Fish and more palusami, please

By Deidre Tautua-Fanene 19 August 2017, 12:00AM

A young couple who spent almost three weeks in Samoa says they’ve had the best holiday.

Michael O’brien and partner Georgina Valention heard about Samoa by word of mouth.

“It was through some friends that have nagged at us to come and visit.

“Also we have already been to Raro and Fiji, so when we planned our holiday we were looking for a place that we had never been before and so we wanted to try something different.

“We wanted to see more about the culture and find out a little bit about the history of Samoa.

“To be honest we hadn’t heard about it until we came to New Zealand so we thought we’d just check it out before we go back to England.”

Mr. O’brien also offered some advice for the tourism industry.

“A little bit that needs to be improved are the buses,” he said.

“Just to make sure that they go all the way around the island. I mean the buses in town are fine but the ones that go through Lalomanu didn’t really get us to where we wanted to go.

“So I think that needs to be improved. It’s not a major thing but some people expect more when they come around the Pacific to visit.

“Also the fales’ booking system needs to be tidied up because a lot of them are advertising but it seems like old school with the phones and stuff. We’ve gone to some fales that we can just get on facebook and message them and they pick us up.

“Those small things we reckon need a little bit of improvement but that’s it! 

“Nothing else. 

“We’ve had a really good experience and we’ve loved it. We are really happy that we came.”

After three weeks, the couple will be departing today.

And one of the things they will miss, is the food.

Palusami did it for them, they said.

In fact pretty much all the local food delighted them.

“We loved the Samoan food. We developed a taste for the taro chips but we really loved the palusami,” said Ms. Valentino.

“We haven’t really had any grilled fish so maybe the resorts can provide more seafood as well because this is one of the tourists’ favorite foods - fish.

“We also loved the bananas and the Masi Popo.”

“Part of our trip was a couple of days in Savaii where we hired a scooter and just stopped at places along the way.

“We saw most of the island and we had a good holiday.

“We have friends in New Zealand who we’ve told about our trip and now they want to come over to get the best feeling and relax here in Samoa.”

By Deidre Tautua-Fanene 19 August 2017, 12:00AM
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