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To me the word "exotic" conjures up the distant ... the unusual ... the mysterious.
I am curious what places people in this forum have traveled to that they consider "exotic."
A funny, but true, story: Back in the 1990's I was working for the British shipping company Cunard. My homeport was Southampton, in Hampshire County. Before setting sail on the vessel I was working on I was having lunch at the Burger King in the center of town, called the Bargate. Two older gentlemen were sitting at the table next to mine and one was discussing his recent first trip abroad - to the United States. He described how weird and unusual he found things, the different money, the fact that people drive on the wrong side of the road, etc. Mind you these two gents were eating Whoppers at a Burger King wearing Levis and had shopping bags from the local Woolworth's store! To this old guy the US was "exotic"!
It really does depend upon your definition of exotic.
If that means south sea beaches, with palm trees almost overlapping the surf? I've been there.
If that means Godless tracks of endless sand dune deserts for hundreds, if not thousands of miles? I've been there.
If that means local customs and societies which are actually threatening? I've been there.
If that means romantic settings and strange, beautiful women under a warm Mediterranean or Caribbean or Pacific moon? I've been there too.
If that means the smell of death in the air? I've been there.
If that means destruction and horror on a Biblical scale? I've also been there...regrettably.
If that means faux foreign resorts with all the comforts and familiarities of home? I haven't been there.
If that means scenes of luxury and opulence in some other place than home? I haven't been there either.
If that means idyllic days lost in your own, self-absorbed reveries while wandering obscurely among the locals? Maybe I have been there. Maybe not. I'll never admit it either way.
Exotic means different things to different people. Just what do YOU mean?
French Polynesia. The Society islands, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea, Raiataea; the Tuomotu Islands of Rangiroa and Manihi; but even more so, the Marquesas Islands, Fatu Hiva, Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa and Ua Huka.
Naviivi Village, Qamea Island, Fiji in 1999. This is a small hillside village on an island with no roads and no airport; accessible by water only. There is but one small resort on Qamea island and it is tucked away from the village, so this village retained much from the past. The villagers still lived in small one-room thatched roof/wall huts with dirt floors and lived simply off the land and sea. They did have a Catholic church and small school where the children wore bright blue matching uniforms; these were about the only major signs of western infulence here. Fijian was primarily spoken with very little English by the elders. Amongst it all were the happiest people I have ever met in my life. I envy the beauty and simplicity that surround these Naviivi villagers in their lives and the happiness they have found while going without most of the modern conveniences most of us have come to expect in life.
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