One of the only moans I have about the resort is that there are colonies of ants everywhere, although there is very little that can be done about it as it's simply a fact of life on the Islands. I don't know where they all come from - all I have to do is put my chocolate bar down by the sink for 30 seconds and when I go back to it it's swarming with ants. Most of my food seems to end up getting flushed straight down the toilet - cut out the middle man, so to speak! I asked at reception if they could do anything about the infestation, and when I got back to my room this evening somebody had clearly made a half-hearted effort with a can of bug spray and left the half empty can on the dressing table.

Apart from the ants, I'm having a great time. The entertainment at the Naviti is fairly good, usually consisting of an evening display of Polynesian Hula-dancing followed by a disco until the early hours - but looking through The Naviti Sandpiper, our daily guide to what's on, it seems they still manage to throw in the odd surreal event for good measure:

INTERNATIONAL FROG RACES: IN THE LOUNGE AT 8.30PM. FROGS FROM AROUND THE WORLD COMPETE FOR THE ULTIMATE CROWN

Now, my question is this: Just who makes this Crown and how small are the tools?

Actually, the Sandpiper has been an invaluable tool during my stay. It drew my attention to a wedding in the lounge this evening between a Mr Clark and Ms James, which was a traditional local ceremony which was both enjoyable and informative to watch. Both bride and groom were dressed in Fijian ceremonial costumes and local tribesmen were on hand to shout loudly and wave sticks around and generally scare us all to death. One moment we were all sitting around whispering to each other about how romantic it was and how we'd like to have an island wedding like this one day, the next we were leaping backwards in fear of our lives as traditional Fijian warriors appeared out of nowhere and started marching towards the bride and groom. I wondered briefly if they knew they're not permitted to cut people's heads off and stick them on spikes any more.

Last night after watching the sunset, I went to the bar to get myself a drink before calling it a night. There I met three great girls from Sydney - Cathy, Jackie and Bronwyn. We all got on really well straight away, and made arrangements to catch a local bus this morning into the local town of Sigatoka. This, in itself, turned out to be something of a culture trip. We met down in the lobby early this morning and walked down the long drive that connects the complex to the main road. I really am right in the middle of nowhere here - at the end of the drive, the main road simply stretches away as far as the eye can see in both directions. The bus, when it appeared, was simply a dot on the horizon which got slowly bigger until it screeched to a halt beside us. It was a rickety old thing, driven by another rickety old thing, and once on board we bounced along the dirt road on our way to Sigatoka, chickens clucking around on the roof and women in dirty shawls huddled in the corner with baskets of god-knows-what.

Sigatoka was much like a smaller version of Suva, and all four of us spent much of our time fighting off vendors who had obviously seen us coming. In the flea market the stall holders were willing to do virtually anything to prevent us from leaving, so we came up with the idea that one of us would go in and look around while the others stood outside to avoid being pounced on as a group of tourists. This didn't work at all, as those of us waiting outside were simply approached from every direction by vendors who had seen us across the street and wanted to see if we needed any phallic shaped fertility charms.

"Just come and look at my stall", said one, "No harm in looking, yes?"

Once you go and look, of course, the hard sell begins and you become trapped. The next stallholder over will stop you on the way past and say "You looked at my friends stall, it isn't fair that you don't look at mine"

To get you through the door many store owners will give you some trinket free if you look, usually a brooch or necklace with a value of probably less than nothing. I tried without success to explain to the girls that they would get a much better deal if they bought souvenirs from the Baravi Handicraft Centre which we would be passing on the way back to the Naviti, but sometimes it's just impossible to resist the pull of some exotic looking wooden cannibal fork offered by a local merchant along with the serious-faced promise that "we don't use them any more"

Tonight, I wanted to see The Magic of the South Seas, a show which takes place twice weekly at the Sheraton Fiji. It is hosted by a local witchdoctor by the name of Tupa'I Bruno, and as the in-flight magazine on the plane had given over nearly five pages to the show I thought it must be worth seeing. The Sheraton resort is bloody huge, as you would expect from an international chain like themselves, and just a tad on the lavish side. I was treated like a visiting dignitary by the staff from the moment I got out of the taxi, which had entered the resort across a bridge which I took to indicate that the resort was on its own island. As it was a while before the show started, I decided to have dinner in the Foyer restaurant, if for no other reason than that I would be able to tell people I had dined at the Sheraton. There were a lot of designer shops dotted around the lobby of the hotel, selling the most expensive jewellery and watches you can imagine. Out of interest, I enquired as to how much the rooms were. The receptionist handed me the current price list, looking me carefully up and down and mentioning that they could probably do something to cut the prices down if I was on a budget. I didn't quite know how to take this. The least expensive rooms in the place started at F$495 a night - about £180, and went up to more lavish rooms at a mere £400 a night. I told them I would have to think it over, and went outside to laugh loudly into the night.

The show started at 8.00PM in the Sheraton Pavilion, a huge circus tent that had been erected behind the hotel. Tupa'I Bruno apparently used to work in the circus before going on to spend many years manufacturing tents for travelling shows. He has, in recent years, become an official Witchdoctor in Samoa and travelled the Polynesian Triangle performing his unique blend of magic and dance. On his travels, he has even been thrown out of countries for practising "The Black Arts", and for the time being it seems he has got fed up travelling and taken root at the Sheraton Fiji Resort. Like all showmen, I don't think it'll be too long before he moves on elsewhere.

Bruno is a funny little man, totally different on stage from what you might expect of a witchdoctor and world class magician. From the fliers and other advertising material, I had been rather under the impression that he was a big menacing character with fire coming out of his nose and a bone through his neck. The photos show him standing over the charred remains of human bodies, waving magic wands around in the air and dancing about in the middle of burning buildings - more or less what you would expect from a witchdoctor, in fact! In reality, however, Bruno is difficult to describe. He is a small, chunky man with a bald head and squinty little eyes. Actually, he's quite easy to describe, isn't he? Bruno rushes around the stage in more the manner of a clown or a dandy than a serious entertainer, making camp Carry On Matron style oooh sounds at everything - whether it's a female dancer appearing on stage with a grass skirt hanging suggestively from her waist, or a member of the audience being cut in half with a chainsaw. Perhaps this is his circus background showing through.

Only about 50% of the show was actually what I would term magic. There was plenty of juggling and fire-walking, and the rest of the show was really more about beautiful Polynesian dancing girls with very little on and tattooed men performing tribal dancing displays. He also had a sixteen year old girl called Princess Zula as part of the act, supposedly from the entirely fictitious island of Bula-Bula - "Hello Hello" in Fijian. She climbed to the top of a high rope and performed incredible acrobatics on tight-ropes and high gantries as the audience covered their eyes and hoped she didn't fall to her death. It was every bit as entertaining as any other circus act and there's no denying Princess Zula probably has a future in the business, but it really wasn't magic - and what magic we did get was pretty second rate. There were no big illusions as such, just a lot of Bruno inviting people from the audience to pick cards or have knives thrown at them. A couple of the Hawaiian Hula-girls got levitated or cut in half in novel ways, but Bruno was largely let down by his equipment and the audience was badly positioned so that we kept catching glimpses of how the tricks were being done as he darted around the back. It's a shame. The show has a lot of potential, but I have to say I spent most of my time watching a half hearted attempt at an obvious trick and wondering when the girls in the grass skirts were coming back on.

The taxi driver spent most of the journey back to the Naviti trying to persuade me to pay him to take me to a local nightclub where presumably he was getting a commission. He attempted to sell me on the idea with the promise "Fiji girls, they like western men. You'll have a very happy night, I promise."

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.