When Robert Louis Stevenson, author of “Treasure Island“, was suffering from a severe attack of Tuberculosis, he made a bold move: He abandoned his grey and illness-prone life in Scotland and moved in 1889 to one of the most exotic spots on earth – Samoa. My wife and I came to Samoa  in 2004 for more mundane reasons, on a stopover before meeting friends in New Zealand. “Please do not hit any pigs,” the lady at the car rental agency at the international airport in Apia had warned us that we could be otherwise subject to immediate acts of retaliation by the locals. As if there were only pigs…On the gentle roller-coaster road between the airport and our first destination at Lalomanu beach, past beautiful waterfalls, orchid-draped rainforest and little villages with honesty stalls selling the most delicious tropical fruits,  we actually passed all kinds of creatures running lose: dogs, chickens, children…

We quickly learned that pigs played an important role in Polynesian island culture and luckily hit not a single one. But even more important in Samoan culture were the ubiquitous fales, open-sided structures in oval shape with a thatched roof, allowing for natural ventilation. raised off the ground on stilts. Wherever we went, be it on the main island of Upolu or the neighboring island of Savai’i, there were Samoans resting and daydreaming in fales, preferably with views on the turquoise ocean. Samoans are my champions of of chillout. But fales were more than resting spaces, since they were also used as living room, community meeting room and, at night, as bedroom, with curtains rolled down for some privacy.

Our accommodation on Lalomanu beach happened to be – in a fale, Fresh coconuts for breakfast, fresh fish for dinner, translucent-turquoise waters, powdery white sand, swaying coconut palms – it should have been paradise. Less than two weeks after the devastating Boxing Day Tsunami, however, I lay on my sleeping bag, spotted the Southern Cross on the nightly sky, listened to the waves gently lapping to the shores…and could not sleep. Tragically, five years later, a smaller-scale tsunami struck Samoa and destroyed all fales at Lalomanu. A sad end of the most special beach hideaway where I have ever stayed.