A Word About Samoa

While the New House Blog is on its winter hiatus we thought it a good time to bring you an exciting and entertaining account of our recent (Christmas time) trip to Samoa.  Our adventures will be presented mostly in chronological order, but first a word about airports.

A Word About Airports

We flew out from San Francisco International Airport (SFO (AKA KSFO)), and of all of the large international airports I've been through, SFO is the most disappointing and the least interesting.  The international portion seems to consist mainly of long, boring walkways and a few sparse, scattered shops and mediocre cafes.  The actual gates are downstairs, relative to the walkways, and they are bland and monotonous.  If you fly out of SFO bring some books or movies, cause it's gonna be a boring wait.

Auckland International Airport (AKL (AKA NZAA)), the second and fourth airport we passed through, on the other hand, is an inviting and interesting place to wait for your flight.  The bright and colorful international lounge has several shops and restaurants, it has big windows for watching the planes, and it has large couches that are useful for sleeping on when your plane arrives at 1:30am, local time, and your next flight isn't for another ten hours.  The bookstore in the international lounge, by the way, opens at 4:00am (how do I know this?).  On our first pass through AKL we had to go all the way out to gate 16, the very farthest gate we could possibly have to go to,

Due to the twists and turns in the walkways, Gate 16 felt like it was at least a half a mile away from the main lounge area.

Another nice thing about AKL is its relaxed atmosphere.  People didn't seem to be rushing about or in a hurry to get places.  Note that even the signage is telling you to relax.

Our third airport was Faleolo International Airport (APW (AKA NSFA)), in Apia, Samoa. Upon arriving in Samoa we had only a very brief wait for our luggage, and the the trip through immigration and customs was also brief.  It may have been the quickest I've ever been let into a foreign country, so far.  It is also, by far, the smallest international airport that I have passed through.  Becky says that the international airport in Palermo, Sicily, is even smaller (and there are goats nearby).  I didn't really notice or appreciate APW's small size until we had passed through security, customs, and immigration as we commenced our return trip to the USA.  The trip through security was the quickest I've experienced in a long long time.  I didn't have to take off my belt or shoes, and the security lady even let me take my opened bottle of water through (after asking me to take a sip to prove it was really water).  Immigration and customs were also quick, and we arrived at the gate with plenty of time to kill.  And there were only two gates to choose from.  And they shared one waiting area.  And there were two snack shacks, one duty-free shop, and one other shop of some sort.  That's it folks - one waiting room with two gates, and two eating choices, two shops, and two malfunctioning tv screens.

It was good to get back onto US soil at Honolulu International Airport (HNL (AKA PHNL)), our 5th airport.  Due to a scheduling snafu with Expedia, our return trip included of a 10-hour overnight layover in Auckland, and another 9-hour overnight layover in Honolulu.  Because we are both US citizens, we got to go through the express line in immigration and customs, and we were outside of the international terminal pretty quickly.  The inside of the HNL domestic terminal is kind of inside and outside at the same time.  There is a long hallway, with plenty of shops and restaurants (all of them closed when we arrived late at night), and the ends of the hallway are open to the outside air.  There are also openings in the walls that allow in the outside air.  Sleeping at HNL is much less comfortable than sleeping at AKL.  We at first tried to sleep on the regular airport chairs, but Becky discovered a pair of massage chairs that were a little better than the typical airport chairs, but not as nice as the couches at AKL.  I don't know what time the bookstore opens at HNL, but the Burger King was open by 7am.  At HNL, due to the previously-mentioned snafu, we switched from Air New Zealand to United for our final flight back to SFO.  And that brings us to a word about airlines.

A Word About Airlines

Our first four flights were with Air New Zealand, and they quickly proved themselves to be one of my favourite airlines.  This may be, in part, due to our first-class treatment in first class on our first flight from San Francisco to Auckland.  As partial compensation for the infamous scheduling snafu, we got promoted to the first class cabin on our first flight, and let me tell ya - the first-class cabin of a Boeing 777 is a great place to be for a twelve-hour flight.  You get your own cubicle that turns into a bed, a big tv on a swing arm, a huge table that you can sit two people at, great food, great hot tea, and great service.  It's kind of like being at a fancy restaurant for 12 hours, with tv and movies.

Here we are, sharing a meal.

Another thing that sets Air New Zealand apart, in my view, is their safety video.  They have the best safety video that I've ever seen.  It's so good that you want to actually watch it.  It features beautiful people, surfing, Jeeps, swimming, the ocean, and that great New Zealand accent.

We only got first-class on the first leg, but the other three legs of Air New Zealand were enjoyable, and the service and food were very good.  As an added bonus, even in non-first-class the meals are included with the flight.

United, on the other hand, could learn from Air New Zealand.  Their safety video was rather tame and boring, and the attempted humour came off as forced and quite lame.  The service was acceptable, but they charge extra for meals, even on the long flight from Honolulu to San Francisco.  Fortunately we were prepared for this, and we brought our own food on the plane.  And this brings us to a word about or resort.

A Word About Our Resort

We stayed at the lovely Sa'Moana Resort, located on the beach, just down the road from the Methodist Church, outside the village of Salamumu, Samoa.  It is, in fact, at the end of the road.  And what a road!  In Samoa the individual villages maintain their own roads, and the road through Salamumu Village is composed of a base layer of black volcanic rock covered with white volcanic sand.  Sand being what it is, the road was very bumpy and rocky and not at all smooth.  Back to the resort.  We had our own private bungalow at the left end of the resort, as one faces away from the beach.

This is our bungalow.  The rock wall hides the outdoor shower area.

And it's not what we normally think of as a beach.  The coast line in front of the resort is composed of black volcanic rock, and behind the rock is an expanse of sand.  At the resort there is one break in the rock that allows for launching and retrieving kayaks.

This is the view from the main headquarters.  Note the clearness of the water and the nearness of the reef.  For most of our stay the bungalows between us and the main headquarters were unoccupied, and there were only two other families staying at the opposite end of the resort.

Speaking of the rock wall and the outdoor shower, in all of our time in Samoa we experienced, between the two of us, a total of about 10 minutes of hot water.  When we arrived in our bungalow and tried the hot water we discovered that nothing came out from the tap or the shower.  The cold water worked great, but the hot was totally absent.  Naturally, we mentioned this to the manager right away, and she assured us that it would be fixed the next day.  Also, the in-room phones throughout the resort were not working.  The manager said that since the next bungalow was unoccupied we could use its shower and hot water.  I took advantage of this offer and walked next door to get clean.  About 5 minutes into my nice warm shower I heard a loud BANG!, and the hot water went away.  D'oh!  So I finished up with only cold water.  As I was heading back inside I noticed a stream of warm water running out from under the bungalow toward the outside drain, and the water was warm.  Apparently something had broken, and all of my wonderful hot water was draining away into oblivion.  After drying off and dressing I walked over to the headquarters and informed someone of the situation.  The next day our hot water was not fixed, so we decided, with the manager's blessing, to use the next-door shower that night.  About 5 minutes after turning on the hot water, BANG!, and the hot water went away again.  That was the last we saw of hot water in Samoa.  We told the manager about it again the next day and resigned ourselves to cold showers.  Part of the trouble was the timing: Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, the weekend - all of these together meant that it was unlikely that a worker would come out to fix our hot water.

Despite this, I can heartily recommend the Sa'Moana Resort.  The staff is friendly, the food is good, and they even remember your name, which can be a bit weird at first.  At the restaurant I had the tallest hamburger I've had to date.

Those are banana fries, by the way.  They were okay, but needed salt.  The first couple of times I had the banana fries I salted them, and then suddenly they started coming to the table already salted.  Now that's good customer service.  We also had fish and chicken and a lot of mangos and fresh fruit.  Food service was a bit slow, but that seemed to be a common thing in Samoa.

On Christmas Day I continued what seems to have become a tradition with me - I had a rum drink.  This is not something I asked for; this was a free gift from Santa Claus (he visited the resort via kayak).  The kids at the resort got cookies and notepads, and the adults got a free rum drink.  Sadly, all I could taste was the alcohol, and that's not a pleasant taste.  I squeezed the pineapple wedge to get some of the juice inside the drink, and that helped a little.

The resort has kayaks and snorkeling gear to borrow, and it has an infinity pool in the midst of a crab habitat.  The crabs are small and harmless, but they do watch you when you swim in the pool.

The Sa'Moana has a tour guide, Tala, and he took us on a couple of day trips around the island.  And this leads us to a word about our adventures.

A Word About Our Adventures

Our first adventure was getting to the resort.  The roads on Samoa are maintained by the local villages, and there's no guarantee that any particular road will be in good shape.  The road through Salamumu Village is especially adventuresome, being composed of white sand over black volcanic rock, and it's the only way to and from the resort, so we got to experience it quite a bit.

Our first day trip started with a visit to the big market area in Apia, the capitol city on Christmas Eve.  The first things we bought were two big Cokes.  And I mean big.  750ml of Coca Cola goodness, in a glass bottle, sweetened with real sugar instead of corn syrup.  On a hot day wandering around the markets a big Coke is very refreshing, and it lasts a long time.

Markets aren't really our thing, so we didn't buy much - a sarong for Becky, a couple of t-shirts for me.  Our next stop was the Piula Cave pool, a freshwater pool mostly inside of a cave that runs beneath the Piula Methodist College.  The pool is very inviting and clear, and there's even a secret underwater passageway to an ajacent cave.

How could you possibly resist swimming in this water?  It was pretty awesome.  While there we met a family of five that had lost all of their luggage and had to buy new clothes.  They were travelling on Fiji Airlines, which loses a lot of luggage, according to Tala (our guide).

Speaking of Tala, here he is in the clear water.  The pool is not real deep, but it is refreshing and a lot of fun to be in.

After Piula we went somewhere for lunch, and then on to the Palolo Deep Marine Reserve and its deep blue hole.  Becky enjoyed the view of the ocean and the blue hole from the beach, but I donned flippers and mask (and snorkel) and went out to see the blue hole up close.

Palolo is a great place to snorkel, and I spent an hour just puttering around and exploring the blue hole.  The water was pretty clear and quite salty.  The hole is about 150 yards offshore, and it extends several hundred yards out into the reef.  I explored mostly the edges of the hole, and I only got to see a very small portion, but it was beautiful.  Sadly, modern camera technology cannot convey the full impact of seeing it up close.

Here's Tala again.

It's one thing to see the fishes behind glass, in an aquarium, but it's truly amazing to be in the water with them, with nothing separating you from them.


Our next day trip was on Boxing Day.  Our first stop was the world-famous To Sua Ocean Trench.  It's basically a big hole that leads down to a protected swimming hole that's connected to the ocean.

It turns out that there are actually two holes, this small hole, and the main big hole.

The two holes are connected by a cave tunnel.  The water rises and falls with the tide, and the depth varies as you swim around the hole.  The deepest spot when we visited was maybe seven feet deep, in the center of the pool.  We had a great time swimming in the pool and experiencing the beautiful grounds surrounding the holes.

This is part of the grounds surrounding the holes.  The proprietor of To Sua told us that when he visits New Zealand he looks at what plants do well there and he brings some back to To Sua.

After To Sua we stopped for lunch at Taufua Beach restaurant, where we had some good food and picked up more big Cokes.  Taufua Beach is the only really long stretch of sandy beach we saw on Samoa.  Most of the coastline we saw was either lava rock, or small beaches separated by lava rock.  I swam in the ocean at Taufua, and Becky enjoyed sunning on the beach.  It was nice to be able to be in the water and just swim, or float, and not have to worry about running into anyone or anything.

We made two more stops after Taufua - Sapoaga Falls and Togitogiga Waterfall.  Sapoaga Falls is a magnificent tall waterfall surrounded by lush green jungle.

As I was looking down the lush primal jungle valley, it dawned on me that this would be a great spot to see a tyrannosaurus come crashing out of the jungle.  For the record, I did not see a tyrannosaurus, but that doesn't mean there are none in the area.  The grounds around Sapoaga include some Samoan cultural artifacts, such as a cooking hut and log drums.  We also discovered the rare Samoan fern tree, which Becky had never heard of before.  There were also several chickens roaming around.

Togitogiga Waterfall turned out to be a local swimming hole with a waterfall and multiple pools to jump into and out of.  It was pretty crowded on Boxing day, so we didn't stay very long.

That about sums up our big outings, which leads to a word about kayaking.

A Word About Kayaking

On the days when we were not taking day trips we took some local trips via kayak.  Our first kayak adventure took us along the coast to a small beach surrounded by lava rock.

This beach looked like it had had no human visitors in a very very long time.  After our beach visit we cruised along the coast in the other direction.

There is a lot of coral and reef all along the coast, and at times our kayak was floating only inches above the coral (I'll admit that we did scrape the top of the coral a few times).

A couple of days later we took our second kayak adventure.  This time we slowed down and spent more time just looking at the reef and the fishies and the beautiful surroundings.

It was like being on top of a rather large aquarium, looking down on the fishies as they went about their daily routines.  As we were headed back toward the resort we encountered another couple sharing a kayak.  In their case the man was doing all of the work while the woman just enjoyed the view.  Not so with us - ours was a team kayaking effort.  Our two kayaking adventures took place on Christmas Day and the day after Boxing day.  And this leads us to a word about Samoan Christmas practices.



A Word About Samoan Christmas Practices

We don't really know what Samoans do on Christmas in their homes, but we know what they do at the Sa'Moana Resort.  Our Christmas experience actually began on the night of Christmas Eve, when the entire staff and guest population of the resort drove down the road to the local Methodist church for their Christmas Eve service (the entire guest population being about 10-12 people at the time).  We were told before-hand that part of the service would be put on by the youth of the church, and that there would also be awards given out for some type of agricultural/crop-growing contest.  We were told that our casual clothes were fine, but Becky should also wear a sarong and cover her shoulders.  The Samoans, on the other hand, were all dressed in their finest white clothing.  Some of the youth also wore bright green shirts.

As we were walking into the church and finding our seats in the back I recognized the music of the hymn that the people were singing, the hymn Praise The Lord.  They were singing it in Samoan, but the music was the same, so I very quietly sang the English words.  And boy can they sing!  The harmonies and melodies that we heard were magnificent.  For some reason I had assumed that the service would be in English.  After all, everyone at the resort, and everywhere else we went, spoke to us in English.  The only words of the entire service that we recognized were from the pastor,"We would like to welcome the guests of the Sa'Moana Hotel who are here with us tonight."  That's it!  We could tell from his varied voice inflections and changes in volume that the pastor was probably quite a dynamic speaker, but we can't be sure because we didn't understand a word he said.  And the congregation didn't give any kind of feedback - they all sat respectfully and listened attentively and quietly.

After the sermon the youth went up to the front and sang several songs, in Samoan, and they had wonderful voices.

After the singing came the lengthy awards giving-out.  Some trophies and gift baskets were brought to the front of the sanctuary and placed on a table and a man got up to speak.  What he said, I have no idea, but he spoke for quite a while.  We thought he was leading up to giving out the awards on the table, and he eventually said someone's name.  The first award give out was a piece of paper of some sort.  Then someone else spoke for several minutes (all of it in Samoan) and eventually another name and another piece of paper was awarded to a youth person.  It went on like this for a long time.  Someone talking in Samoan for several minutes and then finally another name and another paper award given.  We were hot, we had sweat running down our backs, we were sitting on hard wooden pews (with no lumbar support) with only the vaguest idea of what was going on, but what could we do?  We had to sit through the whole thing.  Eventually they did start reading off names en mass for the rest of the paper awards, and eventually the trophies and gift baskets were given out.

And then it was time for a cup of tea.  This consisted of everyone going outside into the less-warm night air and sitting on benches and chairs for a time of fellowship.  We guests from the resort were guided to benches on the steps of the church to sit with the pastor and the elders.  Plates of sweets and cakes and pies were placed in front of us, and large cups of a hot beverage were poured.  Becky insists that it was sweetened coffee, but I disagree.  Whatever it was, it was sweet and warm and delicious.  This hospitality made up for us having to sit through the giving out of the awards.

And then it was time for the fire dancing.

This is not something that they normally do on Christmas Eve, but to raise some funds and because we were tourists, some of the young men put on a demonstration of traditional Samoan fire dancing.  It was quite thrilling, and the oldest young man was quite good.  Then it was back to the resort for bed time.

Christmas day dawned.  For Christmas lunch the normal restaurant tables were set up as one big table, and a special meal of ham, made from some of the local pigs, was served.  As lunch was finishing up Santa Claus came paddling up to the shore in a kayak.

As you can see, he almost made it to shore before he tipped over and went into the drink.  Being in Samoa, Santa looked Samoan.  He didn't have the white hair, beard, or big belly.  And he didn't have any gifts in the kayak, thank goodness.  He had cleverly hidden his bag of gifts in a patch of bromeliads at the resort, and we had a fun time as he passed them out.  The kids got cookies and note pads, and the adults all got a free rum drink in a coconut (we each got our own coconuts - no sharing).  In the afternoon we took our first kayak adventure - described in more detail in a previous section.  And this leads us to a word about Samoan culture.

A Word About Samoan Culture

We were not able to sample the entire spectrum of Samoan culture, but we did observe parts of it.  For instance, the Samoan people are very religious, and the majority of them claim Christianity as their religion.  We saw Christian churches (mostly Methodist), Mormon temples, and Roman Catholic churches.  The Mormons seemed to have their own unique building style.  There is a huge Baha'i temple in Samoa, but we did not visit it.

Something else we observed was that in the villages the houses are on large plots of land, and there's a lot of space between neighbors.

Filling some of this space are the family fales.  Each house seemed to have at least one large family fale, the open building in the photo at left.  Many of the houses also had at least one tomb in the front yard area, as can be seen if you click to enlarge the photo.  These tombs ranged from simple rectangluar concrete tombs to ornately decorated concrete or rock step pyramids.  The tallest step pyramid I saw looked, from the car window, to be about 8 feet tall, composed of about 6 steps, constructed from shiny (or possibly painted) black volcanic rock.

We also saw some fire dancing, mentioned above.  The resort has a culture day on Thursdays, but because it fell on Christmas Eve we were not able to attend a culture night.

Roaming dogs are another part of Samoan life.  Tala explained that these dogs are the pets of the villages, and they didn't seem to be aggressive or threatening to us, but their roaming means that garbage has to be placed on raised platforms for collection, instead of at ground level like we do it here.  And that brings us to a word about the weather.

A Word About The Weather

The weather was warm and comfortable most of the time, warm and breezy sometimes, and hot a little bit of the time.  One constant was the high humidity.  Becky describes it as, "very humid."  Pages in books could become damp from just being out in the open.  It also rained a bit.  During one of our day trips, while we were on the other side of the island, the resort received heavy rain all day.  When we drove back through Salamumu we saw that the road's large sinkholes had become large lakes.  Tala was experienced at driving on this road, however, so we made it back to the resort safely.  It also rained heavily on our last day at the resort, as we waited there all day until our ride back to the airport in the evening.  This caused a little trouble for us as we played pool and darts to pass the time.  The pool/darts room has large windows that open wide, which is great for airflow, but not so great when you want to keep out the rain.  With the windows all closed it got too hot and stuffy, but if we opened them it got too wet and slippery.  Somehow we survived, and rediscovered just how bad we are at pool and darts.  And that leads us to a word about mobile phone and internet service.

A Word About Mobile Phone And Internet Service

Both of our mobile phones were set up for use in Samoa, but when we arrived in-country we discovered that we couldn't get any service.  The phones seemed to connect to the cellular networks just fine, but our calls and texts would not go through.  This wasn't a huge deal, but I was expecting a call from someone, and I had no way to check my voice mail.  The hotel had a wifi signal, but when we tried to connect it directed us to a logon screen where we could buy short-term wifi access.  I asked the hotel manager how to get on the wifi, and she said to use the BlueZone network.  When I asked her if the hotel had free wifi she looked at me as though I had asked where I could see a live tyrannosaurus on the island.  It seemed that the idea of free wifi was completely foreign to her.  After a couple of days Becky really needed to check her business email, so we decided to pay for access to the wifi, but the logon screen for the wifi did not let us pay for access, so we asked the other hotel manager about it, and he said that the logon screen never worked, but the resort had some wifi access cards we could buy.

We bought two 1-hour wifi cards, one of which you see in these two photos, and that was sufficient.  And no, you can't use the information in these photos to get on Samoan wifi in the future because the user and password expire 15 days after their first use.

We also found out eventually that the only way to use the cell networks in Samoa is to buy access cards.  It seems that Samoan phone plans are all pay-as-you-go, and not monthly like we're used to.  And there are no free wifi hotspots.  None of this would have been a problem if we had known about the situation before going to Samoa, but our Lonely Planet guidebook failed to mention this very important detail.  And this leads us to some final words.

Some Final Words

We had a great time in Samoa, and we enjoyed the hospitality and service at the Sa'Moana Resort (despite the lack of hot water).  Sitting on the veranda of your bungalow while reading a good book and sipping a big Coke is a great way to pass some time.  And finally, a word about movies.

A Word About Movies

Movies watched on this trip, in the resort, on planes, or in aiports, included, in no particular order:

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Divergent
The Maze Runner #1 and #2
Red Tails
Inside Out
The Eagle Has Landed
Where Eagles Dare
Life of Pi
Ender's Game
Tron
Tron:Legacy
John Carter
How to Marry a Millionaire - the classic version with Marylin Monroe
Night at the Museum
Pixels

And I guess that's the last word for now.
   bIsh