On our third day, we decided to take a trip to the city of Nadi, on the west coast of Viti Levu. Now, I ought to just clear something up at this point. When people talk about Fiji, they generally mean the Fijian island of Viti Levu, which is where the capital city of Suva can be found. Fiji is actually made up of 322 islands, of which about 100 are actually inhabited, but people seem to mysteriously forget this and refer to the island of Viti Levu as Fiji. During our visit we were staying on the coral coast of Viti Levu, which is the south west corner of the island around the town of Sigatoka, and it was just a short walk from the Crow's Nest to the main road from where we were able to catch a bus or flag down a taxi to wherever we wanted to go. Well, I say "flag down". Generally, if you're standing by the side of the road, walking along the side of a road or just generally anywhere near a road, every passing taxi will stop and ask if you want a lift - even if it is already full of passengers. This is because hardly anybody in Fiji has a car and so people go everywhere by bus or taxi - you can pretty much get to anywhere this way for next to nothing, and taxi drivers will reduce the fare even more if you let them pick up everybody they happen to come across on the way to your destination so that you can share the cost between you.

Sometimes, you can get to where you're going with about eight people squeezed into the back seat and end up owing only the equivalent of a few pennies each. Of course, you also get to know people a lot more closely this way. Buses are an equally interesting way to get around - these large clunky things look as though they haven't been updated since the fifties, and all the windows have been removed so that you are forced to take in the sights and sounds of Fiji as you rattle your way through every town on the way to your destination. This can, however, be a good thing, as it isn't unheard of for locals to get on the bus clutching a handful of live chickens, and I'm pretty sure that having no windows would definitely be a good idea should a chicken get free on board. Should it happen to rain, then somebody just unclips a couple of cords and canvas flaps fall down over the windows, sometimes plunging everybody into darkness if it happens to be late at night. At this point, if you're a young female backpacker, you probably pray that nobody in the vicinity has wandering hands - but then, since just about every form of public transport in Fiji seems to involve a stranger pulling up next to you in a car or a van and asking if you want a lift, you pretty much take your life into your hands every time you go anywhere.

A third form of public transport in Fiji, and the type which we ended up using to get into Nadi, is the people carrier. These are just small vans or open backed trucks which drive around picking people up from remote villages and dropping them off elsewhere for next to nothing - they have no pre-determined route, so they can go just about anywhere just like a taxi, although there is no point in making any plans to be somewhere at a particular time if this is your preferred form of transport as the drivers have a tendency to suddenly decide to stop for a tea break or to go home and watch their favourite show on television while you wait outside in the van. This was something we discovered when, as we waited for a bus outside the Crow's Nest on our third day in Fiji, an empty minivan pulled up in front of us and the driver asked us if we wanted to go to Nadi.

What we weren't told was that our driver had no intention of taking anyone all the way to Nadi unless he could get others on board as well to make it worth his while. So, sitting in the back of the van, we were a little surprised to find ourselves being driven back to Sigatoka rather than onto the main road to the west coast. However, our driver was friendly enough and politely explained that he wanted to get some other people on board - so when he pulled up outside the coach station in Sigatoka, got out and went inside the local taxi office, we just followed him outside and stood in the shade of the building with various other people who had probably also been deserted by their cabbie. After about half an hour, during which we had seen our driver come out of the office and wander off down the street without speaking to us, we were starting to wonder whether he was actually going to come back or if we should instead start looking for alternate transport to Nadi. At this point, we were joined by an enthusiastically happy Fijian who just sort of inserted himself into our conversation and started to ask endless questions about life in England as though he was studying the subject for a degree. After a while, he steered the conversation on to the subject of the Royal Family, clearly assuming that everybody from the UK must be some sort of expert. Fiji was a British colony until as recently as 1970, and the Queen's head still appears perplexingly on the banknotes despite numerous changes of government, military coups and the removal of the British monarchy in 1987 - so it is clear that some people here are still interested in our quaint system of being ruled over by a head of state. I have never considered myself a monarchist by any stretch of the imagination, but it was certainly interesting to hear this Fijian man showing such a level of interest. We were never quite sure whether he was being serious, and began to wonder if he was just trying to get a reaction out of us, especially when he announced matter-of-factly that he had just been told that the Queen mother had died. This was not, of course, true at the time - but since we were on our way around the world and didn't really know what was going on back home, we just looked suitably surprised and said "really?" just in case this news happened to be anything more than gossip. Our new friend then managed to provide me with one of my favourite anecdotes from the entire trip, a line which never fails to make people choke on their drink whenever I repeat it in polite company. Having done nothing for the last five minutes other than give us the impression that he was a devout monarchist with a great deal of respect for the royal family, our friend told us about the supposed death of the Queen mother and then fell into what we assumed was a respectful silence for a good thirty seconds. Then, when he spoke again, neither of us knew quite whether we should look horrified or dissolve into fits of uncontrollable laughter:

"Stupid b****" he said.

Eventually, our driver returned with some more people he had managed to round up on the streets of Sigatoka - a few of whom looked as though they probably didn't really want to go anywhere but had been bullied into it - and we set off once more for Nadi (which is pronounced "Nandi", by the way, just to confuse visitors). It then turned out that he also had something of a sideline in commission from tourist shops, and we were dropped off in Nadi outside a large souvenir shop and bundled inside as though we were a tour group. This was not, I have to admit, one of those side street shops where you get chased down the street by the owner desperate to make a sale - just looking at the array of souvenirs on offer was enough to boggle the mind. There were glass display cabinets scattered around containing a dazzling array of Fijian handicrafts - jewellery made out of collections of shells, traditional woven hats, pottery, wall hangings and not to mention the intricately carved wooden heads which were clearly designed to scare the crap out of anyone who happened to come into your house late at night and see them hanging on the wall. Next to the window was a mind-numbing display of replica cannibalism equipment from the bad old days of Fiji which you could buy and take home - although some of these implements were almost as tall as I was and had sharp blades on the end of them which I thought quite likely to raise a question or two at customs. There is an interesting dichotomy when it comes to the local attitude to Fiji's cannibal past - many locals just don't want to talk about it and seem unable to grasp the irony of biting your head off for daring to suggest that any such thing ever went on, while the rest will steer you happily into the nearest souvenir shop where they will attempt to sell you a special fork designed specifically for scooping out eyeballs. I guess, however gruesome their past may be, they know what sells. Perhaps I should suggest a new light-hearted slogan for the Fiji tourism industry: "You buy our handicrafts, or we'll eat your parents"

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.