RAROTONGA COOK ISLANDS ¨C A woman from western Japan, who calls herself ¡°Amy,¡± couldn¡¯t find paradise in Thailand, Cuba, Brazil or French Polynesia, so with the last of her $300 savings she bought a one-way ticket from Tahiti to Rarotonga. Then, claiming to be penniless, she walked from the airport to the police station and asked them to shelter her.
A jolly female officer, who had studied in Kyushu, gave Amy room on her floor, then sent her to stay with a doctor near the trailhead for Te Manga, the island¡¯s volcanic peak known as ¡°The Needle.¡± Then, still destitute and unable to afford the $4 bus fare, she hitchhiked around the island in sandals and a floral dress that accentuated her deep tan and Pacific beauty. When I met her on a sunny afternoon, she was carrying only an envelope containing her passport and a certificate from a ¡°school of Thai massage¡± in Chiang Mai.
¡°I am the only Japanese tourist in the Cook Islands,¡± she boasted with an air of distinction equaling my own astonishment. She refuses to stay in even a $25-a-night dorm room ¡ª let alone a deluxe suite at $100 to $900 like most of the 100,000 annual tourists, mostly from Australia and New Zealand. Neither is she interested in Rarotonga¡¯s turquoise lagoon, verdant jungles and dramatic peaks, which often draw comparisons between it and Bora Bora in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. ¡°I am not here to be a tourist,¡± she proclaimed. ¡°I am here to work and to live like a local person.¡±
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