Sarah writes, as Jack is hiding from the rain in our beach hut.

No pictures in this one... Just thought we'd let you know some of what we've been up to in Fiji so far! Well, our second cruise was not as successful as we could've hoped- the weather was terrible, and we'd decided that morning not to bring our raincoats with us, as they'd not been needed the day before. Big mistake. The boat, built in 1928 in Glasgow apparently, was smaller than the brochure had led us to believe, and it was pretty packed. This wouldn't have been a problem, but the rain was so strong, only the seats in the middle of the canopy were anywhere near dry, so Jack and I sat on a bench right at the front and just got completely drenched straight away.

We sailed to a group of islands called the Mamanuca's, and stopped on a small island to visit a traditional Fijian village. We were taken into a large hut where it seemed most of the men of the village had turned out to greet us, and the women were all sat in the rain waiting to sell us shell jewellery. We were then part of a Kava ceremony- Kava is a traditional narcotic drink that is greatly valued amongst Fijians, and is often presented as a gift in return for being allowed into the village.

It looked like dishwater, and it tasted a bit like mud. But, it would've been rude not to drink it, and they say you haven't been to Fiji until you've tried Kava.
The narcotic aspect of the drink had no effect on me, as I remarked to the flying pink weasels as they leapt out of the sea.

We then got back on the boat and sailed to the island where they filmed 'Castaway', the Tom Hanks film. By this time the rain had stopped, but we were all completely soaked, so we jumped in the sea to dry off. It was fantastically warm and the island was just beautiful. We did a bit of snorkelling- even me! For those of you who don't know, I hate swimming in open water, and I freak out if a fish swims near me. This stems from a traumatic incident with an angry turtle, which I won't go into right now.

But it was just lovely- the fish and the coral were just beautiful, I even chased the fish around. Jack said just the snorkeling made the whole (thus far, a bit soggy) cruise completely worth it.

***
We arrived at our new hotel, The Beachouse on the Coral Coast, yesterday. It's just lovely here- Danielle and Megan recommended it really highly too. It's right on the beach which is fantastic- white sands, huge palm trees, hammocks, a pool. Our room is very cool too, it's a large wooden hut. That's pretty much all there is to it, but it's lovely; painted bright yellow and green on the outside, and wooden shutters to keep the (now pretty persistent) rain out.
Today we both had a full body massage for an hour for only about GBP 7 (there's no pound sign on this keyboard), it was just fantastic. And the ladies were really lovely, they fussed over Jack (as ladies tend to do), and put some lotion on my numerous mosquito bites.
The problem with this humid, wet weather is at night the place becomes overrun by toads- they chased Jack back from the bathroom last night, so now we don't go out without a torch!
***

Now that we have pretty easy access to the internet, it gave us a chance to have a look at all our accommodation again on hostelworld.com, where we originally booked them. We had written a pretty unfavourable review of the hostel in Beijing, and when we checked the site again, we saw that they had replied to our comments accusing us of slander-Luckily, we don't have the option of replying again, or I would probably be engaged in a full-blown argument with some random Chinese person they obviously pay to do their internet business. You know me. It made me pretty cross for a while, but now I find it quite funny- check this out:

"This a slanderous statement based on the guests own belligerent motive rather than the true state of our hostel."

Fine, I admit it... my belligerent motives do move me to slander from time to time. I just can't help it, ok?!
Heeheehee.
***
Jack found a Praying Mantis in the bathroom here; he tried to blow it away but it just stared him down until he left, only to be attacked by legions of toads.

I think that's all for now, we'll add some photos from Fiji soon. Jack will be back too, he just didn't want to encounter any toads on the way here.

Love
Sarah
x