a tourist in Paradise

books

How to survive as a tourist in Paradise

Tahiti & French Polynesia; a travel survival kit. By Robert F. Kay. Published by Lonely Planet Publications, South Yar ra, Victoria, 1985. $A9.95.

Isbn 0 908086 80 6

Fiji; a travel survival kit. By Rob Kay. Published by Lonely Planet Publications, South Yar ra, Victoria, 1986. $A9.95.

Isbn 0 908086 87 3

Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands; a travel survival kit.

By Rob Rachowiecki. Pub lished by Lonely Planet Publications, South Yarra, Vic toria, 1986. $A9.95. ISBN 0 908086 79 2 One of the most interes ting corollaries of the boom in international travel has been the ex plosion in travel book pub lishing. It is surely only a matter of time before one can find at one’s neighborhood bookstore guides to the most remote and even the most forbidding parts of this planet.

In fact the trend is well under way. Countries whose domestic infrastructures can barely cope with their own populations, whose international relations are in many cases precarious and whose people’s experience of outsiders is still rudimentary now find themselves the sub jects of travel guides directed at an international market. And like travel itself, which is in creasingly packaged and formularised, the most success ful of the publishers of travel guides work to a recognisable formula.

Such a formula has been very skilfully fashioned by the Melbourne-based Lonely Planet organisation, publishers of the three books reviewed here. Lonely Planet’s current catalogue runs to some 43 titles, making it one of the most

prolific publishers in this busi ness. If you fancy a vacation in Burma or Bangladesh, Turkey or Tibet, you can find a Lonely Planet book to put you on the right track.

Not surprisingly, the list of titles has now been extended to include the Pacific Islands.

Whether travellers really need another guide book on Fiji is a moot point; three appeared in late 1985 (see review in PIM June 1986), another, PIMs own Fiji Handbook, will appear soon. But, perhaps surprisingly, there is not a great deal of similarity between them and little repetition of material. Au thor Rob Kay is responsible for both the Fiji and the Tahiti guides, although the corporate style of Lonely Planet is more evident than any individual characteristics.

This means that the fun damentals of travel; visas, money, clothing, health, trans port etc occupy a good deal of space in each book in the Tahiti volume about 25 of a mere 136 pages. As a result there are not all that many pages left to spread over French Polynesia’s 130 or so islands.

But then, despite the vast geographical spread of French Polynesia, there are not all that many places that tourists or travellers if you prefer it can conveniently visit, apart from Tahiti itself and a few other islands.

The major inhibiting factor to travel within these islands is the enormous expense involved: if you really want to go and stay in a guest house in the Gam biers it will cost you two arms and a leg just to get there. If you’re determined to do it, however, you may as well start with this book which, in the style by now typical of Lonely Planet, packs a lot of informa

tion, some useful, some gra tuitous, into a neatly produced little volume.

There are some errors and omissions which are worth mentioning. Nuku Hiva is in the Marquesas, not the Tuamotus as the picture facing page 97 claims; the section on the Tuamotus contains not a single reference to the nuclear testing sites, and the tests are referred to almost casually in the outline history; the suggested reading ignores what has been for long the only popular account of Tahiti’s history Robert Lang don’s Tahiti; Island of Love.

On the credit side, the maps are plentiful and clearly drawn, the illustrations generally evocative and the account of Tahiti’s sexually ambivalent nightlife guaranteed to fetch more visitors from Sydney or San Francisco.

The volume on Fiji contains more information and repre sents better value, reflecting two obvious facts; Fiji is a more interesting and varied country and, although considerably lar ger in land area, is more com pact and easier to get about.

There are travel tips here on all the major islands in Fiji and several minor ones and though I have an ongoing suspicion that most of the travel guide writers who describe islands like Rotuma or the Lau Group have never actually been there, their inclusion helps to give the im pression of comprehensiveness to works like this.

Aiding that impression are extensive descriptions of accommodation and local transport facilities, notes on Fi ji’s cultural and religious fea tures and a valiant attempt to make summary sense of Fiji’s often confusing history.

Kay has obviously been

helped by the existing literature on Fiji, despite his claim that there are comparatively few books written about the coun try. Where on earth was he looking? Among the best fea tures of the Lonely Planet guides are the hotel and re staurant listings: if you want to stay in Fiji on a tight budget and eat on the cheap, ignore the advice of your travel agent and invest in a book like this. You’ll save the outlay on your first day.

Yes, I know Ecuador is not a Pacific Island, and the denizens of the Galapagos don’t fall conveniently into the Polyne sian, Melanesian or Microne sian categories, being for the most part seals, reptiles and birds. But since the Galapagos have always been included in the ultimate work of Pacific reference the Pacific Islands Yearbook and have figured scientifically and historically in the story of the Pacific it seems appropriate to mention this guide also, especially since it arrived at the same time and happens to be the best of the three, lacking the disquieting impression of hurriedness that the other two have.

The description of the Gala pagos unfortunately only occu pies 17 pages of a 238 page book, so the enthusiast for curious wildlife is hardly likely to besiege the book stores for it.

If you do plan on going there, however, you might consider this rather unsettling fact: these islands, so remote in the minds of most people as to seem almost unearthly, now attract more than 20,000 visitors a year, almost as many as the Cook Islands, and more than Tonga and Niue combined.

Who said this was a Lonely Planet? Norman Douglas