Next stop was the then Western Samoa (now just Samoa), and first cab off the rank was the legendary Aggie Greys Hotel in the capital Apia. The hotels been there since 1933. Its eponymous founder was a very well known local figure on whom the character Bloody Mary in the movie South Pacific is believed to have been based. She only passed away in 1988 at the ripe old age of 91. The ever reliable Wikipedia tells us that Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, William Holden, Dorothy Lamour and Raymond Burr have all stayed at Aggies, and it housed the crew of the movie Return to Paradise, starring Cooper, when it was filmed in Samoa in 1953. This all sounds impressive and romantic, and it probably is, but all I was after was a better experience than Id had when Id stayed there a decade earlier. And that wouldnt have been all that hard. On that fateful trip I ate some dodgy fish the night I arrived and spent the next three days on the bathroom floor with my head in the toilet. Im not entirely sure what tempted me to go back.
and then headed off for a week on the beach at Coconuts Resort on the south side of the island. Our ever reliable travel agents had rung ahead to make sure that everything was in order. A cot for Scott was at the top of the priority list. It seems that something might have got a bit lost in translation. When we arrived at the then newish establishment, we found that cots were not something that the staff seemed to be overly familiar with. I think the main function of a cot is probably to stop your toddler falling out of bed and hurting itself. Most Samoan toddlers probably sleep on mats on the floors of their single storey fales with the rest of the family, so we suspected that cots probably werent a necessity for your average Samoan parent. We got by by bedding Scott down on some cushions on the floor of our first floor room, aided by a healthy dose of paranoia about keeping all the doors and windows closed and firmly locked at all times.
the early 1990s with the dream of setting up a simple hotel and restaurant on the beach. Its still there. We snuck in for a quick look when we went back in 2018. It was scarcely recognisable from the simple 1993 iteration - its now a whole lot bigger and fancier, and is even home to the countrys only overwater bungalows. Apparently it had to be virtually rebuilt after being wiped out by successive cyclones and the 2009 tsunami.
It was nice and sunny in Apia, which is on the north coast, but we couldnt help but notice that as soon as we crossed the range the clouds gathered, the rain started, and it was suddenly a lot cooler. Itll burn off we were told. It seems we forgot to ask when. By the time we left there, wed been away from home for a total of twenty one days and it had been cool and rainy for eighteen of them. Just as well we came in the dry season or we might have drowned. We woke up every morning to the sound of more rain. Even more infuriating was that anytime we ventured over the range into Apia
we drove into brilliant sunshine and a cloudless sky. This would have been great if there were any beaches there to lie on, but no, theyre all in the rain soaked south.
Based on the small sample of mainstream Pacific Islands weve been to, Samoa is by far the most unspoilt, and has the most traditional culture. This has undoubtedly been helped by the relative lack of tourism, and tourists certainly seemed to be a there back in 1993. We spent a lot of time wandering through the traditional villages near the resort, and if the attention we seemed to attract was anything to go by it was clear that the friendly locals werent all that used to the sight of western toddlers.
We hired a car and drove along the coast to Return to Paradise Beach, where Return to Paradise was filmed. Theres an excellent resort there now which we stayed at in 2018, but it was all very pristine back in 1993, with scarcely a shack in sight.
