After a month in the capital, Suva, we took the return 3-4 hour bus trip back to Nadi where the international airport is. We had not realized that Nadi is the place where nearly all the flights and boat trips to the other 330+ islands embark from.

Returning to Nadi, one of the first sights you see is the elaborately decorated Sir Siva Subrahmanya Hindi temple.

We had rented a room at a hostel of sorts, Bamboo Backpackers. They had a sign in the driveway that I first took to be a joke.

Then, a few days later, when one of these bombs came crashing back to the planet, I realized that falling coconuts from great heights are absolutely NO JOKE.

We were just a few steps away from a swimmable beach, Wailoaloa Beach.

The restaurant at the top of the Ramada Hotel had great views.

The staff at Bamboo Backpackers were the best, so kind, so friendly. Nia was our housekeeper.

The problem for us at Bamboo Backpackers was that we had no place to cook and we depend on that to save money. So walking to the nearby grocery store we saw this sign.

We called, we went to take a look and it had everything we needed and the people we would be renting from, Ellen, Chedly and their son Eli were totally wonderful. They had lived there over 30 years.

We first lived in what they called Apartment three. Ellen made a great welcome sign as it was Charlottes 79th birthday.

Ellen and Chedly had an amazing restaurant back in the day here in Fiji and they now are starting to market teas and herbs. They are really fine.

Chedley often brought us a papaya from just in front of the apartment.

Later we moved to ‘the Villa’. They brought us a whole ‘rack’ of bananas from our entryway. They ripened at about two a day which was perfect for us.

One of the nearby places we loved to go to in the evenings was the Wailoaloa Beach Club where you could see fantastic sunsets.

One of the friendliest people we met in Fiji (and there are many friendly people here) was Rosa, who worked at the Beach Club.

We had our first experience of drinking Kava there. It is an extremely popular and somewhat psychotropic drink. It is a ‘must’ experience in Fiji.

At another nearby hotel/restaurant we saw some people about to experience kava in a ceremony.

We also did plenty of trash pickup. There was no shortage of it.

The woman who took this picture, Sia Osborne, also invited us to teach recycling and environmental values at a local school.

A lot of people stopped and thanked us for picking up ‘rubbish’. Some nice people across the street at the Normal B and B invited us for a Fiji meal.

In the background is a local fish called a Coral Trout. In the front right are Sea Grapes, a type of algae. The cubes are mostly a seaweed, very salty, of course and they are on a bed of local spinach.

We did make it out to some of the other islands, but this is where Fiji gets expensive. The boats costs a lot but staying at any of the resorts on the outlying islands are even more expensive. We did go to the island that they filmed Castaway with Tom Hanks.

In the film they made you think that there were no other islands anywhere near this. Not the case. Several other islands nearby.

There was all kinds of beautiful coral there.

Internationally, it is illegal to remove coral from islands. So this one stayed in Fiji.

Our nearby grocery store, True Mart, was operated by a religious group from South Korea. A controversial group that was under investigation for abusing their congregation and forcing their labor. The staff at the grocery store were all very nice and we quickly became friends.

This is a very abbreviated view of our time here. We really enjoyed being here and would love to return. One of the streets we picked up rubbish on crossed the end of the runway. In a couple hours we will be taking off from here.

Next stop – Vietnam.