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 — 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."