Beachouse Part 2 - What Actually Happened

As I've already mentioned, it took a while for me to get out of the resort and do something other than read my book and play volleyball, but these are the things that happened when I did venture out of the Beachouse:

A Trip into Sigatoka - My first excursion and Bart, Will and I caught the bus up to the nearest town which was Sigatoka. We caught the express public shuttle bus which was more modern than I expected - it had air con, the seats were comfy and they even had a Jackie Chan film playing on the TV! We arrived in the town centre and next to the bus station was the market where most fruit and veg were sold but also it was aplace to sucker in the tourists. I was luck not to be targetted that badly and I was only interested in buying a sarong and a Bula shirt (its a bit like a hawaiian shirt) in my attempt to blend in - I knew that I had to seriously work on my tan and get a very frizzy permto be truly authentic though! I was also surprised at the population of indians in Fiji - most of the shops were run by them.

As Will and Bart were getting their food shopping done, I bought some fijian cigars for Napoleon in the market. It was a great experience and I knew that Napoleon would appreciate the gift. The others were taking forever to get their shopping done so I said I'd meet them back at the Beachouse. I got the local bus this time and it took twice as long. It was great fun though - old men were singing and kids were saying hello to everyone we passed in the bus. After a while I was the only non-fijian on the bus and I got toknow the other passengers and what they did for work, etc. It was a unique experience and everyone was so friendly.

My First Kava Ceremony - They often set up the massage hut at the resort for the guests to experience kava for the first time. Its a very pleasant cermony: everyone sits in a circle on the floor and two people sit in the middle and prepare the kava and pass it around. Everyone has a drink and then usually 3 people get out guitars and a ukelele and sing songs until the chief announces the next round of kava. People can request either low tide or high tide which means how full the kava bowl is filled.

It was great fun and it was generally a weak mixture (the equivalent of Tesco Value Lager!) andno-one really felt any ill effects and, quite often, people said it had no effect on them. I soon learnt that it's actually great stuff!

The Rugby Match: Nadro v Suva - Sigatoka has the home ground for Nadro which is the namefor the Coral Coast region (as it was a regional match). Suva were the favourites as it is the capital city of Fijiand they generally have the wealth to buy the best players. It was a big occassion as it was one of the last games of the season and it was between the top 2 teams in the league. This meant that there were a lot of the Fijian National squad on display.

We were dropped off in Sigatoka to get any shirts,flags or bandanas for the game and also to have a bit of lunch. We had a long time to wait though and eventually we were taken to the stadium.

As the temperature was around 35 degrees celcius, I chose to sit in the pavilion which some might have thought was quite snobby but it was mainly for families who didn't want their children to get heatstroke or too dehyrated. I was glad I was in the shade too as the sun was very strong and 3 hours or so could have been the end of me. Eventually the match got under way and we cheered for the home team (because we didn't want to get beaten up) and I was amazed at the power and brutality of the way the Fijians play and ,to top it off, to be able to maintain that level of play in such sweltering heat! Nadro won in the end (15 -9) and the crowds were generally very well behaved.

On the journey back, everyone was dropped off at the liquor store to get some beers and by the time we got in the truck to go back to the resort, the drinking games had started - it was good fun but you tend to make more mistakes when drinking on an empty stomach - I was always caught out because of waving my Nadro flag out of the truck as the locals cheered at us.

Volleyball Tournament - Roger had organised a 2-on-2 beach volleyball tournament and I was teamed up with Tarkan - he was pretty useless but we had a lot of fun with it and it wasn't really that competitive. The wind was pretty strong too but that didn't bother me having played the last few years at Perranporth in Cornwall where the wind usually played volleyball for you!

We got to the final against Napoleon and Alex and they were just too casual - Napoleon seems to be able to get to the ball with minimal movement and while smoking a cigar!

Scuba Diving - Having not gotten off my arse to go snorkelling at any time, I decided to go one step further and do some scuba diving instead. My "buddy" for the diving was called Paul and he was staying at the Beachouse too. The company organising the diving was called Mikes Divers and it was dirt cheap.

I was surprised that when we went out in the boat we never had to go very far to get to a dive site - it was all so convenient. On the first dive we saw a lot of fish I haven't seen before such as batfish, lionfish and huge lobsters and some of the usual stuff like turtles. The dive master also found a golden coerie which is an extremely rare shellfish and was worth quite a bit of money - I don't know ifhe should have taken it back to the shore but he did anyway!

The second dive was more thrilling and it was at a site called Morgan's Wall - the visibility was about 15 metres or so and The first half was quite boring - there was virtually no aquatic life around. Then, all of a sudden, loads of thingsapproached us at once - there was a maori wrasse, a pregnant white tip reef shark and most frightening of all was a white banded sea snake which is the most venomous snake in the world! It was a good 15 mtres away from me though so I didn't need to expel any "ink"!

Jungle Trek - It was a sunday so the resort was offering no activities for the day. However, I had itchy feet and I was eager to do some form of exercise. Joe (from California) was also eager to do something and as he had already done the jungle trek with Jua a few days previously, he said he would take me to the waterfall track as he knew the way. Cheyenne (from Canada) also came with us.

It was a great trail and we had to cross alot of streams and pass through some bamboo forests that would creak eerily all the time. Joe was very good at remembering the information about the plants that he had been told about and their medicinal properties - it was interesting stuff.

When we got to the waterfall, it was more of a dribble as it hadn't rained for a long time. It was still possible to swim in it though and we cautiously dived in. It was refreshing but the water had become slightly stagnant and caterpillars and spiders crawled all over the rocks - I'm useless with creepy crawlies so I wasn't that adventurous at climbing up the waterfall! On the way back to the shore I bombed into the water and realised that it was really shallow and my bum disturbed all the leaves and twigs that had settled at the bottom. I only realised when I got back that quite a lot of the debris had gotten into the netting of my shorts and it looked like tealeaves in a strainer or teabag - I can't have imagined it would be a very tasty brew!

Bula Massage - To reward myself for the recent burst of activity, I had a full body massage which was provided by a couple of the village women. They were very good actually and they weren't very rough like the Thais. They used a lot of oils and having massaged my face, I had a bit of a greasy beard!

I was very relaxed after the massage and when I nipped into Sigatoka to get some beers and supplies later that day, I fell asleep on the truck!

Kava Ceremonies at the Village - As previously mentioned, a lot of people would make jewellry and stuff out of coconut shells but I decided to make my own kava bowl. I had been sanding down half a coconut for about 5 hours or more and I wouldn't stop until Napoleonsaid it was done. It was quite a good one by many standras and I could ell that Napoleon was tempted to nick it off me!

As I'd become good friends with Kenny and Ben, they had invited me to Toni's house for a kava ceremony and we could "test drive" my new bowl. We ended up inviting about 12 other people from the Beachouse and we got through a lot of kava - i bought 30 bags of it which makes about 30 litres of kava (and it was pretty strong too - think.......... Special Brew). After the ceremnoy we all went to the beach and had a fire and got stoned. We stayed up pretty late as it was a clear night and we had a great time.

The next day I had a bit of gut rot from all the kava but I was lucky that it was better by the evening as it was my last night and we had planned to do it all over again!

This time we didn't have that much kava but we did have it with about 30 of the villagers which was much more authentic. When we got back to the beach for another bonfire, Kenny and Deta had made necklaces from frangipani flowers (which smell beautiful) and given them to me and Juergen as a farewell gesture. After that we drank beers while Kenny, Ben and Eddie sang farewell songs in Fijian for us and I was quite touched.

Making my Escape! - After 13 days at the Beachouse it was hard to leave, but I would have felt bad if I hadn't seen some of the other islands too while I was there so I felt I had to go.

Napoleon had also made me a necklace out of coconut shell and kept bringing out fresh fruit for me through all of my last day. I made sure I got his address in order to send him some photos when I get back to the UK.

I left on the last shuttle out of Sigatoka and I was even lucky enought o be first in line for afternoon tea that day - an achievement that I am quite proud of! It was hard to turn my back on a place that I could have stayed at for all the 7 months of my trip.