World ExploraSean: Taveuni

I was so excited to finally be making my way to Taveuni, but my enthusiasm was quickly turned to dread as I prepared to leave. The nosy people at the hostel (Bamboo) kept asking me where I was going and I kept telling them Taveuni, to which they continuously responded, "The boat doesn't leave on Tuesdays, you have to wait until Friday", and of course they were simultaneously trying to sell me other tours to keep me occupied until said Friday. I told them that the boat definitely left on Tuesdays, which was overheard by a crazy Chinese girl, let's call her Wei. She decided to hijack my journey and come with me, but first we had to wait ten minutes while the people at Bamboo called to verify that the boat did in fact leave on Tuesday. Wei then told me I must wait another twenty minutes so she could call various places to cancel reservations, since she was initially planning on doing tours and going to Taveuni on Friday.

Once she was finally sorted, we met up with Fabian at his hostel and then cabbed it to the bus station. We arrived at 10:58 and the bus was slated to leave at 11:00, but Wei decided she needed to go get food, so we had to load her bags on the bus and then track her down as the bus was getting ready to leave without her. She then proceeded to complain because the food she had just purchased, wasn't allowed to be consumed on the bus. Seriously, stab my face. You have my permission.

It was a 4.5 hour bus ride back to Suva, from which we had to catch a boat to Taveuni. The bus station is in town, with the docks about a 15 minute walk away. Fabian and I presumed to walk to the boat to drop our bags, but Wei decided she could not walk for 15 minutes and we had to get a Taxi. Knowing better than to argue with a crazy person, we conceded and cabbed it to the boat. We then proceeded to buy tickets from the office and started to take our bags up to the passenger deck, but Wei started yelling at us, telling us to leave our bags in the cargo area like she was doing. We asked her why it mattered if we left our bags downstairs or took them with us, but she seemed to think we were complete morons. After we dropped our bags, we decided to go into town to get an early dinner and some snacks for the 20 hour boat ride, but when Wei spotted us, she asked us to pay for her boat ticket because she didn't have money...The bus stop was literally across the street from three ATMs. At this point we were just like, we're heading into town, just go into town and get cash from the ATM. The craziest part of this scenario, she had been to Taveuni earlier in the year, so she should have known all of this in advance. Fuck. My. Life.

The boat was delayed about 2.5 hours, which is standard for Fiji, and in the meantime had become filled by a group of 30 Chinese people. They proceeded to chew audibly, talk even louder, and generally block the TV and be inherently rude. As someone that is half Chinese, I started to think maybe I should be more thankful of my British DNA since it provided me the ability to have manners and common courtesy. Then I realized my British DNA was why I was complaining and constantly perceiving the world to be a miserable place... It's not easy being a mudblood. When we finally took off, the crew hooked us up with a free upgrade to beds, saving us from sleeping on the couches. After about 16 hours, we ended up on the second largest island in Fiji, in a town called Savu Savu. We were allowed to hop off the boat while it was docked, so we went for a brief wander.

Savu Savu

It gets lonely at sea....

Naturally we were delayed in leaving Savu Savu and arrived into Taveuni late, our 20 hour journey having grown into a 24 hour adventure. The Chinese group departed the boat in Savu Savu, so the boat was pretty empty during the final leg. When we docked in Taveuni, we sorted out sharing a cab to our hostel with a Fijian woman who wanted to be dropped along the way, but out of nowhere Wei appeared and decided she was riding with us as well. She didn't come to our hostel, however, opting to be dropped off in town instead. She didn't even offer to pay part of the cab fair, she just hopped out and grabbed her stuff. At that point I was just glad to be free of her, so I didn't even care. Thank God Tatiana Maslany is not Chinese.

As soon as we arrived to our hostel, we saw some familiar faces from Beach House, including our Finish friend Lotta, and were invited to join a snorkeling trip the following morning to Rainbow Reef. It'd been way too long since I'd been on a proper snorkeling trip, so I was pretty pumped for the opportunity. In typical "Fiji Time" fashion, we left two hours later than projected and were also facing a shortage of equipment, so one of the locals had to give me his fins and goggles. I was surprised to find the waters were clear of plastic bottles and other forms of rubbish. The water had amazing visibility and the corals were awesome, but the fish life was pretty average. However, based on other people's impressions I think I've just been spoiled by my time in Australia and Indonesia.

Taveuni is what I expected Fiji to be like, desolate and beautiful

Practicing my cowabunga pose for the new TMNT movie! So nostalgiac!!!

A few days later Fabian and I visited the Tavoro waterfalls in Bouma National Heritage Park with a French dude named Tomas. Surprisingly, the trip started ahead of schedule! We bypassed the first and second waterfalls, to go to the third one first, which is more secluded and boasts a little area where you can jump off the waterfall into the pool below. We weren't allowed to swim in the second waterfall, but once we got down to the first, we were allowed to go into a little cavernous area behind the waterfall and jump in for a final swim. Upon leaving, we found out someone from a different group had left their camera at the third waterfall, which was an hour hike uphill, so she had to climb all the way back up to get it... Brutal.

The following evening, the guys at the hostel randomly decided to have a bonfire, so we all headed to the beach for a late night fire and some drinks. They made us leave at 1 AM, so we headed back to the hostel for a final shot and then turned in for the evening. Quite a few people left the next morning, including Fabian, but I decided to stay for a few extra days to chill out and catch up on my reading. I'm not ashamed to say I became engrossed in J.K. Rowling's newest novel, The Silkworm, and devoured it in two days.

The day you were born, you were born free. That is your privilege.

Give you heart and soul to me, and life will always be La Vie En Rose (Cristin Milioti)

Somewhere along the way people have probably told you that you can't do something or made you feel like you weren't good enough... Fuck em, become who you want to become

Back down the bullies to the back of the bus, cus it's time for them to be scared of us!!!

I took the boat back to Suva with a couple of Swiss guys, Alexander and Gabor, as well as a pair of Germans...I'm always with Germans. Going back was way faster, taking a mere 18 hours. I decided to immediately head back to Nadi, since it is by far the cheapest place to stay in Fiji, while the others stayed in Suva for the evening. I was relatively sure I was going to be murdered by my mini-bus crew, because the three of them took off towards Nadi with me as their sole passenger. Luckily after thirty minutes, they finally started picking up some locals, so I felt a little safer. When we passed by the Beach House, we randomly picked up a Welsh guy I had met in Suva named Gareth, who was catching a ride to the closest bottle shop to pick up some beer. It's truly amazing how often people's paths cross.

When I finally got to Nadi, I decided to switch up my hostel and stayed at the Wailoaloa Beach Resort, which for $8/night included breakfast and free wifi. It was pretty much the greatest financial decision I made whilst in Fiji. Fabian ended up joining me there since he was flying out of Nadi a few days after me. Our days pretty much revolved around eating, since neither of us had money left to pay for tours and I wanted to avoid taking out money because of ATM fees.

Everything that you can't control, sometimes you gotta just let go. Lay back and you will hold, and you will survive

Well that's my year spent exile, second guessed and dressed up in tatters. My both feet didn't take this path, and I'm still looking for a life that matters...

It's called a bathroom, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of room...

Now this bird has flown, like I've always known it would. Maybe someday soon, you'll be flying too....

Overall I wasn't that impressed with Fiji. I think the women are really nice and genuine, but the dudes are extremely fake. It's so annoying to constantly have people come up to you pretending to be friendly, only to explain why you have to do a $300 tour thirty seconds later. That's not to say there aren't genuinely nice people, they're just not as prevalent as the swindlers. Fiji had it's moments, but overall I found it to be overpriced and very average in terms of scenery.

The next leg of my journey would also be my last before going home - Hawaii. One final diversion during my year abroad. Ten more days to procrastinate before making adult-level decisions about my future, but that's a story for another blog...

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