As I took in the early morning sun sipping coffee and nibbling

As I took in the early morning sun, sipping coffee and nibbling a fresh papaya, huge, brightly coloured butterflies hovered about me as if I was in some kind of Disney cartoon movie.There is such an abundance of fresh seafood available along these shores thateven the breakfast menu included lobster omelettes and crab pancakes.The resort's owner is Garth Downey, an Australian millionaire horticulturist. After visiting the Yasawas as a tourist, he decided to come back and buy the resort. His aim is to create "everything that a South Pacific hideaway should be, but so often is not". There is no television and just one satellite telephone line for the island Only the persistent mosquitoes can break the spell They invariably appear in swarms after a rain shower.

While there is no malaria in Fiji, there are occasional cases of dengue fever in the remoter areas.Most of the staff, who outnumber the guests on a ratio of three to one, come from the local villages, yet they do not seem to resent the contrast between work and home life. Their service is genuinely warm and caring and would be the envy of many more sophisticated hotels around the world. Every Sunday evening about 60 local choristers gather at the resort to sing in magnificent harmony.Encouraged by resort manager Erin Suzuki, a certified diver and marine biologist, I snorkelled around superb reefs right off the beach. Within a five-minute boat ride, I was able to float over beautiful untouched reefs, and I was soon enveloped by hundreds of tiny fish glittering in the sunlight.

Swimming above these coral canyons I could see to astonishing depths, which sometimes even gave me a feeling of vertigo. It is difficult to imagine anywhere better to de-stress from the pressures of 20th-century city life.Arriving back on the main island of Viti Levu was something of a culture shock. After just a few days I had become accustomed to the absence of traffic, shops and concrete buildings. Within a 20-minute drive from the airport I had reached Denarau, where the Sheraton Group operates two luxury beachfront resort hotels linked by an enticing 18-hole championship golf course.Here I could kick back and enjoy being served cocktails from a bar in the centre of the swimming pool and enjoy all the pampering that sophisticated, well-heeled international tourists demand But it wasn't quite paradise. I had just come from there.FACT FILEfijiGetting thereAir New Zealand (tel: 0181-741 2299) offers return flights from London Heathrow to Fiji via Los Angeles from pounds 734, including the option to travel onward to New Zealand.Where to stayA beachfront bure at Yasawa Island Resort (tel: 00 679 663 364) costs from pounds 244 per day based on two people sharing, including all meals, watersports, tennis and visits to local villages. Inter-island air transfers from Nadi cost pounds 120 per person. Air New Zealand's South Pacific "Go As You Please" package (tel: 0181-741 2299) offers Yasawa Island Resort from pounds 273 per person for the first night, including only inter-island air transfers, and pounds 129 for each subsequent night..

I HAVE no idea whether the world is heading into recession or not. But if it does, the response of some people will be to start cutting back on the length and frequency of their holidays. The response of some other people, however, will be to travel not less but more. Much more. Unemployment may cause a hole in people's bank balances, but I prefer thinking about the bright side Think of all that free time. I know a lot of people who would gladly pay 90 per cent of their annual salary to buy a whole year of leisure.

In other words, all you effectively lose by being made redundant is 10 per cent of your salary.A mere 10 per cent? By setting off on an extended holiday I don't think it will take long to make savings equivalent to 10 per cent of many people's salaries. I know a very good ashram in Pondicherry, for example, where a meal ticket for three exceptionally wholesome meals a day costs the equivalent of around 70p You won't need to worry about heating bills. You'll get not only bananas, brown rice, yoghurt and delicious south Indian vegetable curries to eat, but you'll also have delightfully urbane refugees from the rat races of Delhi and Bombay to keep you company.Add on accommodation expenses of, say, another 70p for a bed in an airy dormitory and we have a total daily outlay of less than pounds 1.50. Over one year we are looking at not more than pounds 500, which you can probably pay for with the money you save on Perrier and smoked salmon and hummus sandwiches. In fact, pounds 500 still sounds like a lot of money compared with what many Indians survive on, so you needn't even worry that you will have nothing to fall back on in the event of yet harder times. There might eventually be some additional expenses (bribes for having over-stayed your visa; tickets to and from India; psychiatry bills, etc) but these can always be covered by your redundancy pay-off.If on the other hand the thought of dropping out to India sounds a little too terminal, never forget that it is also perfectly possible to rent respectable apartments for pounds 100 a month in places like Andalusia or Sicily, places where a year of holiday is worth (I estimate) 20 per cent more fun than a year of work.Add on another pounds 100 a month for essentials - olive oil, wine, bread, sausage and tomatoes - and we are still left with that crucial 10 per cent pleasure margin which I believe amounts to a mathematical proof that recession is not to be feared.. I RANG Moss Farm Nurseries for a snow report "We've had a smidgen.

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