA so we ended up getting a hotel room to relax, take showers and eat. Mind you, we each were lugging around 120 pounds of luggage. It was ridiculous and so expensive. We finally boarded our flight to Fiji at like 11 that night. We hadn’t slept at all so we were so exhausted and slap happy that they kept calling passenger with the last name “Hairbutt” to the counter and we were hysterically laughing. I slept the entire plane ride to Fiji- I didn’t even get up to pee. It was 11 hours.
So we arrived on the main island at like 5am on Tuesday. Monday never existed for me- so weird! Luckily the airport let us leave most of our luggage their so we didn’t have to lug that around. It wouldn’t even have been possible. The way it works is you get on a large ferry and then when you get close to your island, a tiny boat comes up to the ferry to collect you and your luggage. I have no idea how my suitcase didn’t end up in the water. The only thing on each of the islands is the one resort that’s on it.
The first island we stayed at was called Beachcomber – its known as the party island however we were apparently there the wrong time of year. We were completely wired when we got there at 9am so we decided to relax on the beach with some Coronas - $10 a piece! We met some yachties from New Zealand on the island who took us snorkeling and let us hang out on their sailboat – awesome snorkeling. I had wanted to go diving there however the “divemaster” was some local guy who didn’t even look like he knew how to swim. At night we went to get ready to go out and the water in our room wasn’t working so we went to front office and they upgraded us to a huge suite on the beach literally 10 steps from the water. Turns out the water on the entire island wasn’t working so they handed out liters of bottled water to bathe with. Classy. The next day was more of the same mixed in with some kayaking. The food at this place was horrendous. One of the days, Kerry and I ate grilled cheese sandwiches for all 3 meals because it was the only thing edible. One thing that was strange at this place was that even the staff didn’t really know what to do with themselves. Somehow they managed to get a bulldozer on the island and were constantly driving that thing around (in the middle of people sunbathing) for no reason. They didn’t have anything to bulldoze. We were quite amused by this.
After 2 days at Beachcomber we went to Manta Ray Island. This island was gorgeous. And our room was pretty cute – we actually had nets on the beds to keep the bugs out. The only downfall was communal bathrooms with ice cold showers. Oh and this island was very eco-friendly so they didn’t have any type of plumbing. The toilets were like gigantic holes – needless to say, the island was quite foul smelling. The snorkeling was even better at this place. Once again I wanted to go diving but the divemaster at this resort has some love affair with another patron going on and he couldn’t be bothered. He was such a creep. Anyways, we were there 2 days as well. And the food at this place was delicious. We were so famished by the time that we go there after surviving on grilled cheese for 2 days that we thought we had struck gold.
I’m glad I got to go to Fiji but I think it was a one time experience for me. I was surprised by this but there was not much to do. I read 3 books in the 5 days we were there. We met some cool people – all backpackers and several who we might meet up with again in Australia. So that was Fiji…the start of the adventure!
Pics will follow soon...