Unfortunately, as I am writing this travelogue out of order, a little confusion creeps in here - you see, when I wrote these entries I was flying in the opposite direction, coming in from the direction of Fiji rather than the mainland US. Normal service will be resumed shortly!

Aloha. Somewhere between Fiji and Hawaii my plane crossed the International Dateline, travelling back in time by twenty-four hours in the process. Technically, this means that I am currently in two places at once - in Waikiki on the Hawaiian island of Oahu and still tucked up in my bed back in Fiji. In fact, I reckon that before I even left Fiji I had already arrived in Hawaii - so it really is no wonder I've got a headache tonight. Luckily for my sanity, the flight went smoothly and I wasn't on this occasion required to sit next to any screaming children. Instead, the passenger in the next seat was a friendly, if slightly batty, Indian lady who was on her way to visit friends in Canada - after chatting incessantly to me for six hours on the subject of socks and promising to buy me a cup of coffee at the airport, she managed to turn the wrong way out of the arrival lounge and I never saw her again. She probably boarded a plane back to Fiji.

Filling in the paperwork required to enter the United States is notoriously like trying to saw off your own leg with a nail file - tedious, painful and almost totally pointless. Luckily, as a British Citizen I am now able to bypass all the bureaucracy involved in Visa applications by filling out something called a waiver form on the plane. This is a marvellous piece of comedic writing, full of questions such as "Do you intend, while resident in the United States of America, to be involved in any terrorist activity, or to supply arms or aid to any terrorist organisation?" I'm pretty sure that whoever wrote this form did so as a joke and it has been taken far too seriously - in the same way that the founding fathers were probably having a bit of a laugh when they suggested that all citizens from that point on should be allowed to walk into a shop, wave a driving license and walk out with a deadly weapon.

Passing through customs is the worst part of getting into the States. Once you're inside the country you can go about living the American dream, but first you have to be grilled by an immigration official who looks like an extra from Planet of the Apes and either makes out he's your best mate or peers suspiciously over his glasses at you for ten minutes - depending on the tactic they're using at the time. They ask lots of stupid questions - "Where have you been?", "What did you see?", "Who did you meet?", "Have you got any drugs stashed up your backside?", that sort of thing - clearly designed not so much to weed out Mr Big as Mr Unbelievably Stupid. The conversation I had with my customs official went something like this:

"Good Morning Sir, Where are you coming from this evening?"

Jupiter, you moron. You've just watched everybody get off the same flight.

"Fiji," I said instead, then added lightly, "I'm going around the world, you know."

Mr Customs was suddenly my new buddy. "Really. Where have you been so far?

Loads of places with infectious diseases. Okay if I bring the Plague into America?

"Thailand, Hong Kong, Fiji…"

"Really?" Mr Customs was all ears now, "What did you do in Thailand?

Well, Officer, I caught some incurable sexual diseases from the girls there, for a start.

"Mainly laying about on the beach, the usual. Say, what do you think of the tan?"

The guy looked at me for a moment, obviously having never encountered sarcasm before, and then he handed over my passport.

"Have a nice day now. Welcome to America."

Anyway, I'm here now. By night, Honolulu is a big glittery hillside of lights - just like you see in all the holiday brochures. Its midnight now, and I seriously need to check into my hotel in order to make sure I'm wide awake for the Welcome Orientation at nine in the morning. Fiji time is definitely a thing of the past.

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.