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On the Fiji island of Kandavu, Melanesian maidens are clustered atop a cliff, chanting a haunting air. Hearing the song, giant turtles rise from the sea below and one by one pop their heads above the surface to listen.
In the lazy mountain village of Chiangmai, Thailand, not far from the embattled borders of Laos, pedicabs wheel slowly through the shaded streets to the hive of fruit stalls, artisans and peddlers in the marketplace; and in the jungles, past the brooding Buddhist temples, the eucalypti and wild orchids frame the mute beauty of the valley.
On Lake Manyara, off in Tanganyika, an echoing gunshot stirs a huge, pink sea of flamingos into an undulating wave of flutter as they rise and settle once again. Down the corrugated road in a rumbling Land Rover come the white hunters, and once again the pink wings billow brightly in the sun. And then impatient stillness falls once more and muffles the lake.
Fiji is a $509.51 ticket from Pueblo, Colo., and 6,700 air miles away; Tanganyika and Atlanta are separated by 9,400 miles and $745.98 in air fare; Thailand and Passaic, N.J., by 10,500 miles and $694.46. Hard to get to, all those distant places—and expensive. Yet, in Pueblo, Atlanta and Passaic, and points between. Americans were feeling the irrepressible lure of exotic regions as they pored over maps and travel folders beckoning them to new horizons.
Having succeeded the British as the world's most relentless travelers, Americans are becoming increasingly jaded with the major tourist encampments, feeling, in the words of one inveterate tourist, "that you are never first or never alone at the classic or historic spots." The plaintive traveler was Henry James, writing in 1873. He had no idea of what was to follow.
After both world wars, hordes of Americans discovered England and France, and when too many of their compatriots swept in to join them, they leaped into Italy. On the Isle of Capri they met each other coming and going. They sneaked over to Portofino, but the word got out, and now it's finito. Then they established a beachhead in Spain—Majorca, the Costa Brava —but soon that old Henry James feeling set in again. They switched surreptitiously to Jamaica and the Virgin Islands, and got overrun before they could unpack. And now—?
Travel agents, steamship companies and airlines are reaching way out to bring in the faraway answers. A safari with Baffin Island Eskimos. A climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Shooting expeditions in Nepal. Eat roast monkey with the Yagua Indians of the Amazon, and watch them shoot poisoned darts. Fly over Victoria Falls. A traveler can subscribe to a sort of Island-of-the-Month Club, called Islands in the Sun, that briefs its members on the latest and the best. Bachelor Party Tours, clipper voyages to the Seven Seas, motor caravans from Singapore to Istanbul, Tramp Trips on freighters where the passenger can rough it for no less money than the cost of a sports-shirt cruise—all have their takers. Says one weary travel agent: "I don't know whether I should be pushing Alaska or selling South Africa.'' The answer obviously is: both.