Do you know, I've been to forty-two countries in my life so far. I was pretty amazed when I worked that figure out a while back. And of those 42, I hadn't been to fully a third of them until I started out on my post-Powergen travels. How cool is that? (For those of you who may be interested, the countries I have visited are in Europe: the UK, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Serbia & Montenegro, Spain, and Portugal; in Africa: South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Madagascar; in the Americas: Canada, the USA, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil; in Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong; and in Oceania: Fiji, Independent Samoa, Australia, and New Zealand. For those of you who aren't interested, just cut to the next paragraph. Oh, it's too late to tell you that. What a pity.)

Not content with 42 countries, I decided on Monday to add one more by spending the day in Macau, the ex-Portuguese territory about an hour west of Hong Kong by high-speed ferry. Now there may be some nit-pickers out there (you know who you are) who will argue that Macau & Hong Kong are not separate countries, but in fact Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China. Well, that's as may be, but the fact is you need to get your passport stamped to get in to either of them, and I'd need to buy a visa to visit China proper from Hong Kong or Macau, so I'm going to count them as countries. Similarly, however much I am in favour of self-determination, I'm not going to count nations like Scotland or Catalonia as countries because for passport stamping purposes they are part of other states. So there. But I digress.

Macau is famous for its casinos, and this fame is set to grow because the big US casino companies have recently been given permission to set up shop there, breaking the monopoly of Macau's state-owned casino business. Thanks to the popularity of gambling amongst Hong Kong's residents, there are ferries pretty much every ten minutes between the two territories.

I arrived in Macau to find yet more heat and sun and a blend of (mostly) Chinese and (a few) European faces, but there are subtle differences between the two territories. For one, all the signs are bilingual but in Chinese and Portuguese, not Chinese & English. I was also struck by the feeling that everything in Macau is not quite as posh and hi-tech as in Hong Kong; for instance, there are no big shiny double-decker buses, only the naff-looking minibuses (of which there are also plenty in HK but here stand out for their ubiquity).

When I reached the centre of town, I spent some time admiring the Mediterranean architecture of the main square and its immediate surroundings, including a couple of churches and mediaeval-style narrow back streets. Then, after some incredible deep-fried wontons and a seafood noodle dish, I took a long walk through "real" Macau (ie not on a main road or in a guidebook), where I got a flavour of the distinctive mix of Portuguese and Chinese culture in this territory. It very much felt like walking through a Chinese quarter of an Iberian city, with dusty buildings, raucous little tea houses and the occasional gaggle of small children. In one café I watched a game of mah-jong, the Chinese tile game that is a bit like whist. The players' dexterity with whole piles of tiles, as they shuffled them and then arranged all 144 into four diagonal walls face-down, was amazing to watch.

Then I found myself at the foot of the ruins of St Paul's church, considered by many the most important monument to Christianity in Asia owing to its many "paupers' Bible" carvings and sculptures depicting scenes of Christian belief for the benefit of those unable to read the Bible. It was built in 1602 by Japanese Christian exiles under the direction of an Italian Jesuit and in 1835 burned down, leaving only the front façade, while being used as a barracks.

I made my way from the church ruins up to the ruins of the castle, from where I had a fine view over much of central Macau, and across to the swathes of new tower blocks that have been built just over the border in China proper. Later, after a leisurely walk back into the centre along steep, shaded, narrow streets, I took a bus south to the Temple of A-Ma, the local goddess of seafarers, which stands just above the original landing point for the first Portuguese to venture here in 1557. Opposite is the fascinating Maritime Museum, where I saw scale models of dozens of different seafaring vessels and a history of sailing, fishing and exploration.

Next I travelled south over one of Macau's three stunning kilometres-long bridges from the peninsula to Taipa Island, where I visited the olde-worlde fishing village that is Taipa Village, with its traditional Chinese shops and architecture. The whole village now stands in the shadow of a massive housing development in the middle of the island, but is still nice to walk around.

Finally another bus took me south across the recently-reclaimed land bridge of Cotai (it's right in the middle of being reclaimed actually; I imagine in a year's time there will be a row of tower blocks or casinos or something where now there is little more than mud) to the island of Coloane. Here my goal was to eat at Fernando's, a legendary Portuguese seafood restaurant on Hac Sa beach on the island's southeastern side. But I fancied a bit of a walk along the beach first, its grey-black volcanic sands surprisingly soft underfoot, and managed to get completely lost, somehow ending up right back at the northern end where the road comes in! Despairing of back-tracking for another 40 minutes on my now very weary feet, I caught another bus to the beach and flopped down at a table in the busy Fernando's to order some white wine and a huge plate of shrimps in oil and garlic. Most tasty.

There was one other thing at Fernando's that amused me other than the bizarreness of sitting in what could quite easily be mistaken for a typical Mediterranean restaurant - replete with red-and-white checked tablecloths, breadcrumbs strewn about the place, and the animated chatter of dozens of patrons - but actually being in Asia. And that was the couple at the next table. They looked so out of place in these European surroundings. She was a diminutive Oriental girlie with careful make-up and a Gucci handbag; he was like a Chinese version of the Hulk. It's not that his body was hugely chunky (although there was nothing scrawny about him), or even that he had a particularly big head. It was just that his face was comically oversized.

It was like I was seeing him sat before me, with an invisible hand holding a magnifying glass over his face. His eyes appeared to be up in the top corners of his forehead; his nose was surrounded by flat expanses of flesh instead of other features, and his cavernous mouth seemed strangely un-huge in its setting of a pronounced jaw and wide chin. And there he was, I imagine in some sort of lovers' tryst, sucking on & spitting out pointy bits of crab carcass while trying to impress his bird! It was a preposterous scene! I couldn't help visualising the couple as Beauty & the Beast. (But who am I to talk?)

My meal concluded and the passable house white drained from its carafe, I left the restaurant and awaited the minibus that would take me back to peninsular Macau. Then, in the space of a little over two-and-a-half hours, I was back in Clare & Pete's flat after a couple of buses, a ferry and a tram ride. Sleep was bliss.

Hong Kong! City of skyscrapers and smog, of high-rise and harbours, crowded streets and crispy duck. It's 100% Asia, that's for sure.

What with arriving at midnight, by the time I got through customs it was too late to travel into town. I decided to settle on a bench in the arrivals hall and try to get some sleep. The only other people still in the airport were either doing the same or else wearing uniforms and walking around on guard duty. Somewhat to my own amazement, I actually did manage to sleep, even though one leg was threaded through the armrest of the bench and the other was sort of hooked over the back. I was pretty knackered from 24 hours of travelling, I guess.

I awoke to a much busier morning peoplewise, and decided to have a bite to eat before heading into town and finding somewhere to stay. Thank heavens for Lonely Planet! I must admit, I was a bit nervous about coming to Hong Kong. It was a little bit like when I flew to Bangkok in January; not speaking the language or even being able to read signs, I felt a bit stressed by it all. But of course, like in Bangkok, it's not really as bad as all that. If there aren't signs in English, there's always someone you can ask.

As dawn spread its gentle luminescence over pristine highways & bridges and more tired-looking buildings & wharves, I caught a bus from Chek Lap Kok airport (the new one they flattened a mountain on Lantau Island to build) into Kowloon's Tsim Sha Tsui district (pronounced Chim Sa Choy, and known affectionately to some as Chimzy), where LP told me I would be able to find budget accommodation. This I duly did, dumping my bag in the store room of Cosmic Guest House and being told to come back later, when people had had a chance to check out.

It was still only eight in the morning, but already there were more and more people on the streets. I walked down to Victoria Harbour and gazed at the spectacle of Hong Kong Island's many soaring edifices just the other side of this narrow and busy waterway. As I was sat contemplating the view, I was approached by a Sikh gentleman who seemed quite taken with how lucky my forehead appeared. And d'you know, there must be some truth in his assertions, because he was only the first of three Sikh gentlemen who approached me that same morning to inform me of my fortunate physiognomy! I politely thanked each of them, and then moved away before they could spring whatever scam they were trying on.

After wandering around through the thronging crowds on the streets and through shining temples to consumerism (they really like to shop here, and I don't mean for tat), I returned to my hostel and checked in. My room was, shall we say, a little on the minuscule side. The bed just fit lengthways and there was maybe 50 cm to spare widthways. But I had an en suite, though, so I couldn't complain. Except maybe about the fact that when standing in the toilet/sink/shower room I was actually touching all four walls without even extending my arms. But hey, you get what you pay for, and in HK if you want a decent hotel you have to pay lots more than I was willing to part with.

In the afternoon I bought myself a HK SIM card for my phone - my goodness, mobile telephony is cheap here! We're talking less than 1p a minute for calls! And the biggest surprise was that the SIM card itself was free; when I handed over my 98 dollars, I expected to get maybe 50 dollars of calling credit, but no, it was 98 dollars of calling credit. How cool is that? It felt strange not buying a Vodafone SIM though. Even though Vodafone have done me no favours - in fact they're a bunch of thieving bastards, in the UK at least - I've fallen into some sort of brand loyalty. I hate it when I become aware that marketing has had an effect on me.

Anyway, enough about mundane telecoms matters. Except to say that bloody hell, I was expecting internet access to be ubiquitous and supercheap in HK, but it appears I was wrong on both counts. When I did finally find an internet café, I was shocked to discover I had to pay 30 dollars (that's 2 quid) an hour. Ah well.

After finding myself some lunch - it was a splendid noodle bar called Red Ant - I spoke with my old school friend Wai-Chung, whose wedding I am here to attend, about what arrangements were for that evening's stag do. He put me in touch with his Master of Ceremonies (like NZ, here in HK they have split the role of best man into two), a guy called Hah, and with his soon-to-be-sister-in-law Corina, who was organising a get-together with a video camera guy to film a bunch of us talking about the nearly-weds. The stag do was going to depart from the hen do, as it were, after we had done a bit of filming.

So I jumped on the MTR (Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway, which is a wonderfully efficient and pleasant Underground system) and reached the do in downtown HK. There I met Corina and lots of the girls who will be at the wedding. I also met Hah, the MC, and Eric, the Best Man. The three of us left about an hour later to meet up with Wai-Chung and another couple of friends of his, Philip and Bernard. Then the intrepid six went into Wan Chai, HK's getting-pissed-and-then-picking-up-Filipina-girlies area, for an Indonesian meal and some beers. The night progressed satisfactorily, in a stag do sort of way, and ended around 4 am after more food, a spot of massage (but nothing kinky, of course), and several rounds of booze. A good time was had by all.

Saturday morning was a bit of a washout. I made it over to Happy Valley, where Hong Kong's most important racecourse is, to meet up with Helena's friend Clare's fiancé Pete at the Hong Kong Football Club, where he was in the middle of playing a rugby match. We had a chat for a while after his game, and Pete recommended an Irish bar in Wan Chai called Delaney's to me if I wanted to watch that night's England - Australia rugby match (he unfortunately had a prior commitment). As it happened, I was due to meet up with Hah that night in Wan Chai anyway, so I combined the two and met Hah & his mates at Delaney's.

The bar had a lively atmosphere, and was full of Brits and Aussies for the game. Beer flowed and banter flew around between groups of lads. The game itself was fantastic, with lots of great play on both sides. Sadly, England lost, but it was a most enjoyable game to watch. After the match we moved on to a few other bars for beers, and I finally made my way home around 3 o'clock, like yesterday taking a taxi through the tunnel under Victoria Harbour and emerging on the Kowloon side in Tsim Sha Tsui.

It was another hot and sunny day in Hong Kong on Sunday. And this is their winter! I went for a short walk around Tsim Sha Tsui, grabbing an iced tea with herb jelly chunks in a posh-looking noodle bar. Then I spent a few hours trying to catch up with my cyber self, before heading over to Happy Valley to meet up with Clare & Pete.

Clare & Pete's flat is delightful, with views out over the racecourse and across the Central and Causeway Bay skylines. They have kindly offered to put me up in their guest room for the rest of the time that I'm in Hong Kong, and I have gratefully accepted - even their broom cupboard would have been bigger than my room in the Cosmic Guest House! After a bit of a chat and a cup of tea, we went and had lunch at a nearby Tex-Mex bar that served Belgian beers. I had a Kwak, in its proper beaker glass. Yum!

Given that this was to be my last night in Kowloon, I thought I'd better make the most of it, so I went that evening for a walk along the waterfront. It was amazing to see so many people just strolling about, but then I shouldn't have been that surprised because the views over to the Hong Kong side of the harbour are stunning. There was a busy night market going on too, where I could easily have bought loads of Christmas trinkets but I managed to restrain myself.

My next stop was the Space Museum to watch an OmniMax cinema presentation. Basically, the cinema screen is the whole dome of the planetarium, giving an almost 3D quality to the film - which was a documentary about the ecosystems of deep-sea volcanic vents - because the edges are so much nearer to the viewers than the middle. When the film was over, I caught the tail end of the fireworks & laser show over Central and Admiralty from the Avenue of the Stars on Kowloon side. Then I bade farewell to the friendly staff at the Cosmic, caught the MTR to Causeway Bay, and walked up to Clare & Pete's flat through the pleasant night air of the still-busy streets around Times Square.

Apropos of nothing, here's a recent article from the Independent newspaper that neatly lays out my own view of the future of tourism. (Needless to say, I don't agree with Silvio Berlusconi!) All I can add is, when I get back to Europe I'm so heading for Sardinia.

Tuesday morning's Warren tour was no less pleasing than Monday's had been. The taxivan driver from yesterday came to pick us up - only 20 minutes late this time - after an early breakfast, and we drove straight to the Pulemelei Mound. This is the ruins of a prehistoric pyramid structure (prehistoric being a relative term, of course; without European intrusion, in the non-literate society of Samoa yesterday would be prehistoric) that probably dates from the period of Tongan rule over Samoa about 1000 years ago. It is the largest such structure in the whole of Polynesia, and as such ought to be much more famous than it is, but the Samoans aren't into archaeology much - the local ruling tribes have got more pressing things to think about like land claims against one another - and attempts to have the site put forward for UNESCO World Heritage status have foundered on local opposition to what is seen as foreign meddling.

The mound is reached by walking up from the road through an abandoned coconut plantation, past a delightful waterfall (more on that later) and up into the forest. Thanks to recent archaeological work (the guys had to leave in a hurry a few months ago, and are unlikely to return, thanks to the aforementioned issues with the local tribe) the mound has been cleared of scrub and is now laid bare. Some 10m high, the stepped pyramid slopes are composed of large blocks of lava and form a flat square platform some 60m x 65m. It is not known what purpose the pyramid may have served, but it does command a view over the nearby coastline and so at least one of its functions might have been as a lookout post to warn of invasions.

Handily, the archaeologists left intact a couple of mango trees that have grown on the top of the platform, so there was some respite from the hot sun as we stood and listened to Warren's explanations and his anecdotes about the survey team's problems with the locals. Then it was time for a bit of R&R, so we headed back down to the waterfall.

What a lovely lovely place! It was, we all agreed, by far the nicest swimming hole any of us had ever visited. Almost circular, half-ringed by gently trickling waterfalls and crowned with a bigger cascade falling a good 20m, the pool was about 30m across. It was mostly shaded by its steep slopes (getting to the pool was a bit hazardous, down a narrow path and finally clambering down a makeshift ladder with rungs too far apart for comfort) but there was enough light to keep it from feeling dank.

And the water was just the right temperature for leisurely swimming or hanging about. Greg & Carlin wowed us with some madcap jumps into the pool from a ledge about 5m up, and our local guide went one step further, climbing to a ledge about 15m up and plunging into the pool, flip-flops gripped tightly between his toes and lavalava flapping.

We spent a delightful hour here, washing away the sweat & dust of the morning's walk and generally larking about. All too soon it was time to head back to the hotel, check out, pack up, and go to the ferry terminal. (I was going to head back to Upolu on the same boat as Greg & Carlin, while Kate was heading north to Tanu's at our recommendation.)

The ferry was chocabloc, so the three of us had to content ourselves with standing room on what turned out luckily to be the shady side of the boat. There were no dolphins on this trip, but Greg & Carlin reckon they saw a turtle. I'm notoriously crap at spotting wildlife from afar, damnit.

At the other end back on Upolu, we said our farewells. Greg & Carlin were heading for Manono Island (on Kate's recommendation), which is a tiny island in between Upolu and Savai'i and is home to a very traditional Samoan village - Carlin has since uploaded some pictures of her time in Samoa, and you can find them here. I had to hot-foot it back to Apia to pick up my changed ticket from the Air New Zealand office. By a quirk of fate, I ended up travelling back to town on the same bus that had brought me to the ferry terminal last week. This time there were far fewer passengers, but the music was the same (those tunes are burned on my eardrums forever now!).

While I was waiting outside the office for them to let me in, none other than Sandra, Dirk's wife from the dive shop at Manase, ran into me! She was back in Apia again running some errands, and so we agreed to meet up for a drink & a bite to eat. This was especially nice for me, for two reasons: first, I hadn't had a chance to get to know Sandra at all, having met her only briefly on my first day at Manase and then even more briefly on my last; and second, I had eight hours to kill before I needed to be at the airport for my 3.30 am flight, and a nice chat is infinitely preferable to sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for a transfer bus.

Why are flights at such stupid times in Samoa? One explanation I heard was that, being at the arse end of the world, flights here had to be tagged on to other countries' more convenient schedules. Plausible. I think it might be a heat thing as well. The airport at Apia is built a bit like a fale, with no external walls, only it's all concrete, and I reckon it could get unbearably hot there by day.

Eventually I found myself at the airport, checked in and waiting. I got a guy at the cafeteria to open my last remaining fresh coconut from Savai'i (there was no way THAT was going to get into New Zealand!) and savoured the tropics for one last time before boarding the aircraft and heading back to civilisation.

It's a good job I like flying. I mean, I'm doing enough of it these days, and it's not even coming in an even flow. It seems my journeys bunch themselves up for heightened pleasure. Here I was, setting out from a South Sea island, due to arrive five airports and twenty-four hours later in an East Asian metropolis. Not so very long after having flown from Canada to NZ in six hops and 30 hours. I just hope that theory about increased exposure to cosmic rays at cruising altitude is all bollocks.

After a brief stop on Tonga (just enough time to take a leak and half-open my bleary eyes to see a grainy pre-dawn tropical runway witih our Airbus sitting on it) we arrived in Auckland. Here I had the great pleasure of meeting up once more with my [I'll say cousin; it's easier that way] Gayle, who - fortunately for me - works in the airport. We had a coffee & a natter, and then she left me to repack my bags in a new non-island configuration: because I had left my roller bag with Gayle when I came through Auckland a fortnight ago, now I could empty out of my big rucksack some things I wasn't going to need in the next fortnight (like my mask & snorkel) and put in some things I would (like my suit & tie). Then I went to Gayle's office & left my roller bag with her again, and proceeded to check in for Sydney.

Gayle had been sweet enough to arrange lounge access for me, and not just to the common-as-muck airline lounge either. No, this was the airport's own VIP room, where the Prime Minister comes if he's around! I had it to myself for a blissful thirty minutes, where I could lie outstretched on the floor, have a tomato juice (it was just like the old Powergen business class travel to Europe days!) and prepare mentally for the opening of a new chapter in my travels.

Then it was onwards and upwards. Qantas took me to Sydney and there I had a bit of a fright. My ticket was routed via Melbourne, but I hadn't realised the implications of an domestic connection, namely that I would have to pass through Immigration. Which would mean activating my work visa fully two months earlier than I had planned. Which would have ballsed things up good & proper.

The guys at Immigration suggested I talk to Qantas to see what they could do, so I backtracked to the transfer desk in the international terminal and had a piece of luck. The lady there seemed initially unhelpful, and I feared the worst, but then she rang a colleague and between them they managed to get me on a direct flight to Hong Kong that left in two hours' time. And I didn't even have to pay a charge! All I had to hope was that my luggage would be retrieved from the carousel in the domestic terminal and make it onto the same plane as me.

So eventually I found myself on a jumbo jet bound for Hong Kong, reasonably confident that my bag was with me somewhere, and I could once again put travel stress behind me, look out of the window at the pristine night sky beyond and think forwards.

It was hard to tear myself away from Tanu's, but I finally succeeded on Sunday morning, when - after a final farewell from Dirk & the recently returned Sandra - I caught a lift with John, an English-born Kiwi working in Samoa for the Australian Quarantine Service, and his Samoan wife Sina. They were going to have a traditional lunch at the Safua Hotel in Lalomalava, on the east of Savai'i, before going on the ferry back to Upolu island. Lunch sounded like a plan, so I joined them.

It's great being flexible! At the last minute I decided not to go back on the ferry after all, but to stay at Safua because over lunch I met Warren, recently returned from Australia. Warren is a retired geologist who has been living in Samoa for twelve years now, and he is recognised by all to be the authority on the geography, history and in fact everything about Savai'i. Put it this way: Thor Heyerdahl (the anthropologist of Kon-Tiki Expedition fame) came to meet Warren to ask HIM about early Samoan architecture! At various moments I had heard people saying a tour with Warren is unmissable, so now, faced with the man himself, it would have been churlish to head back to Apia.

And thus began forty-eight hours of cultural tourism. I was joined in this endeavour by Greg & Carlin, a brother-and-sister team from the US whom I had met at Tanu's and who by chance arrived at the Safua Hotel for the same lunch, and Kate, a young student from Auckland who had just spent a semester at the University of the South Pacific at Suva, Fiji and was on her way home for Christmas via Samoa, who had recently arrived from Upolu.

Stage one was to confirm that we wanted to tour with Warren the next day. His car was in for a service, so he had to arrange a taxi van for us, but said that was fine.

Stage two was a trip to the Sunday afternoon church service in the village. This was an interesting experience, with the whole service conducted in Samoan and the whole village in attendance. There was even a "name and shame" roll-call of each family and how much money they had donated that week (from which, happily, we were exempt). All the ladies wore white dresses and hats, and all the men were in their Sunday lavalavas - these are still wraparound skirts, but made of drab suit cloth rather than colourful cotton and worn with a shirt & tie. We got some great photos after the service, with local kids all piling in for a group portrait on the church steps.

Stage three was a mammoth Scrabble session for Greg, Carlin, myself ably assisted by Kate, and Moelagi, the widow owner of the hotel and chief of the local tribe. I was in a league of my own - a crap one! My Scrabble skills have never been the best, and here I was cowed into submission by three serious Scrabblers. My spelling's fine but my tactical play is nonexistent. It was a pleasure and a lesson to watch the others in action.

Stage four involved getting a good night's sleep in preparation for the exertions of the morrow. I failed this stage thanks to a combination of the thinness of my fale's walls (yes, this one was enclosed, but only in appearances it transpires) and the earth-shattering cacophony of some bastard in a nearby fale snoring most determinedly (I hear all you unlucky souls who have had to share a room with me in the past shouting "Now the boot's on the other foot"!). That and a village-wide relay team of jetlagged cocks, who seemed to have lost all sense of time and were crowing their merry gizzards out all night long. But I got some sleep, I think.

I'm getting bored with this Stage Number shit now, so I'll just get on with it.

Our tour on Monday was encyclopaedically comprehensive; in fact it started with an encyclopaedia and a map of the Pacific ocean floor, so as to make sure we understood the tectonic principles that gave birth to volcanic Samoa. Soon our taxi arrived (only 45 minutes late, not bad for a Samoan) and we set off on a day-long trip which included visits to:

- a chain of volcanoes (Savai'i, itself originally a volcanic upthrust, is now passing over a rift in the Pacific Plate and is littered with more recent vulcanism);

- coral lagoons (the only sustainable local source of food for humans, which with successive eruptions get filled in by flowing lava; this may be the root cause of the waves of Polynesian migrations over time);

- freshwater springs (the whole island is porous and sits on a vast lens of filtered rainwater, which seeps out at the edges and pours into the sea);

- sea arches (erosion through consistent tidal battering) and the outpouring of Savai'i's largest river direct into the sea at the Mu Pagoa waterfall (5m);

- the local market at Salelologa (where we saw all sorts of produce being sold, including 'ava (local kava), koko samoa (local cocoa), and various fruit & vegetables);

- blowholes at Taga (spectacular effects of seawater surging up through narrow tubes eroded into the lava, where local kids would throw in coconut husks at just the right time to catch an upwelling of water which would hoist them 30 metres into the sky);

- parallel shorelines (where the geology of the current edge of the land is mirrored a little inland and a little higher up, evidence of changing sea levels over the millennia);

- a woman who makes tapa (local paper, produced from the inner bark of the young paper mulberry tree and decorated with vegetable dyes, which is fairly labour-intensive manual work); and

- a climb to the lip of the perfect volcanic cone of Mount Tafua Savai'i (the volcano is a peninsula, its steep sides and crater coated in thick rainforest vegetation that is home to the very rare flying fox, of which we saw fifteen!).

At every stage, Warren was a mine of information. He had a scholarly air and a grandfatherly concern for our betterment. We were amused when later we confided to one another that we each felt like we were back at school, and had to ask intelligent questions to impress the teacher! I hope I remember a tenth of what I learned in that short span of time.

The evening was a quiet one, with everyone retiring early after having decided over dinner that we would do another tour with Warren the next day, albeit only a half-day one. I lay under my mosquito net with thoughts of things Samoan rolling around in my head, at once satisfied and eager for more.

When did Samoans ever let torrential downpours stop them from having a good time? Despite a day of true wet season weather that ranged from overcast to windy to showery to floodgates of heaven type precipitation, the evening held a special treat for those of us staying at Tanu's Beach Fales. There was to be a fiafia, one with a special VIP guest!

Fiafia is a name given to traditional Samoan song-and-dance shows. In this fiafia all the performers were part of the family that owns & runs Tanu's, all thirty of them. With one exception: the VIP guest who was none other than this year's Miss Samoa. For a reason I couldn't quite work out, she was also staying at Tanu's that evening, along with her manager and a bod from the Tourism Ministry. Perhaps she was on holiday too.

The preparations for the fiafia were well underway by the time we dashed through the rain to the dinner table. All through the meal it was whispered that there was to be a special show that night, and with this news came the fervent hope that the rain would clear up and not spoil things. Then, as the plates were cleared away, the rain too ceased. The show could begin.

The lights were dimmed, and after an expectant pause the throng of performers processed into the main clearing (the dinner table was set up as three sides of a square, surrounding a sandy clearing). A song of welcome was sung by all, and then the Master of Ceremonies strode forth with his huge pole (oo er missus) over his shoulder. It was a wooden beam some three metres in length that served no purpose I could see other than marking him out as the main geezer.

I was reminded of the dance spectacle at the Maori village in Rotorua - perhaps not surprisingly, as the Maoris too are a Polynesian people. But once again I had found evidence for the theory that sunny weather makes sunny people: where the Maoris were mostly about jumping up & down, pulling faces and scaring off potential enemies, with the odd song thrown in, these Pacific Islanders were more about lilting tunes accompanying sashaying hips (for the girls) and general larking about (for the boys).

The most impressive performance was given by a young slip of a lad, only ten years old. He did the fire dance with amazing skill. For the first half of his routine he wielded a flaming torch, swinging it about him with lightning speed. The second half brought a double-ended torch into play, which allowed him to show off his dexterity some more. Apparently he started learning when he was just five. And they say never play with matches!

The highlight of the evening was clearly meant to be the performance of a love dance by Miss Samoa, but I have to say I thought the Tanu's girls were better, less wooden in their movements. Perhaps it was because they weren't worried about dropping a tiara. I don't know.

Anyway, after her dance we were all invited onto the dancefloor to have a boogie to incongruous Latin and World music. A good time was had by all, until we realised that Tanu's had run out of beer! A bunch of us set off for the next fales (I went barefoot, Kiwi-style - well I had to, I was with a Kiwi and two Aussies, also barefoot - with minimal whimpering about stones in feet) to see if we could buy some there. Which we duly did. On the way back (this time along the foot-kissing sandy beach, not the fascist tarmac) I stopped off at Dirk's for some more beer & conversation. After all, I had a duty to look after him while his wife was away in Apia...

The next morning Matt & I decided to do a spot of sightseeing. We first went to see a series of seawater pools that act as home to injured and rescued turtles. I have to say, I prefer seeing them in the sea, but this didn't seem too bad. Next we hitched a ride to the nearby buried village of Saleaula, which was inundated with lava several times between 1905 and 1911 from the eruption of Mt Matavanu, in the centre of Savai'i. It's not quite Pompeii, but then again I haven't been there so I'm not going to get all judgmental.

We were met by the side of the road by a lady from the Women's Committee. She was to be our guide around the ruins. There are a couple of churches, including the miraculously not-that-damaged London Missionary Society (Protestant) church, where the lava flowed in the front door and out the back door without touching the sides. There is also a (Catholic) virgin's grave that escaped smothering, which scientists explain as a side-effect of a sudden release of water vapour that divided the lava flow just in front of the gravestone but locals put down to the blameless life led by that individual until her death (I ask so why did she die then if she was so blameless?).

The lava field itself is most impressive, both on a micro and a macro scale. Close-up you can still see all the folds and creases in the lava's surface, just like the dab of jam you put on a saucer and then wrinkle up with the back of a teaspoon to see if it's boiled long enough to set. And the panorama over the whole plain out towards the sea is majestically bleak, with just the occasional small shrub finding enough nutrients in the cracks of the lava to put out spindly shoots to the sun.

Our guide's English was a little hard to understand, but hey my Samoan sucks so let's not throw stones here. She was a lovely old dear though, and in her stout frame and floral print cotton dress reminded me of my grandmother (only this lady had both arms). She even stooped to pick up two hibiscus flowers and placed one behind our right ears as a sort of welcome to Savai'i. What a lovely picture the two of us made, and we weren't even going to San Francisco!

We caught a local bus back to Tanu's, and slipped quietly back into the beach life of sitting, reading, stretching, snoozing, swimming, chilling.

So, I was Mr Solo Traveller once more. My first move was to change islands. I had seen enough of Upolu, the smaller but more populous of Independent Samoa's two main islands, for now. So on Tuesday morning I got a taxi to the bus station in Apia and then caught a bus to the ferry port and then a ferry to the western island of Savai'i. The bus ride was more comfortable than I had feared: it wasn't one of the wooden-seated boneshakers that are standard here that took me. Instead it was a fairly modern bus with padded seats, glass windows and no wooden bits. It still had the insanely loud stereo blaring local music though, so it was authentic.

At the ferry terminal I got chatting with the only other white guy on the bus. Matt is a Kiwi who has just finished his studies and is on a bit of a pre-Xmas break. We ended up talking to the only other three white people on the ferry - isn't it funny how ghettos form? - who had just been on a two-week boat trip doing geological studies of the seabed between Tonga & Samoa. The journey was only an hour long, and the seas were calm. At one point a couple of dolphins decided to swim alongside us for a while. Of course, by the time I got my camera out they'd buggered off again. But at least I saw them; they were beautiful in a two-tone grey & white stripes way, and their sleek bodies seemed to mock the ferry as they slipped in and out of the blue waters.

On Savai'i, I was going to stay near the ferry terminal and check out the dive shop recommended in Lonely Planet. But I was having a nice time chatting with Matt so instead I caught the bus (a real one this time: no headroom, no windows, no cushions, no metal, just garishly painted wooden frame, random posters plasted all over the inside, and plenty of music - actually it was mostly reggae renditions of Christmas carols, which was certainly interesting) up to Manase, the beach and lagoon on the northern side of the island. And it's a good job I didn't bother to stop, because the dive shop has gone out of business since my edition of LP was printed! At Manase we went into Tanu's Beach Fales and ended up sharing a fale.

Tanu's is something of an institution among travellers, and from the first moment I could see why. The two of us were greeted by Ethel (or Eileen, or a name like that anyway), the charming manager of completely family-run Tanu's, who immediately ordered one of her nieces to fetch us coconuts and mango. We sat in the main fale at the long central table and chatted about this and that, drinking our young coconut juice and soaking up the atmosphere of the sandy grounds strewn with smaller fales. When we had finished drinking, Ethel (Edith?) accompanied us with her beaming smile and twinkling eyes and hibiscus in her hair to a fale only steps away from the beautiful sandy beach that here gives onto a breathtakingly turquoise coral lagoon. Our coconuts were smashed against a supporting beam for us, so we could get at the soft flesh within, and we were left to settle in.

The fale was even more simple than my one in Apia: an oblong wooden structure, with a floor of rough-hewn beams raised on eight stilts that were the peeled trunks of young trees. Over a shallow conical frame of thinner cross-beams was fashioned a thatch roof of yellow-brown straw. As I lay on my mattress and looked past the mosquito nest suspended over me, the overall shape was reminiscent of the inside of the coffee strainer part of percolators, where you have to put the paper cone in. The one nod to modernity in the construction was a cap of corrugated iron (where you would find the hole in the percolator) to keep out rain. Oh, and an electric light - but I didn't actually ever use it. There were no walls; they would have made the fale too hot by far. Instead, there were eight chunky louvre blinds of woven pandanus leaf or some such, of which the back four had been lowered for us, leaving the front open to the other fales.

Sleeping that night in the fale was deliciously comfortable: the excellent ventilation (or absence of walls; whatever) meant that in lieu of a ceiling fan we had lovely cooling sea breezes to caress us all night. But this being rainy season, there was one night where it rained the whole time. Not a drop of rain entered through the thatch, and the generous overhang of the roof combined with the thick louvres to keep the edges of the floor area completely dry too. I've always slept well when I'm by the sea, and the nights at Tanu's were no exception.

The next few days were fab in weather terms. I got the whole gamut of a tropical rainy season: super super hotness with burning sun and scorched feet from sands that might have just been spat out of a volcano they were so on fire; the steady build-up of clouds on the horizon, whether out at sea or over the forested inland hills; thunderclaps and lashing rain subsiding into a mild but persistent shower, with the occasional squall of wetter stuff. It was great.

On the hot days I invariably went snorkelling out over the ranges of coral garden that lay just metres from the beach, spotting dozens of different corals and more than a few spectacular fish - triggerfish, Moorish idols (every time I see one I think I'm in the tank at the dentist's in Finding Nemo), little black flitty things I don't know the name of. Then I would have a snooze, or maybe a little wander around in the village, or lie in my fale and read a book.

At Tanu's you get breakfast and dinner included in the fale price - which at 50 Samoan Tala (or 12 quid) a night was most reasonable I thought. Lunch I found for myself here and there in the environs of Manase village. The food in general was not bad. A little on the greasy side, it has to be said, but I'm a big fan of the ubiquitous potato-like taro, especially when it's had coconut cream drizzled over it.

I went for a total of three scuba dives with Dirk, the lovely German owner of the dive shop based at the fales next door along the beach. He was almost embarrassed to take me out, the visibility was (for him) so poor. But for me it was fine; I've only once (in the Similan Islands in Thailand) been in waters as clear as he was saying are par for the course in Samoa's dry season, and what you don't know you can't miss. The sea was a bit swelly, but it was fine. The viz was still 10-20m which was plenty for me. We didn't see any big game (apparently turtles aren't uncommon here, and they get the odd shark) but there were loads of new fish, including some bloody enormous bumphead parrotfish that - I kid you not - were at least two metres long.

And the wreck that lies some ten minutes' boat ride from the shore was delightful! Fully 55 metres long, the 1880s vintage ship has quickly become a funky new reef - thanks in no small part to Dirk's gardening efforts. He was busy rescuing chunks of broken coral from the seabed and planting them in nooks & crannies on the wreck. He was saying that over the three years he's been here, he's felt immense pride at seeing "his" corals grow & mature, slowly spreading over the hulk of the ship and becoming home to all sorts of creatures.

It became a custom for me to spend the evening over at Dirk's shop/house and sink a Vailima beer or twelve. He's a great guy, and it was informative to hear how he & his wife came to the decision to leave behind good jobs in Germany and start up a dive shop here on Savai'i. And it's not been plain sailing: what with constant difficulties with Samoan business culture (everything has to go to village elders for decisions, which can be very slow in coming and by no means final) and then the disaster of last year's cyclone (which screwed Dirk's microlight plane up into a ball like so much waste paper), their business has blossomed and then been reduced to nothing more than once. But they just pick up the pieces and start again. They like it here too much to be put off by trifles like total destruction.