Exotic Destination

During the year of 1977 Prince Abdoreza, a member of Iran’s Royal Family, prepared to depart for an exotic travel destination. The Prince intended to take a vacation, although he did not expect to visit a fairly well-known exotic vacation destination. The Prince liked to hunt, and so he looked forward to a visit to another one of the world’s exotic hunting destinations. The Prince had already made similar trips to hunting grounds in all four corners of the world. The Prince’s mother no doubt hoped that all of her son’s travels would prove useful when it came time for him to choose an exotic honeymoon destination or an exotic wedding destination. For that reason, she seldom sought specifics about his destination. Exotic traveling, she knew, was expected of the dedicated hunter. Of course the Prince had neither an exotic honeymoon destination nor an exotic wedding destination foremost in his mind as he left for the scenic hunting grounds. His thoughts had become fixed on the animal he intended to shoot down. His mind could not focus on anything except the almost unreal horns of the pasang. One description of a pasang provides sufficient proof that its territory might be considered an exotic destination. The horns of even an average pasang seem out of proportion in relation to the animal’s other body parts. The Prince knew, however, that an occasional pasang possesses horns with dimensions that seem almost unbelievable. The Prince hoped to find and shoot an animal with such “unreal” horns. As mentioned above, the Prince had traveled to more than one exotic destination. Exotic travel truthing, if it had existed at that time, would have found in the Prince a ready source for details about animals in various regions. The Prince had once killed a Siberian Tiger in North Korea. He had also hunted Cape buffalo, elephant, Marco Polo sheep and rhinoceros. Yet in 1977 the Prince did not aspire to credit for material on any hunting destination. Exotic travel truthing would never gain from the observations made by the Prince. The Prince had not succeeded in visiting any exotic travel destination at a time when travelers looked to the Internet for truth about such locations. In 1977 the Prince hoped to gain mention in Rowland’s World’s Records of Big Game. He hoped to find and kill a pasang with horns that had record-breaking dimensions. That was why he had chosen to visit an exotic hunting destination. While the mountains there did not rise up as high as the mountains in another exotic travel destination, they still looked impressive against the clear blue sky. Did those mountains hold a pasang? The Prince did indeed find “the pasang of his dreams” during that hunting trip. He shot that animal, and then he had designated members of his hunting party measure its horns. Those men found that the horns measured 51 ½ inches long; they were eight and three-eighths inches in diameter. Those measurements called for changes in the Records of Big Game. They underlined the allure of exotic destinations.