Well I kind of suspected, having experienced ‘out of the way’ Fiji and also, having gone past it on the way to Suva a few weeks back, that I wouldn’t like backpackers much. I was right, it is attached to a touristy place called the arts village where they do these cheesy tribal ‘shows’. The building was obviously impressive when it was built but since then, prob 15/20 years ago, they’ve not bothered to look after it in any way. There were very few people staying even though it’s big. Biggest advantage was the aircon in our room – that was heaven. Also we would have been sharing a living room with balcony, kitchen and bathroom, with another bedroom but that was always empty so we had apartment to ourselves. After copping out on first night and eating at the American style blues restaurant (although to be fair it was that or another western style place – nothing Fijian on offer at night), we then decided to save money and make a nice change of doing some cooking. The choices in the supermarket and the interesting cooking facilities were going to make it experimental. If only there had been a hob – I had to do everything in this odd plug in frying pan thing. Managed to make pasta without blowing up – although I’d have preferred that the plug socket didn’t light up behind, whenever switching on or off. Still, we have managed a couple of interesting ‘feasts’!
I think main reason of not liking Tsulu is that it seems to be an expat area. There are lots of new villas and estates with western expats who want to be in Fiji but don’t want it to be that different from home. Much the same as you get in Spain and everywhere else lovely in the world. It’s not a bad thing and I’m sure there will be fair few times on our travels when we’ll seek such places for some kind of respite, but it kinda feels odd and un-necessary here. The off shoot is that it’s not such a happy place. I think the management of the hostel discourages staff having fun or helping anyone. Bad vibes man!!
The main reason we ended up hanging around here so long was so  the scabby donkey that is Mark, could heal. Having scraped himself on coral back in Maqai and not dealt with it properly or at all (*directs womanly glare in his direction*), he has 2 legs full of infected wounds which, look away if you are squeamish, were puss filled, weeping and generally gross. He ended up going to the lovely lady doc here (who calls him Mr Mark), who gave him antibiotics, cream and painkillers as well as, and (now this cheered me up no end) a big, old fashioned needle in his bum!!  So, he’s needed to stay off his feet and keep fairly sterile, so this place has done the job, but we cannot wait to get out of here!! We are getting a bus at around 4 which gets into Nandi airport 7ish. Mark luckily phoned our new hostel to check a couple of things only to learn they have no record of our booking. With no Internet available – wifi been down since we’ve been here and reckon is permanently down and the Internet cafe closed today (think they must be Seventh Day Evangelists, whatever that is but we’ve come across that a fair few times where stuff open Sundays but not Saturdays).
And as the hostel doesnt help you with anything so Marks been all over to get voucher for pay phone to sort us out. Luckily I had looked at a fair few places, so had a list of places to try, one of once came up trumps and is a bargain. Really will be glad to see the back of this place to be honest.