4th September 2009.

Do you remember the picture postcard, desert island of the movies that I was relaxing on? Well it became a living hell! Not true but I like to be dramatic. In the Beachcomber guestbook it stated that all of the water was imported in from the mainland and was precious and safe to drink. As I had gone for a Lodge room instead of the dormitory ( 100+ people!) I had an en suite bathroom and a sink. I should add that I have been trying to drink more water to be more hydrated since my salmonella incident exactly a year ago. I followed Alan Blackledges example and could often be found clutching a bottle of water. Being the typical Yorkshireman, I don't PAY for Evian but refill from a nearby tap whenever possible. I carried on this practice in the Beachcomber, Lodge 32, and filled from the sink regularly. The more astutue of you can probably guess what is coming up next. Smart arses.

2 ays into my 5 day stay on Fiji and I am drinking lots of water to counteract the blazing sun and the odd beer. Bliss. Friday creeps up on me and I have my breakfast. All is well and I miss diving in the morning to have a lie in, fully intending to dive in the afternoon instead. Drinking water from the magic bottle, I lazily waste the morning snorkelling with Clare as Jan was favouring the beach. When I say favouring, it suggests that she made a qualitative and considered selection, when it was more of a " You go play with the fishes, children, while I beautify myself on the beach with a book and suncream." Snorkelling was really nice and not far detached from diving as the diving depths are only 20m max. Back to the main building for lunch. All of a sudden my appetite deserted me and I felt hot flushes careering over me. I eat very little and head back to the room for a nap. Jet Lag.....must be.

Then my bowels exploded and I was confined to my room for the remainder of my stay! I won't go into graphic detail but suffice to say the bowel checks became more like panning for gold than chasing the otter. I eventually went to visit the Nurse on Treasure Island and she cofirmed what the hotel staff had sspected. I probably had Typhoid Sickness from drinking the resort tap water. The "safe" hotel tap water. And to add salt to the wound she charged me $50 Fiji for that information, some tablets and a cork. I was too weakened to argue and just paid up. Looking like an extra from a film about concentration camps I dragged my self back to my Island and put myself back into bed. Ok...maybe a touch dramtic but this is my blog and I will be as dramatic as I like. And I am ill so don't argue with me. Every cloud has a silver lining though. My illness ( hereafter known as TBWD, The Brush With Death) left me technically able but factually unlikely to make it to meals. All of a sudden The Australian girls in the next room brought me a plate full of fruit up! Awwww....how thoughtful. And I liked the attention! Just as I was fighting to chew the last piece of pineapple, Jan and Clare brought me some more, and a plate of mystery vegetable curry. AWWWWW! Sometimes it is worth getting ill to have beautiful women fussing around you! I might just settle for a verrucca next time though. Jan gave me a tablet for the fever and cold symptoms, while Clare furnished me with DVD's and a book. I honestly didn't over play the sickbed routine but it was nice being fussed over!

I tried to change my flights to Cairns so I could have a day longer to recover on the Island but the people in charge of the phones on the Island couldn't understand that I needed to change the ticket with United Airlines while I was flying with Air New Zealand. I decided to brave the original flight in my weakened and volitile state, rather than try to explain the situation to the staff! And I am here in Cairns now. In a nice hotel to pamper myself while I get back to my fighting weight.

More to come but I will leave you with an example of the E-mails I am recieving from my buddy Scott. Some of the more offensive language has been omitted. This is to illustrate how I am abused on a regular basis from the other side of the World.

Quote
Hows it goin mate? Not heard anything from you since you went to Fiji but I suspect I know what's happened.... I'm thinking that after watching Chuck you got a few ideas above your station. You thought I'm a big lad, look at these wiry little Fijians. One rush of blood later and you've realised that those wiry little f*****s are lightening fast. I'm thinking you launched a looping right hander and before you knew it...Whammo. One of the skinnies is all over you like a cheap suit and is treating you to a rather large portion of ground and pound! "But Chuck made it look so easy" you're thinking, newsflash cupcake, you're a big lad but your out of shape!! Solution? Scream like a woman, and when he turns away in disgust....it's time to kick some back!! Hope all is well mate, see you soon Scott

Unquote.


Nice eh?


Bowel Check = Oxtail soup. No Croutons.

The sunset from Beachcomber Island.

The Loch Ness Monster takes a well earned rest from avoiding sonar. 2 points if anyone can tell me the name of the last gravel animal I created.

Going Down?

Jan ( my bowel pharmacist ) Clare ( Librarian ) and Martha ( Brazillian sunburn queen )

Beachcomber Island.

Just arrived in Fiji, Napping on a hammock with Ricky Gervais in my ears watching the sunrise.

Just a few Pictures from Fiji as this stupid Blogger thingy-bob struggles with pictures and text sometimes.

Just to Clarify. Jan really is a pharmacist, hailing from the Emerald Isle. Why she was my bowel pharmacist may become apparant in the next posting. Clare is not a Librarian btu did a good line in giving me a book and lending me DVD's. Martha is Brazillian and did get horrifically sunburnt.

Bowel check = man-made fibre.

28th August 2006.

After Vegas I was not looking forward to the 10+ hour flight to Fiji, especially as I had to first fly to Los Angeles to get the connecting flight to Fiji and I had spent half of the night gambling, drinking and writing to make sure you were all up to date! I hope you appreciate the effort I am putting into writing this rubbish. I don’t do it for me, you understand. I know what has happened. I don’t need to read about it on a website because I am bored at work in grey office, surrounded by grey people whinging about their grey lives! Now that I have alienated the majority of my reading audience I will continue. But as you continue to read this, I am on the phone to each and every one of your employers, grassing you up, snitching and back stabbing you all for not working! Nice!

So, Vegas airport was mostly uneventful, except that I connected through the free Wi-Fi that McCarran put on for you. All airports have Wi-Fi, but some insist on a payment to use it. Now, considering most people are only in an airport for a few hours, why do they only offer 5 or 24 hour connection at a hugely inflated cost? I would have thought they made enough money on the Robin Hood style car parking that they charge to allow a few minutes of t’internet access to weary travellers. So, well done to Las Vegas McCarran airport! I was waiting for the confirmation email from the travel agent website that I had used to find the Fiji accommodation. I was quite impressed with the way that I managed to book it. I saw the websites and went to Beautiful Pacific.com. When there I noticed that you can book your accommodation using Skype. For those not in the know, Skype is a messenger type program but instead of being based mostly around instant messages, it is primarily based on “phone” calls through your pc. I would tell you all to go to the Skype site and download it. So I spoke to a girl called Geraldine I Fiji who, after we found a few places that were fully booked, found a young Island called Beachcomber Island. I asked for her to book it and she put me on to someone called Dan. He messed around for a while and then disappeared! Geraldine came back to me and said that she had booked it all so that I could zoom back to the casino for my last minute gambling (mentioned last entry). I did this and checked my Emails when I eventually woke up and before I had packed my bag! No reply….no confirmation…..nothing. So I thought it was lucky that McCarran allowed me to check my inbox. When I did I noticed that Geraldine had left me a message with an attached booking form! So it wasn’t booked! I filled in the form and sent it back to her. That is that……so I thought!

The flight to Nadi in Fiji was, again, relatively uneventful except that the plane was less than half full! So I had the centre three seats to myself and got a little sleep! Wasn’t a bad flight after all! I set off from L.A at 8:45 pm on the Monday and arrived in Fiji at 3:00am on the Wednesday. I still feel robbed of a day even though I knew it would happen as I crossed the International Date Line! So I missed Tuesday completely. Fiji OWES me a new Tuesday!

I will forgive it though. I went to the Nadi Bay hotel for a few hours while I waited for the departure time for my boat, (Catamaran actually but I wasn’t sure I could spell it) to Beachcomber Island. There was a sort of couch area in a room where I could rest for the 5 hours, but there were a couple waiting with me and they were napping. I couldn’t sleep so rather than fidget I went to see what I could see outside. I found a hammock next to the swimming pool, so I plonked down my bags and flopped into the hammock with Ricky Gervais on my I-Pod for company. I saw the sunrise through the palm trees above me and noticed the coconuts hanging 30 feet above my head. Swaying slightly in the warm breeze, watching some brightly coloured birds in the branches, I realized that I am on the other side of the World and felt very, very lucky!

I caught the little connection bus to the Deanarau Harbour at 8:00am. I am not entirely certain if I have spelt the harbour name correctly but the name is on a pad about 3 feet away from me and I am too relaxed to go and check! By the way…can someone tell me how to change the default language on Word from U.S English to U.K. English as the spell checked is driving me potty. Harbor has a U in it. I change it but it always seems to go back to U.S. English every time and we all know that the Americans can’t spell correctly. In actual fact they can’t spell or right proper hardly at all, and everyfing.

I got to the harbour and checked in. They had no idea about my booking. I began to fear the worst. Just as I began to think that maybe Geraldine had forgotten to book it, or even worse, ripped me off a young girl appeared next to me asking if I was Dan. It turned out to be Geraldine herself! She, apparently, had been so concerned about my lack of booking that she had waited at the airport for me. I don’t know how she expected to know who I was but she said she had fallen asleep at the airport anyway so would have missed me. She spoke to the people at the harbour about my booking and I just told them that I would book it there and then with them. All was well. I jumped on the catamaran and set off for Beachcomber Island.

The trip to the island was fabulous. Robinson Crusoe, eat your heart out! It really is picture book paradise. There were about three other islands on the way to mine and each of them is a mini tropical paradise! Totally breathtaking! Beachcomber Island is small and a single resort. There is nothing on the island except the resort! Well I say nothing but I mean no other buildings. Just beach, Bures (kind wooden villas) other wooden buildings and tropical trees! It really is fabulous! I didn’t fancy the dormitories so I booked into a lodge room. It is about halfway between a Bure and the dormitory. I have an en suite room with two beds in it. Just like a jungle hotel! Coconut trees grow just outside! It is the best of both worlds, jungle style scenery and basic hotel facilities. No TV, phone or internet though so you will be reading this quite a few days late. I hope that you have all coped ok with the depression of not being able to be bored to death by me. Oh, as I went to check in, Geraldine beat me in the queue and booked herself a lodge room. At that point I didn’t have a room yet and this 17 year old was possibly grabbing the last one! How rude! Not only had she not booked my room, nor the boat, but now she is pinching the last room! Well it wasn’t the last room but I was ready to shout at her! I still have to double check that she hasn’t taken payment for my room along with me paying the resort directly. She was actually quite a nice person but a bit crap, disorganized and basically a teenager!

The food is all included in the price and they call you to breakfast, lunch and dinner by sounding a drum! The food is great as well. I have to pay for my drinks and diving but that is it! There are lots of young people here but I don’t think they have sussed me out as an old fogey yet. My hair is getting ready to be cut though and the grey bits are shining in the South Pacific sunshine! I went diving on my first afternoon but couldn’t dive as I had a burst hose. I stayed on the surface and snorkeled around the boat and it was pretty good. Had dinner and a few drinks while the resort band played different songs and managed to make them all sound a little reggae! Johnny Cash Reggae style is an odd one! The staff of the hotel put on a little show of tradition dance and song. This is the only time I expect to be angry while here. Ignorant, loud mouthed Americans talked at full volume all of the way through it. It was appalling but at least they broke off from their important chats to start whooping and a hollering when the time came to applaud. I don’t hate all Americans by any means, but the young ones that are here should be fed to the sharks. When the show was finished they played more music and a few cd’s. Not a disco exactly but not far off! A nightclub on the beach! I have been disturbed by some American white girls abilities to make complete arses of themselves before but they did it again. And the boys weren’t far behind them. As soon as some R’n’B music came on they were wiggling there wobbly bottoms and gyrating around the wooden pillars as though they were members of the Pussycat Dolls! It was so funny, but they took it so seriously! They had no idea how pathetic that they looked or that everyone was in stitches! Then boys joined them and began picking each other up and doing all manner of strange things! They grabbed a girls crutches and air-guitared with them in the way that UK boys might do at the school disco aged 13! Oh well. Maybe it is just me getting older! No. It is just them being monkeys.*

*please insert your own swear word in the place of monkeys as I can’t write swear words as my Mum reads this. Although, if you are asking I would insert Nob Heads.

Bowel check = indigenous.



31st August 2006.

Ok….lets clarify this. It is tomorrow. Well obviously it isn’t but the last was dated 28th, the day that I left Vegas. I flew and lost a day remember so although it looks like three days later it is the day after in reality to me and my traveling time.

Went diving for real today and had two great dives on the reefs here. Saw some massive sergeant fish and some barracudas along with fabulous corals and loads of other stuff. I have had a very relaxing day and chatted my nonsense to lots of different people. This place is full of loads of different people, including a lad from Leeds! Right….have to have a nap and a shower before dinner so I will leave it there for now.

Bowel check = tennis ball.