Arriving   After getting a great deal of work done at the day-rate hotel at LAX, I took their shuttle to the airport, and ended up being very pleased with this solution I’d cobbled together to connect the Queen Victoria arrival to the Air New Zealand departure. As I’ve said, it also involved the dumb luck that the QV happened to arrive in LA on the only day of the week that Air New Zealand has a flight from Los Angeles to Samoa.

The flight to the South Pacific was the longest of the trip, a scheduled 10h5. Local connections in the South Pacific are about half as long, and the return from Tahiti to LAX is only 8h15 (plus the flight onward to New York), Tahiti being closer to LA than Samoa.

This now becomes the third-longest flight I’ve taken. The previous third place, now in fourth, was just barely edged out. It was New York via Lima to Santiago de Chile at a scheduled 10h0. Second place remains Vancouver-Seoul at 11h20, and first remains New York via Dakar to Johannesburg at a scheduled 17h40.

If you eliminate flights with stops, the picture changes. The Dakar stop was about halfway, and puts the Jo’burg flight out of the running. Also dropping Santiago because of Lima, this Samoa flight turns out to be my second longest nonstop at 10h5, and Seoul is the longest nonstop at 11h20.

As with some of the other long flights, I was lucky. The seating across was 2-3-2, and I had the window on the right, with no one next to me, and it stayed that way. I slept in varying sitting positions, but also lying across both seats, with legs in a crossed lotus position up at the window. Worked fine for me.

It was a little bumpy for quite a while, and they had to postpone the meal service. When it came, beverage service was further delayed, but all worked out well. There was a choice of two red and two white wines, and I jokingly checked with the steward that they were indeed New Zealand wines. Once I inquired, he was nice enough to come back later with pen and paper, sit down next to me, and list his favorite NZ wine areas. At breakfast, I took the champagne option. I will note that Air New Zealand has a four-star listing (out of a nearly impossible five) on the Airline Star Rating website (2008/8), as does Air Tahiti Nui, which I’ll use on the return to the US.

10h5 after a departure at 22:15 (10:15 PM) would mean an arrival at 8:20, but we had crossed three time zones from LA to Samoa so it was only 5:20, and still dark. While on the QV as we went north from Mexico I had moved from a light shirt back to sweater and jacket in LA, but getting off in the heat and humidity of Samoa, even at that time of the morning, as soon as I got my bag I moved to a corner of the luggage claim area and changed back to a light shirt. Samoa is TCC destination # 117 for me, and American Samoa # 118.

That night, after an afternoon nap at the hotel, I was in the buffet line at the hotel’s fiafia (more later) when the guy in front of me asked if I’d come in that morning from LA. I said I had, and asked if he had come in then as well. “Yes”, he said, “I drove the plane”. Now how did he remember me? The pilot and co-pilot (who was ahead of him in line) had watched us leaving as they always do, but as it turned out, as I passed by, no good-byes happened to be forthcoming. If I barely recognized him, how did he know me? Anyway, he said he hoped the bumpiness hadn’t been too bad. I said, I’d had worse, and he added he wasn’t surprised, since I looked like a seasoned traveler. How do you “look like” that?

It will be obvious from the map that most of the Polynesian Triangle lies in the South Pacific. Hawai‘i is the only Polynesian location of any consequence to lie in the North Pacific, and it would have been somewhat to our right as we flew. Yet we would have also overflown the Republic of Kiribati as we crossed the equator, since the many islands forming it (Gilbert Islands [named after a Captain Gilbert, who discovered them], Line Islands, others) straddle the equator. One of these islands you may have heard of, so let’s do some language fun.

The Polynesian language spoken in the Republic of Kiribati, Gilbertese, has something peculiar in its writing system. The language has an S, but spells it TI. This means that we have to take another look at the name of the republic, since the spelling Kiribati represents the pronunciation Kiribas. Not only that, Kiribati/Kiribas is the local rendition of “Gilberts”.

Now one of the Line Islands, just north of the equator, is Kiritimati. What must have been its old (English) name? (Figure it out—don’t peek below.)

The spelling Kiritimati represents the pronunciation Kirismas, which, ignoring the extra I, tells you it’s Christmas Island. You can now ponder this, and compare it to the Hawaiian (Mele) Kalikimaka.

The Three Major Islands of Samoa   Leaving now the North Pacific, all the stops on this trip after LA are in the South Pacific, and we’re starting with the islands that make up Samoa, which are politically divided into two entities. Along with a number of tiny islands, there are three major ones, two in independent Samoa (Savai‘i and Upolu) and one in American Samoa (Tutuila).

The three major islands line up as the Hawaiian islands do, in a line from northwest to southeast, and, by coincidence, they are in size order.

SAVAI‘I is the Papa Bear of the three. It’s parallelogram-shaped, rural, and has the most traditional Samoan life. I understand that visiting it involves roughing it to an extent, and is best for nature and camping buffs. I did not go there. Of the two main islands of independent Samoa, only about 25% of the population is on the much larger Savai‘i. It’s also interesting how close the name Savai‘i is to Hawai‘i. As I flew in (once, other than the first time before dawn) and out (twice) of the airport on the western end of Upolu, closest to Savai‘i, I could see the gray mass of Savai‘i’s mountainous silhouette across the narrow strait. Unlike the other islands, Savai‘i is usually actually referred to by its name. Looking at all of Polynesia, Savai‘i is the third largest Polynesian island outside of New Zealand and Hawai‘i.

UPOLU is oval-shaped and, as the Mama Bear, is perhaps only about half the size, by eye, of Savai‘i, but has 75% of independent Samoa’s population. The airport that serves all of Samoa is at the western end of Upolu’s north shore, and Apia, the capital, is centrally located on the north shore. There are many villages in all three islands of Samoa, and village life is extremely important in this family-oriented society, which means that Apia is the only actual town on both islands of independent Samoa. For this reason, although you do see and hear the name Upolu, very frequently the island is referred to as “Samoa”, as though Savai‘i is just an afterthought. Even moreso, people just refer to Apia. For instance, when in American Samoa, flights go to “Samoa” or to “Apia”, and the name Upolu doesn’t necessarily come up in frequent usage.

Since planning this trip, I have struggled with the pronunciation of a simple, short word like “Apia”. The dictionary at home said it’s either AH.pi.a or a.PI.a. Although I’ve heard people say that the latter way is more the Polynesian way to say it, in practice I’ve heard both ways all the time, so either take your pick, or, like most people, jump from one pronunciation to the other. And get this—I’ve heard native speakers, even when speaking English, say SA.mo.a instead of sa.MO.a, but it’s best to stick to the latter.

TUTUILA (tu.tu.I.la) is tiny, and is the Baby Bear of the three. It can’t be more than about 1/5 the size of middle island Upolu by eye, to say nothing of Savai‘i. It’s also further away, since the channel separating it is about five times, by eye, as wide as that separating Upolu from Savai‘i. It is longish in shape, but turned, so that it’s two longer coasts are the southeast, where the roads are, and northwest.

The most striking feature of Tutuila is in the center of the southeast shore, the harbor at Pago Pago (Pango Pango), the capital. It is huge. On the map the harbor looks like a large eagle’s head looking to the left, first going north then turning, like a beak, to the actual village of Pago Pago, close to the northwest coast. If the harbor went any further, it would cut the island in two. It is believed that the southeast side of a volcanic crater fell away, and the sea entered the crater to form Pago Pago harbor.

At the entrance to the large harbor, on the north side, is Rainmaker Mountain, and, due to the peculiar geographic layout of the mountain and harbor, this mountain causes an unduly large amount of rain to fall on the town and harbor. Pago Pago—not the whole island, just the town and harbor--receives about 500 cm / 200 in of rain a year. Now that’s 500 cm, not mm as is often measured, so we’re talking about five meters of rain. Also, 200 inches come to about 16.5 feet. Although that’s no world record like on Kauai‘i (2008/23), that’s still plenty wet.

The name Tutuila is not often used. Instead, you talk in Samoa of going to American Samoa, or simply of going to Pago Pago—but this is usually shortened even further to “I’m going to Pago”. So, in practical terms, these three islands are reduced to the two towns there, Apia on the one side and Pago on the other.

The Samoan Language   The westernmost point of Tutuila / American Samoa is Cape Taputapu. What’s your “educated guess” as to what it means and how it got its name?

Taputapu shows Polynesian reduplication, and so consists of “tapu” twice. This would be the same as tabu or, as in Hawaiian, kapu. Historically, these words meant “forbidden” only in a religious sense, because something could be attended to only by priests, since it was very sacred, another way to translate the word. So Taputapu would be “very sacred”, or “very forbidden”, implying some sort of religious use in the past.

Another point: restroom doors in Samoa are labeled “Tane” and “Fafine”. In the unlikely case that no English words or icons accompanied these words, can you use Hawaiian to tell you which is which?

The Hawaiian words are “Kane” and “Wahine”. Again, I am a tane/kane. Compare T/K here and also in tapu/kapu.

The greeting here is “Talofa”, used all the time, which struck me as an odd-ball word until I looked more closely. Take the T off and –alofa looks much more like aloha. Then check out the F/H variation in both (tal)ofa / (al)oha and (fa)fine / (wa)hine. The world groweth smaller.

But the most striking oddity will arise out of the pronunciation of Pago Pago (already reduplicated). It’s simply this. Samoan has an NG sound, as in English “sing”. But the standard spelling of the NG sound is simply G.

Now to get this right, we have to analyze a spelling oddity of English and make sure it doesn’t screw up what we’re doing here. Do you perceive the difference in “singer” and “finger” aside from the first sound? There certainly is one.

In English, the spelling NG is used for the NG sound, but unfortunately, it’s also used for the combination of NG + G. What is spelled as “finger” is pronounced FING.ger, and would be more accurately spelled fingger. The way we tell the difference is this. At the end of a word (“sing”) NG is NG, and this carries through for words derived from this word (“singer”), even though the NG is now within the word. As it then turns out, most of the time that NG appears WITHIN a word, it’s really NG+G. Hangar, mango, tango, linger are pronounced hanggar, manggo, tanggo, lingger. This situation sometimes causes some people to mispronounce “singer” as *singger.

Back to Samoan. The letter G is used to represent the sound NG and nothing else, most specifically NOT a combination of NG+G, so be careful.

The most common occurrence you’ll notice is in Pago Pago. Say (ping-)pong, then add an O and Pago is PONG.o and not *PONG.go. Try these town names. On Savai‘i is the town of Taga. On Upolu is Afega. Near Apia (this one’s fun) is Galagala. Along the Pago Pago harbor is Fagatogo, and elsewhere on Tutuila is my favorite, Fogagogo. Answers below.

TANG.a, a.FENG.a, nga.la.NGA.la, fang.a.TONG.o, fong.ang.ONG.o.

Some Background   Most Samoans are full-blooded and are the second largest group of Polynesians after the Maoris of New Zealand. There are two cultural points that are worth mentioning, along with the Samoan words to describe them: fale and lava-lava.

Although fale (two syllables: FA.le) apparently means “house”, in practice it’s much more precise than that. Picture a floor, perhaps somewhat raised on a platform. Around the perimeter, stand stout wooden posts, on all four sides. On the posts then rests the roof, more often than not in the form of a rounded turtle-back. A fale is, therefore, essentially an open-sided house, which works fine in the tropical climate. But they have special uses. Samoans grow into extended families, and often most people in a village (the absolute center of Samoan life) will be related. In the middle of each village as you go along the highway is a fale, used for gatherings, Sunday family dinners (what else is there to do on a Sunday?), weddings, funerals, and any other celebrations or meetings. This style of architecture is extended to other buildings, which might be partially enclosed, but have a wing in fale style. At very least, an enclosed house might just have some decorative posts in front of the façade to evoke the fale style. Even shortly after arriving in Samoa, every visitor becomes very aware of fale architecture.

I had known what a lava-lava was, since I had prepared this trip a year ago and had read about them, but the concept had slipped my mind. Then, when I was in Los Angeles just before flying to Samoa, my sister Chris reminded me what they were when she e-mailed me and teased me about having come home last Thanksgiving wearing a Utilikilt (which required family adjustment), but that I don’t really have to come home now wearing a lava-lava!

A lava-lava is a wraparound skirt. It comes just below the knee on Samoan men, and is a little longer on Samoan women. They are incredibly practical, maybe even more than a kilt or even a Utilikilt. The moment I got off the plane before dawn arriving from LA, all sleepy-eyed, I spotted airport security in lava-lavas. They wore a uniform jacket, and a tailored dark-colored lava-lava, with side pockets, just like pants. Sandals are the preferred footwear, which to me makes a lot of sense. After that, it seems lava-lavas were all you saw—well, OK, maybe half the people wore them. The entire hotel and restaurant staff wore them, and when you drive along the road, half the teenagers coming from school, both male and female, wear them. Sometimes they’re in solids, sometimes in florid prints. But no, intriguing as they may be, they are not for me.

When driving along in American Samoa, Tai, who was guiding me, said that she understands the origin goes back to the missionaries. Since the Samoans were probably wearing grass skirts before that, this effort to cover people up more sounds logical.

The first Europeans to arrive in Samoa were Dutchmen in 1722, and the Samoan word for “Westerner” or “Non-Samoan”, which is palagi (pronounce it right), developed very interestingly. I had said that the Hawaiian words makai (towards the sea) and mauka (towards the mountains) were very typical for an island culture, and so is palagi.

The Samoans, looking off their islands, pictured that the sea and sky joined in the distance, and when the European great ships with their huge white sails appeared on the horizon, they assumed that the ships had managed to somehow break through a slit between sky and sea. Thus they called the arriving Westerners papalagi, which means “sky-busters”, which later dropped a syllable to become palagi. I think that imagery is just charming as it reflects the conception of an island people at the time. On further reflection, you can wonder the extent to which people arriving today by plane are also sky-busters, but in another sense.

The missionaries arrived in Samoa in 1830 in the form of John Williams. I saw a monument to him steps from my Apia hotel, and heard a few other references of him landing in Tutuila, but one really has to be amazed at what Williams and others wrought. Samoa is an extremely religious area. Each village has an array of churches, and they are heavily attended. Among the Catholics and numerous Protestant denominations, the Mormons and Baha‘i are also active. This may be all well and good for those interested, but to my mind, it becomes oppressive to others. Sunday everything is shut tighter than a drum, and only hotels and similar services may function. Since I left Samoa on a Sunday, on the drive through Apia and along the countryside for some 40 minutes this was all too apparent. In the US, we years ago got rid of the numerous “blue laws” that worked similarly.

And then there’s the curfew, known as “sa”. At 6:30 every evening, a gong rings in each village, at which time everyone has to go indoors to pray, read scripture, or sing hymns. This reminds me what Muslims do several times a day, but I never heard before of Christians doing the same. I experienced this directly when Sulu, who had arranged my day trip to American Samoa, picked me up at the airport in the evening to drive me back to Apia. Passing one village, I heard a gong, and when we reached another, Sulu said she’d like to take me to see her house there, but it’s on the other side of the village from the main highway, and during curfew, no one is allowed to enter, leave, or drive through a village, or even walk around. I find this quite excessive.

I’ve read about a cultural trait attributed to Samoans. I cannot personally attest to this, but I mention it here, assuming it’s true, to make a cultural statement about the pot calling the kettle black. Samoans as a people are particularly polite, and for that reason, it’s suggested that a person not ask a Samoan a question that is answerable by yes or no. It’s wiser to ask “Which is the road to Apia?”, which will get you a reasonable answer, rather than “Is this the road to Apia?”, which requires a yes or no. The problem is, because a Samoan wants to be polite, he or she will give you the answer you want to hear, whether it’s correct or not. I understand this trait of ultimate politeness occurs in other cultures as well, and those of us with a Western mind will just laugh at such nonsense and shake our heads.

Do not do that. Although possibly to a lesser extent, we are just as guilty of the same sort of behavior. Please state just how many answers are possible to the question “Do you like my new dress?” I count one. Or try this one: “Do I look fat in these slacks?” Again, although it’s a different answer, there’s only one possibility. We, too, feel that politeness (and diplomacy) may—and should--overwhelm the truth under certain circumstances. Advice: Know thyself, and laugh not (too hard) at others.

Western Samoa - Eastern Samoa   Since the 1850’s, Germans had started settling in Upolu, often as owners of large plantations. Samoa was independent at the time, but there was major infighting among the Samoans. By the 1880’s, there were strong feelings between Britain, the US, and Germany about what was to come of the islands, and in the last decade of that century resolution came, but mixed with a natural disaster. In 1889, there was a risk of war between the three countries, and each had warships docked in Apia harbor. Then, on 15 March 1889, the most devastating hurricane on record on Samoa hit the islands. The harbor was filled with warships from the three powers, and many went down, with great loss of life.

By a decade later, the three powers decided on a resolution. Britain would be allowed to do what it wanted in Fiji, while Germany took over what then became known as Western Samoa—Upolu and Savai‘i, while the US took over Tutuila, referred to as Eastern Samoa. Germany wanted the west because of its growing influence there, but the US wanted Tutuila for a very special reason: Pago Pago harbor was the best harbor in the South Pacific, and the US wanted it as a coaling station to resupply ships crossing the ocean.

[It is instructive to think backwards here as to transportation modes. Today people fly to these islands and jet fuel is the issue. Before that, when ships went between islands (and cruise ships today), diesel fuel was important. But before that, ships ran on coal, and supplies needed to be stockpiled along the route, just as a car needs gas stations along a long-distance route it might be traveling.

This is the second time we’ve recently discussed coaling stations for ships. When discussing Flagler’s “Railroad that Went to Sea” in the Florida Keys (2008/7) do recall that his hopes for financial success of having reached Key West was that it could become a coaling station for ships that would be coming out of the new Panama Canal, which was just then a-building, but that was just the period when coal was on the decline.]

The US took over Tutuila in 1900 and then dropped the term “Eastern Samoa” in favor of “American Samoa”. In 1899, Germany took over Western Samoa, but its ownership was to be short-lived, only fifteen years. When war broke out in Europe in 1914, New Zealand was instructed by the Allied powers to take over Western Samoa, which it kept as a trust territory until Samoa’s independence in 1962. But it wasn’t until 1997 that the word “Western” was finally dropped, as smacking of colonialism, and the independent nation is now simply Samoa.

But old customs die hard. Website names still end in .ws and the currency, the tala, is still officially the WST. [The word tala is obviously the Samoan pronunciation of “dollar”. The currency is only valid in Samoa, and if you take any out of Samoa it’s worthless, even in American Samoa—which uses the US dollar.]

But influence remains. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, banks is ANZ from New Zealand, which you see everywhere, and electrical outlets take the NZ-style plugs, where the American slots that look like the figure 11 lean toward each other instead like an upside-down V. I had to buy an adapter in Apia, also to be useful in NZ, and presumably later in Australia.

Vailima is the name of the R L Stevenson estate above Apia, but is also the name of the most popular beer in Samoa, referred to as “German-style”. And one of the few hotels in Apia is the Insel Fehmarn Hotel.

[An update: When going by train from Germany to Denmark (2006/7), I stated that I wanted at that point to go the long way, up north into the Jutland Peninsula, then east over islands and bridges, not only to see them, but because this was an all-rail route. I also mentioned that in the past we’d taken the direct route that goes at an angle to the northeast, but this involves the train going onto a ferry. It works this way. The train goes onto the Insel Fehmarn / Island of Fehmarn, then onto a ferry across the Fehmarn Belt to the Danish island of Lolland. The update is that in 2007, Denmark and Germany authorized the construction of the Fehmarn Belt Bridge to cross the 18 km / 11 mi sound. Completion is expected by 2018, and will include four road lanes and two rail tracks. It should shorten the Hamburg-Copenhagen rail trip from 4.75 h to 3-3.25 h. Anyway, that’s the German island referred to in the Insel Fehmarn Hotel in Apia.]