TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

POTTYED SAMOA

Let’s forget all that disgusting behaviour by a few power-crazy Samoans and have a bit of, slightly surreal, fun

Yes indeedy, this is Samoa. I was once told that to be a pilot, you don’t need to be able to read as all the air corridors which you have to fly down, this is a commercial pilot of course, are colour coded. So if you want to go from London to New York you just tell the air traffic controller that you want to fly down the green one, on to the red one and finish by going down the blue one. This may or may not be true. It would certainly mean colour blindness is a big risk and as they fly by instruments a lot anyway, does it really matter. I have to say that as I didn’t start flying till recently I am not an expert in all this.

Compared to driving a car in, say London, it’s a doddle really isn’t it. Not many corners, not much traffic and someone telling you where you are and who is near you, so you can blame them if you have a big smash. Let’s put it this way, they may well be the only one left to take the blame if it is a really good smash. I suppose the best thing for a pilot to do, if he thinks he is having a crash is to make sure his final words to the black box are, “hey ground control, why did you tell me to do that”. In fact for a pilot, the only hard bit is the take off and the landing, which is why a good pilot is one with the same number of landings as take offs. On that basis, of course, there are not many bad pilots still alive. Actually, I heard that landing is just a controlled crash anyway so if you mess it up, you just lost control for the last few seconds of a maybe six-hour flight. Should you be criticised for that?

Anyway the reason I started all this was because of the colour coded thing and my observations here in Samoa. All the taxis I have seen are white. Honest. White. Pure as the driven snow and if you’ve ever driven snow, you’ll know how pure that is. This got me thinking. Could we not do this for everyone, why just taxi drivers. Here in Samoa maybe all the Fafafini, think Tongan fakaleiti with attitude or, if you haven’t been there go to google, could drive pink cars with just a dash of lace along the trim and all the sequins sown on themselves or the car. Then I really got carried away. I found a colour chart, or as it was American, a color chart. Americans do that quite a bit you know. They take the u out of colour, the u out of neighbourhood, get the l out of travelling but never take the p out of themselves. I know there isn’t one but there is a p in weapons of mass destruction so that is as good a reason as any to take the p out of them. But with the color chart, you can match your car color to your mood, your personality even your sexual preference.

The colour–coded car conception continues. Remember this is also an educational column and that last sentence was alliterative or, if you prefer, a demonstration of alliteration. This is when you use words beginning with the same letter in sequence. An example; the American president is the brilliant, benevolent, boy-like, Bush. Alliteration and also an example of hyperbole, fiction and possibly even lying. Remember I wrote this 2007.

But back to the cars again. Here you are driving through Apia, on the left or the right, who cares at the moment, and you look in your mirror and see this pink car coming, and I use the word automotively, up behind you. Wow, you think, that’s a Fafafini. Do I want him/her up my rear end. No, unless you are a young, innocent Samoan male, is the answer, and even then a protective covering over your rear promotes safe driving. Step on the pedal and motor off. A similar scenario can happen as you approach the rear end of the said Fafafini too. But knowing it was a pink one, car that is, you would drop back a bit or maybe even change lanes. Or maybe, if you have your passport readily available, countries.

I mentioned there about driving on the left or right because Samoa is going through a dilemma at the moment. The Prime Minister has announced that sometime this year (2007), he keeps changing when, they will stop driving on the right and change to the left. This has created a tiny bit of opposition but he presses on. One of his arguments is that it will mean everyone can drive right hand drive cars but I am not sure that the law will say this, only that you should drive on the left. We could have right hand drive cars on the right which would mean the driver sitting on the right couldn’t see round the car ahead which would be wrong, or right. However, if they have left hand drive and drive on the right then they need new cars so the left hand drive cars would be left. Right.

Samoans, being fun people, no really, have created a few movements, in the non-bowel sense, around this subject. PASS is People Against Switching Sides. PISS is People In favour (pushing it a bit) of Switching Sides. Obviously the PM is a pisser as it was his idea. I heard a rumour that in a moments of lucidity, someone suggested why not change sides and face backwards. This is an interesting concept. Some undecided people are now known as PISS OFFs, People In favour of Switching Sides Or Facing Forward while the People In favour of Switching Sides Until People Stop are the Piss-ups.

People Against Switching Sides With Intellects Not Damaged have become known as PASS WIND, but these are just a load of old farts anyway. There are a couple of people who recently were People Against Switching Sides and Pissing Off Richard’s Travel; they were a special club who were known as the Passport holders. Finally we came across People Keen on Ruining Everything New and Terrible Arse Licking Sass- lovers Thank you PK RENTALS, mentioned as promised. You really need to read my non-potty Samoan pieces to understand some of this

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