Bula! Bula!

'Bula' is the Fijian word for 'hello'. Whenever you make eye contact with Fijians they cry 'bula! bula!' (once is never enough).

Many Fijians, including the men, still wear the traditional sulu, a calf-length wrap-around skirt. It's quite bizarre when your waiter is wearing a skirt and brightly coloured flowered shirt, when he is built like a brick toilet and looks as if he'd be more at home doing the haka before indulging in the very popular national sport of rugby.

Fiji is an archipelago made up of 333 islands, 106 of which are permanently inhabited. We flew into Nadi airport on the largest island, Vita Sevu, and took a ferry straight out to Bounty Island, which was to be our home for the next five days.

Bounty Island is a dot of golden sand sticking out of the blue ocean like a cupcake with palm trees instead of candles. A small luxuriant forest of banana, papaya and palm trees is surrounded by thick soft sand and then the clear waters of the South Pacific.

We stayed in a simple hut right on the beach. There was nothing but a bed with a mosquito net, an ancient fridge, a shower and toilet, and the curtains weren't big enough to cover the windows, but fresh jacaranda and hibiscus were placed on our pillows every morning.

We followed a strict daily routine - wake with the birds at dawn (about 6.30am); run into the sea 20 yards away from our door, stroll to the communal dining room for breakfast, laze in hammocks in the hot sun, spot of lunch, paddle around the reef spotting brightly coloured fish and pretty patches of coral, maybe a quick snorkel before Happy Hour, then a delicious dinner of mahi mahi (dolphin fish). If we felt guilty about this extreme idleness, we walked all the way around the island, an arduous twenty minute stroll. Paradise surely can't be any better than this!