Vatulele - is this the world’s most luxurious, exotic island resort
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How to order more champagne by using your own personal flagpole on the beach.
As I tried to squat with dignity on the mud floor of his hut, the Chief of the Mataqali started clapping and chanting. I guessed something extraordinary was about to happen. Was the head man of Vatulele Island going to share a cannibal snack with me?
Or would my holiday end with marriage to one of his beautiful daughters? The chief smiled to his nodding cronies and a toothless old chap appeared with a wooden cauldron. Ah, it's the cannibal feast then...
I'd been a little worried that Fijian folk were used to scoffing each other.
Just 100 years ago, while we were sensibly inventing telephones and railways, Fijians were happily dining on each other. Fiji was even known as 'The Cannibal Isles'. Skulls were used as drinking bowls, human bones were made into earrings and all manner of body parts were hung in trees as decorations... now there's an interesting idea for the front room.
And all this wasn't for an ancient spiritual belief about consuming a rival's soul: it was simply paying someone you didn't like the ultimate insult. Eating someone was as rude as you could be. It was a sort of road-rage burger. Someone who'd accidentally stepped on your toe would be dragged to your hut in a noisy procession of drums for a fate not worse than death - but death itself.
But then the missionaries arrived and spoiled all the fun. OK, some early ones got gobbled, but the survivors quickly changed things. And now I defy anyone to travel to anywhere in the world to find a more friendly and hospitable people. The Fijians were well and truly transformed into a kindly, gentle lot. So much so that I thought that if I ever was going to be eaten, I couldn't think of a nicer bunch to do it.
When I arrived at Nandi international airport on the main island, Viti Levu, I'd been ready to don body armour to repel natives coming at me wielding knifes, forks and napkins. But things have changed. After all, you can't be frightened in a country where policemen wear skirts.
No wonder the Fijians are so good natured and happy nowadays - they live in a clichéd Polynesian paradise. It really is the idyllic land of swaying coconut palms, gleaming white sandy beaches and warm blue lagoons.
The climate is tropical, the sea is full of fat, tasty fish and the land is brimming with sugar cane, coconuts and fruit trees. The main islands are civilised while retaining many Fijian traditions - fire-walking, tribal dancing and making cloth from bark.
One old chap living in a ramshackle hut told me he pitied me for having to live in a western city to earn money, only...
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