The bus ride back to Nadi wasn't too arduous; I think we have built up a tolerance for 3-4 hour travel. The bus dropped us about a mile from where we needed to be which was a little unexpected. We had to walk in the 35degree heat carrying our packs and warding off opportunistic local wannabe tour guides by convincing them we were happy to carry our own bags and knew where we were going whilst gritting our teeth and sweating buckets.

We made it to Bamboo and were greeted with some confusion over the booking. It turns out they'd messed up our booking and were full, so 'upgraded' us to the next door hostel without an apology, finding the whole thing very funny. Words like 'villa' and 'upgrade' do not mean the same thing in Fiji. Our dingy little box room with rotting furniture and a fan that sounded like a seaplane lacked the flowers and air conditioning of the Bamboo rooms. Annoyingly we'd had to pay before seeing the room. We went to find lunch (a disappointing and overpriced pizza straight out of the freezer) and returned to find tiny bugs all over the bed. The girl at reception brought a can of insecticide and a brush, and began spraying the bed. Great, everyone loves a pillow covered in noxious bug spray! Again there was no apology and no offer of clean bedding so we decided to look for somewhere else to stay. We were getting thoroughly sick of the 'Fiji time' attitude and poor standards, as there really isn't any excuse for it.

We stumbled across 'The Tropic of Capricorn' run by the slightly eccentric but utterly lovely 'Mama' who offered us a clean; light double with air-con and en-suite for a very reasonable price. Perfect! We moved our bags across and said our 'goodbyes' to the disgruntled managers at the previous place (again no apology).

Feeling hot and bothered but much happier in our new surroundings we both took showers (hot showers, the kind that blast the skin off your back) and repacked our bags before going in search of dinner that wasn't frozen then fried with chips. We found a tough beef curry and ate by the beach with a beer watching the local stray lame dogs trying to hump each other feeling a little let down by Fiji all in all.

On return to our hostel we were greeted (by name) by Mama who wanted to check we were happy with our room and that everything was ok. It was really nice that she'd taken the care to ask. The following morning she cheerily showed us where to find breakfast (brown bread hoooooray!) She even let us use the room during the day as our flight wasn't until late.

Fiji is undoubtedly beautiful, and a lot of the people warm and friendly, but gosh it's got a long way to go on getting the simple things right and in general we've found our time here to be disappointing, which has been a shame. Instead of doing international food badly (there is more to life than chips) they should do more local food because its lovely and what they're good at cooking, you would hope. Bedding should at the least be clean and dry. Staff need to appear to be less lazy and at least manage a polite smile and in general there needs to be an improved attitude towards tourists. Rather than trying to rip people off all the time just be a bit honest and people will freely spend more.

Top marks to Uprising resort, and Mama and her team for getting it right!