Executive Backpacker life: It took me just a three-hour-flight to get from Bribane to the Solomon Islands capital village of Honiara. Another 45-minute-hopper over an endless array of Maldivian-like lagoons and jungle-clad islands were enough to feel like I had finally left world.

I had arrived on New Georgia. Dark-skinned kids, often blond, were paddling in tiny dugout canoes over the sheer endless seas. Far on the horizon an immens volcano towered above little palm-clad islans. I share my very own private island only with Rose, wife of American dropout Joe. And with Rose’s cook James who is asking me what I would prefer for dinner: fish? or lobster? Lobster! Immediately james enters his dugout, sets sail and paddles into the sunset. Half an hour later he returns from the dark with a monster lobster, made in butter. Life is full of paradises.

At breakfast next moring Rose is telling me about the dark side of the Solomons. On all islands freshwater was scarce, alcoholism among young islanders, often unemployed, rampant. Ethnic violence, particularly on the main island of Guadalcanal, was rife. To make things worse, another big player had entered the scene, obviously clearing forests of giant trees on neighbouring islands. After breakfast I take a dugout and paddle to nearby Skull Island. To know that a mere 20 years ago skulls of warriors battered to death in skirmishes with neighbouring islands were stored here, sends a chill down my spine. Paradise is not alsways as good as it looks.