Fiji -- Part 2

So my sister and I scored a free snorkel trip by attending a Wyndham time share presentation.  It was actually a good deal.  We spent 90 minutes watching and then tooled around Nadi town the rest of the afternoon.  Then the next day, we took the South Sea Island combo tour, which meant we snorkeled at the South Sea Island and then took a tour of some of Mamanuca Islands.  Those islands were gorgeous -- picture perfect, blue waters surrounding verdant islands.  So here are some more pictures of Fiji!

So this is the first island my sister and I went to snorkel.  South Sea Island.  It felt like Gilligan's Island.

He was our organizer, I guess.  I took a picture of him because I wanted to take a picture of what Fijian men wore -- basically a skirt (I think it was actually called sula...)!  It was quite common.  And they also wore  pretty much Hawaiian shirts all the time.

We didn't lounge too much by the ocean because we were in it... but they were available.

 Another picture of the South Sea Island.  You can actually stay a few nights for $80-120 in Fijian dollars... which I think is a great bargain.

 We took an underwater submarine tour and saw a lot of stuff.  You might be able to see all the blue tropic fish swimming about.  I actually saw a jelly fish (not purple) but didn't get a chance to take a picture.

That would be me before we departed from the South Sea Island.

And then we took a tour of various other islands... they were so beautiful!  And on the way, there were a few sand bars in the middle of the ocean.  I don't think the picture quite does justice but here it is.

And a closer shot of the sand bar.  I bet you could snorkel!

On our way to Mana Island (my sister and I decided this is the island we should have been staying at..), there was a little water highway marked for the boat... because it was surrounded by corals!!  It was pretty amazing.

This was the Mana Island (I think that's the spelling).

And another shot.

See the curvy water highway?  It was pretty interesting navigating through.

This is the close shot of the corals surrounding the water highway.

I forgot what this island was... BUT

it had these hotels where they were bungalows on water!! This was a zoom shot (my camera rocks... with 16x optical zoom!  I felt like a stalker) of the hotel.

And the row of bungalows.  Sadly, my sister and I were not in them.

 Afterwards, we had really great Indian food (did I mention Fiji had good Indian food??) at Indigo in Port Denaru.  It's a bit pricey but the food was excellent.

The next day, we did something different.  We took the Sigatoka river cruise tour.  On our way, we saw a beautiful rainbow.

 This is Sigatoka river -- it's supposedly the longest river of the main Fiji island, Viti Levu.

We all got on this jet cruise.

 And went down the river.

Saw a granite mountain, which our tour guide told us contained granite of excellent quality but Fiji government wouldn't allow foreigners to mine in order to preserve the mountain.

And visited a Fijian village... which subsists by farming.  To say it was a poor village would be an understatement.  

This is the narrow walkway (street) that was built by donation of Canadian couple for the village.

This was kind of typical of the buildings we saw.

Our group participated in traditional Kava tea ceremony.

The village elders made the traditional Kava tea, which our designated "chief" of our group first drank.  And then it was passed around to others to drink.

The villagers treated us to their lunch.

 And for their entertainment (well, also for our entertainment)...

We danced!  And then we parted.  It was overall kind of a weird experience for us because we saw true poverty (they got electricity just few years ago) and on our way down the river, our tour included spinning around river for fun (I got VERY wet).

That night, we went back into Nadi town to Sentai restaurant.. which was Chinese.

 And my GOD!  We had the best beef dish I have ever tasted.

And chicken dish was awesome too!  It was probably the best Chinese restaurant I have ever been to... and around the time we were leaving, a HUGE group of Chinese folks came in and took up one private room and then some.

I have more pictures to post... which will come later.