Dear Dayre,
Gonna do a quick update before I crash, because I woke up in the middle of the night (4am) which is midnight in Singapore.
So gonna get jet-lagged when I return to Singapore I'm sure.
Day 2 of Fiji: we went on a river safari and spent our afternoon in an authentic Fijian village where we had lunch and mingled with the local villagers!
Everyone was all bundled up in the life jackets and ponchos cuz it was a cold and rainy day buuuhuuuu. Our river safari ride was so fun though!
Hahah no time to be glamorous when you're on a speedboat ride 😂
But the scenery was so beautiful! If only the weather was better, it would have been ultra gorgeous!
This is our boat captain, aka Captain "Magic" Mike!
Mike is a local Fijian who grew up in the villages near Sigatoka River and he enthralled us with stories of cannibals (many years ago lah) in Fiji and how a white man got eaten by the Fijians because he rudely touched the head of the chief.
This poor white man was cooked and eaten, including his leather shoes because the Fijians thought his shoes were part of him 😂
Captain Mike kept such a straight face while telling us real stories mixed with ridiculous facts that we couldn't tell whether he was for real or pulling our leg at times!
But the cannibal story is legit cos he said the leather sole of a shoe is still on display at the Fijian museum wtf okaaaay.
He also told us that the kids swim to school across the river. Rubber tyres are tied together and one kid takes care of their bags/books while the rest swim and push the floating contraption over!
The villagers stay in simple huts and many of their houses do not even have doors, like our olden-day kampungs.
Adorable young village kid. They were running around barefoot and had no care at all for civilization hahaha! One little boy just relieved himself on the ground near us and it was the most natural thing to him!
The kids were very friendly though they were shy at first!
These villagers are making the famed "Kava" drink, which is Fiji's traditional drink that everyone loves!
It contains a strange medical property that numbs the tongue and makes the drinker feel dopey and drunk.
Sounds incredible too but it's real because we tried it for ourselves! Apparently you need at least x6 the amount that we had to feel the true effects of the Kava drink though.
Evonne even bought Kava powder back so that she can try it in Singapore lol.
Jess and I drinking Kava which tasted a little like liang teh and kind of muddy because it's made from the root of a plant HAHAA check out Christina's fearful expression in the background!
Apparently, kava is even more popular than alcohol and when a villager brings kava back home, it's always a happy occasion 😂
It's usually drank together with family members to socialize and relax while drinking kava and too much kava can even make you feel intoxicated!
It's not classified as a drug though.
With the girls @evonnz @joycesayshello @stopthepretence during lunch!
Lunch by the villagers who prepared this for us with their own home-grown produce and meat!
A long table cloth was laid out on the floor and the food was placed right in front of us as we sat cross-legged and ate with our fingers and hands.
After lunch, the villagers played the guitar and sang songs for us while everyone danced together in village style!
We were also marked with talcum powder (???) on our faces and adorned with grass garlands, before everyone joined in the fun and swayed and danced to the folk singing.
It was a really cool thing to experience the life of the villagers and to mingle with them.
Their lives are so different from ours back home in Singapore.
Mass dancing session going on after lunch! It was truly a sweet experience to mingle with the locals and have them welcome us with their Fijian hospitality and culture.
The village visits are an effort to preserve the Fijian way of life while sustaining their lifestyles as a portion of the revenue earned by the river safari tour and village visits are given back to the villages.
There are fifteen such villages in partnership with the safari tours and a different village is visited each day to lessen the impact of the "tourism" on the lifestyles of the villagers, while providing them extra income, which is a win-win situation.
Chickens were abound and they were so fat and fearless of us humans 😂
These chickens were running all over the place but none of them gave any f's about me 😂😂😂
This is us on the speedboat ride back: Captain Mike did some really crazy spins and got all of us soaked and exhilarated!
It was a one-of-a-kind experience and also an eye opener to see how the Fijian villages live even in this day, sometime that's completely alien to us Singapore city kids 😂
They didn't even have 3G or reception in the mountains so you can imagine how different it is already!
Back to civilization and we checked into a super nice place: The Pearl South Spa and Resort!
Welcomed with pineappley drinks!
Look at how pretty the rooms are!
One hugeass double bed for me to roll around on.
Here's the view from my balcony 😍 Legit lagoon view!!
Hope you all are enjoying my updates cos I'm sacrificing my sleep time for this 😂😂😂