This post picks up where I left off with an emotional farewell to Naqalia Lodge.

It was a hard goodbye when our boat left the next morning, as we felt we had been well and truly adopted by the Naqalia family having spent the night before drinking traditional kava, playing games and mumbling our way through Eric Clapton songs while our hosts enthusiastically played guitar. As Mary embraced us and stood on the sand, waving at our little tender boat until we lost sight of the bay, it felt like we were leaving family behind. The next resort certainly had some really big shoes to fill.

We spent our first evening at our new resort (which for reasons that will become evident shall remain anonymous) stuffing ourselves at the Fijian buffet and watching the men perform a fire dance. Having quickly struck up a good rapport with the energetic staff, we filled our days and nights there challenging them to the cereal box game, playing ball games and badgering them to teach us the traditional dances they had entertained us with after dinner- one of which we performed back to them such was our talent. The next day marked my first venture onto the beautiful resort beach and I showed my loyalty to my country and Her Majesty in the manner of all good British subjects by promptly burning, my skin now a patriotic criss cross of lobster red and white.

Here we were blighted not only by burns and mosquito bites, but also by a large group of Danish teenagers on an organised tour, fond of playing skittles for hours and blasting David Guetta across the lawn. Having initially given our Scandinavian neighbours the benefit of the doubt, relations reached boiling point when we were routinely roused early in the morning by the yodelling tones of the Danish language and the scuff scuff scuff of a football being kicked around outside our door. We considered various traps involving pastries or LEGO but decided to take drastic action, resorting to disapproving glares and spraying ourselves with vast quantities of insect repellent on the veranda. This managed to rid us of both mosquitoes and the Danes, who ran coughing through the fog of DEET in search of another makeshift football ground.

Britain 1 – Denmark 0.

Our success was short lived, however, as we discovered an outbreak of bedbugs in our dorm and had to place all our clothes in the sun in an attempt to rid them of six- legged visitors. This was stressful as the bugs have a stingy bite and are notoriously hard to shake off due to their penchant for crawling into bag seams and folded clothing, condemning the weary traveller to carrying them around from place to place***.

Having thought they had checked out after a spell in the sun, (the bugs not the Danes although we did hope baking our underwear outside would get rid of them too) we went to bed after a night of mucking around in the bar only to be woken up by a panic-stricken German girl. Said girl had already made friends in our dorm by glowering at us, heading straight to bed after dinner and scoffing at our frivolous enjoyment of the limbo competition on offer. Now she had discovered that her bed had buggy tenants and went marching off to find the housekeeping staff, demanding a refund while reeling off bed bug statistics. She even felt the need to rouse the Danes sleeping en masse in the next dorm, by garbling yet more facts at them and whipping them up into a bug-related frenzy.

Meanwhile, we decided to evacuate our contaminated quarters and displaced and tired, we voted to brave the elements and hungry mosquitoes by sleeping outside in hammocks or in the dining room. This lent the affair the feel of a very surreal Brownie camp-out as the mortified staff scurried off to retrieve tarpaulins and blankets. The next day, we woke groggy from lack of sleep and while I had loved my time there and will leave with many a fond memory- I prayed that my next destination might come with a bug free bed.

One of the hardest elements of travelling is making new friends only to have to leave them in a matter of days and it was at this point that I had to split with some lovely people with whom I had been travelling for a while.

Increasingly, I feel amazed that I have only known some of the people that I have met on this trip for two days, as out here, friendships seem to be strengthened and accelerated by spending every hour of the day in each other’s company- leaving me with the sense that I have known some people for years. We have all shared in the panic that the ferry porters might forget to take our luggage off at the right island, experienced bemusement at the interesting food combinations served at dinner and collectively suffered the Russian roulette of whether it will leave us unscathed, or wreak havoc with our stomachs on the way to a snorkel site, nearly earning one spot the title of ‘Poo Lagoon’**

In many respects, the hostel/ resort world is a kind of Neverland where age difference and geographical distance are suspended and the ‘real world’ of work, university and mortgages seems miles away. Here, I have been joking around with people who live half the world away or who are nearly twice my age and while travelling is fantastic, it can be accompanied by an underlying awareness that these precious shared experiences are transient, with the bittersweet knowledge that eventually we will all have to return to our home countries or our separate travel itineraries.

Having said goodbye on the ferry, I landed at Nabua Lodge, a sleepy resort with only 10 or so other guests. This was a big change given that the last place had over double the number of inhabitants, but it soon proved to be a welcome break as it was very chilled and allowed me to talk to everyone there. A particular highlight was the little tea house overlooking the sea that served cake and fresh coconuts and we religiously made our way all together across the beach for a piece of cake and to admire the view in the afternoon like some coconut/cake cult.

Other highlights there included a snorkel trip to Blue Lagoon, where we got off the boat into a cloud of tropical fish and being taken on a detour by our guide to snorkel over a shipwreck.

My next destination was Long Beach, another quieter resort where we formed a tight international group over a beach campfire. Our new hosts quickly won our hearts by valiantly attempting to teach us the art of volleyball, inviting us into the family kitchen for hot lemon tea and including us in some filthy inside jokes. It was here that I seemed to be a big hit with an ahem friendly guide, fond of picking me up or grabbing me at random intervals, which was all in good humour and a bit of a novelty given that I hadn’t had that much attention since getting frisked at the airport. It soon became a running joke and on a solo snorkelling trip led by said Casanova, I was less fearful of the reef sharks or sea snakes that might be lurking than the arm that quickly shot out to grab my foot/arm/waist. While inhaling large volumes of salt water in panic, I was torn between accepting a watery grave as a convenient escape from my ardent admirer and the fact that tactically marrying him might allow me to extend my time in the Yasawa Islands free of charge.

On one occasion I was gallantly saved from an invitation of a hike from my new suitor by another member of our host family, who kindly invited me to share breakfast with him. We spent a lovely morning drinking yet more lemon tea and comparing life in Fiji and the UK, which really affirmed that for me, it’s not the tropical climate or picture postcard beaches but the generosity and wicked sense of humour of the people that I have met here that makes me wish I could stay for longer.

After unsuccessfully trying to extend my time at Long Beach, my fixed itinerary brought me back to Southsea Island, where I went on a cruise that included even more snorkelling and a visit to the island where they filmed ‘Cast Away’. It was here that we were preyed on by a middle-aged Brit who, having made full use of the free booze on offer, claimed to be a journalist and descended on us youths, forcefully trying to convince us of why we should depose the monarchy along with informing myself and another young traveller that our Home Counties accents made him feel physically sick.

Now fully aware of the original sin that all Southerners possess, I have now adopted a thick Mancunian accent and have returned from island- hopping to Nadi. Here I have been fostered by a group of German guys and my new soul-sister and fellow Magnum-worshipper, Jule, who have granted me honorary status as a Bavarian male, kindly looking out for me by inviting me to join them for burgers and accompanying me to Nadi town which can be quite stressful as a lone female****. They have enlightened me with interesting comments such as ‘I learnt most of my English from ‘The Inbetweeners”, proved by said guy’s Jay-esque claim that ‘techno and a station wagon gets all the birds’*****. While I haven’t yet adopted their ways of effective packing, wearing backwards snapbacks and complaining about the quality of the bread, I have learnt key phrases such as the German for ‘stingray’, ‘lawnmower’ and ‘jacuzzi’, teaching them in return cultured British terms such as ‘camp’, ‘bants’ and ‘what a melt’.

For the moment, I am in my dorm pondering whether the woman in the bunk below really is going to murder me in my sleep as she begins yet another solo recital of hacking up phlegm, laughing spontaneously and muttering to herself about hot air balloons. Stay tuned to find out whether I survive the next two nights and manage to make it to NZ in one piece!

* For the cynics amongst you or those whose name is Emma Richardson, I would like to clarify that I have managed to make (I think) some real live human friends, so the use of ‘we’ ‘us’, or ‘our’ is not the Royal we, but refers to a group of us who have often ended up posted to the same islands – C & B, TP, JV, CH etc you can hold me to account for the accuracy of this post.

**creds to C for that one

***Therefore, it seems most likely that they were brought in by travellers and are not a reflection on that particular resort.

**** THANK YOU COWBOIZ YOU ARE SUCH GENTS

*****perhaps what concerned me more than the sheer lunacy of this statement was the fact that he seemed to have been relatively successful with these bizarre tactics.