Bula from Fiji!

I think I might be part Fijian as everything happens here on what they call "Fiji time", which is basically adding a few hours to whenever you say you are going to be somewhere or do something. It is fabulous.

After landing in Nadi, Fiji three hours later than our flight was scheduled to land, we jumped on a bus bound for the port and then a boat to take us to Beachcomber Island. The Fijian people are some of the kindest I have ever met. Every person you pass waves and smiles as they yell, "Bula!" which is apparently not only the word for 'hello', but also can be used as a thank you, agreement, or perhaps the person just feels like saying it for no reason. I think you could get about anything you need on Fiji by saying that word and "vinaka," which is 'thank you'.

Along the bus ride, we picked up another traveler, Rebecca, headed to Beachcomber, who is from North Carolina. She is a doctor who is making her way to the Solomon Islands to work at an Emergency Clinic, and she is taking this week to do some surfing before heading on to the clinic. The three of us boarded a boat to Beachcomber, an island in the Pacific Ocean surrounded by nothing more than miles of ocean and tiny neighboring islands. We were told that one of the neighboring islands is where "Castaway" was filmed. We are able to circle our entire island, on foot, in ten minutes.

Every night everyone staying at The Beachcomber eats dinner together and spends the night out on the beach listening to The Beachcomber Band (who seem to be the same staff also preparing the food and driving the boat to and from the island). On our first night we meet a group of other travelers from various parts of the world, some of whom have been travelling for months already.

We spend our first full day in Fiji, laying on the white sand for most of the morning and then taking several of the kayaks and paddling across the Pacific to a neighboring island (shown below). There is a beautiful reef surrounding both our island and the neighboring island ("Treasure Island") and it felt unbelievable to recognize that we were paddling from island to island, on the other side of the world from home. After checking out the baby turtles on Treasure Island (apparently the locals keep the babies until they grow to 3 feet, before releasing them back into the ocean), we headed back for our last night on Beachcomber.

When checking in for early departure the next day, we were asked if we wanted a wake up call. After responding that we would and that 5am ought to do it, the woman pointed to a large Fijian man next to us and responded, "Great, he will wake you up at 5." I believe we could learn a lot from the Fijian way of dealing with time and wake up calls... Our alarm clock coincided with our "wake up call" (a knock on the door from the Fijian man), and we boarded another speed boat, before sunrise, to head back to the mainland. Next stop Sydney!