South Seas

The Unromantic South Seas

Mrs. Gertrude Baker, of Palos

Verdes Estates, California, who

took PlM’s columnist “Sydney sider” apart in the issue of last April for her un - American activities, has turned up again.

In April Mrs. Baker complained that “Sydneysider” was an Old Sourpuss who was Insulting to American Women, and Insult ing to America’s West Coast Beaches.

THIS time she writes as a Pacific traveller herself. Indulging in a little un-American activity of her own she emerges with the convic tion that the Pacific is not all sing ing guitars and romantic palm trees.

Back home again in California she concludes that she is just an old home body, after all; but is glad that she went—“because if I hadn’t, I’d have always wanted to”.

This is her story: The decision to visit the Pacific was a spur of the moment job but on September 29, having committed her four cats, 10 finches, six gold fish and one salamander to the care of her husband, she set off from Los Angeles for Papeete, Tahiti.

Tahiti appears to have been reason ably satisfactory, although she re marks that some Americans she met there thought it was the living end.

She herself liked Fiji and Western Samoa much better.

Her real Waterloo was American Samoa. On October 8 she was writing this to her husband from there: “This is one place I don’t think I will ever want to return to. . . . This Rainmaker Hotel is quite a caution. It smells of dampness, almost like a bathroom. . . . After arriving in the rain there was no one to greet us and we waited a good hour before the manager arrived.

Then she threw up her hands and said: ‘What will I do with all these people’. Being alone that made me feel real good!

“There aren’t many rooms and all the men were doubled up. Most of the people who came today are in pairs, except one lady and me; now we are bunking together. You can imagine how I like that!”

She made up her mind to get into “British Samoa” as soon as possible,

it soon found that there are no stant permits to do that; nonethe ss, a “few honest, nervous tears cceeded and I left the next day”.

She found that . . Aggie Grey’s i Apia] was a lovely place. 1 iyed in a bungalow and after the unmaker it was like staying in a iendly home. Everyone was very ce and Mrs. Grey is a gracious dy, . . . The people of Western imoa are the most friendly of any met”.

But if the all-important itinerary id to be met, she would have ,to i back to Pago to pick up the plane Fiji. It meant a 4.30 a.m. start d as there are no facilities for as uch as a cup of coffee at either estern Samoa’s Faleolo or Ameri n Samoa’s Tafuna, the only food ailable was the one dollar breakfast the Rainmaker which also cessitated a $6 taxi ride in order get it.

Fat From Beer Mrs. Baker’s second stay at the unmaker was short and reasonably leventful, except that when she mted to write a letter there was paper and she finally ac mplished it on a long length of let tissue (which PIM now has); d it included an encounter with wo Australian women who came in Dm Honolulu and wanted a beer 9.30 a.m.! They couldn’t get one they said ‘what a tragedy’ and filed for Scotch and water. One is al fat—probably from beer”.

Fiji did something to take the isty taste of Pago out of her mouth [i back home in California she 11 seethed until she got it out of ;r system by writing us a letter, hich concluded: “I don’t care if e Rainmaker is American or not.

Something should be done about the way that hotel is run”. • To the initiated, Mrs. Baker’s encounters in the Pacific may be amusing. But are they? Her letters show that she has a sense of humour, is appreciative of kindness and good service when she gets it and has enough spunk to yell when she does not. She is P rett y typical of those tourists we hope to attract down here by spending large sums on promotion, and' too large proportion of whom, on PIM s’ observation, are disappointed in what they get.

As things stand at the moment, no

travel agency should be sending the Mrs. Bakers of America through Pago. It has several international air services a week and nothing else, The Rainmaker Hotel cannot be regarded as a hotel in the ordinary sense of the word, although dozens °f disgruntled American tourists are being put up there each week, if y OU are an a n en> y OU mus t have a p erm it to visit American Samoa an d y OU don’t get the permit if there j s no accommodation for you. You nee d no permit if you are an American, but, as we understand it, the airlines who land people there

are supposed to be responsible for their accommodation. They seem to do this by throwing the onus on the hotel.

It may be said in the hotels favour that they somehow seem always to manage to find travellers a bed, somewhere. They also pro vide three sketchy meals a day. After that service simply ends. People who have to visit Pago, grin and hear it; tourists naturally are very annoyed and most of them say so.