french polynesia
when you think of polynesia, of tahiti and its environs, you think of amazing beaches, beautiful women, gauguin, and a host of other impossibly exotic fantasies. amazingly, the line between imagination and reality becomes beautifully blurred here, thanks both to the splendour of the scenery and also the demeanour, and appearance, of the inhabitants.tahiti itself is actually the administrative hub of the islands, and i'd been told to escape as soon as feasible. even landing at papeete airport however proved to be something of an experience, as before even making it to immigration we had been handed flowers to put behind our ears, and serenaded by a rather jovial band belting out top polynesian ditties. sadly, i didn't cover myself in glory going through the entrance formalities: as tahiti is technically a part of france, eu passport holders are just waved through... so it was that i found myself actually requesting a stamp for my passport. i think i may once have described myself as a travel snob: travel geek may be more appropriate.
despite the revelry on our arrival, we had actually landed at just past eleven at night. as such i headed straight to chez fifi, a tiny pension overlooking the airport, pausing only to get my maths completely wrong and draw out $300, rather than the $30 i was aiming for. chez fifi is an interesting place: essentially an overpriced shithole surrounded by semi rabid dogs and the deafening screech of aircraft, it does a roaring trade due to the fact that all the international flights coming into and out of papeete are from 11pm to 2am, and desperation and fatigue regularly overcome accommodation quality control. i didn't meet anyone who stayed for more than a night, although in my short time there i did wangle myself some free swordfish from a rather lovely french couple who dished it out as a sympathy gesture for my comedic efforts at speaking french.
the next day i got the ferry to the neighbouring island of moorea. if tahiti is all black sand and pollution, moorea is where the postcards are shot. the entire island is fringed by a reef, which means that it is surrounded by lagoons. it's hard to explain just how beautiful water can be, but the shimmering incandescence of the blue green south pacific is totally hypnotic. i found myself a bed in a place just by the beach, that was incidentally cheaper than anywhere i'd stayed in nz, and spent the entire day intoxicated by the white sand and, most of all, the sheer clarity of the water; you can wade out a few hundred metres and still only be waist deep; you don't need a snorkel, you just look down and see fish darting round your body. a good book, a place on the sand, and a few paddles in the ocean, and i was set for the day.
moorea's colonial past means it attracts numerous french tourists, so i was forced to get my rusty a level linguistic skills out: i think i did ok, but constantly talking in a foreign language is so, so tiring! i have a new found respect for all the people whose english i've taken for granted in the last few months.
the following day i hired a bike to do a 50km ride around the island. there is only one road that skirts the perimeter, which means that if you look to one side you have the looming green hills of a volcanic island, and if you glance to the other you have nothing but perfect, often totally isolated, bays. i was riding out to a viewpoint where you can see one side of moorea, with the lagoon ending at the reef, which crashes into the sea, and the whole of tahiti in the distance. the view was spectacular, but the real delight was stopping off at various secluded beaches: there is possibly no more splendid isolation then that on a perfect bay looking out onto the shimmering pacific. i also ran a scientific experiment to see if brown folk can get sunburn: we can, and i peeled in the states, but frankly i can't see what all the whining is about!
that night i just lay outside on the beach, looking up at the stars: it was a strange moment, as i realised that after this it was all big cities, then home. this was my last tranquil night under a star kissed sky, and i made the most of it.
the ferry back to tahiti was pretty rough, as the weather was atrocious. papeete is actually a fairly grotty place, more like a mini asian metropolis than a picture of polynesian bliss. i made my mandatory trip to mcdonalds (croque mcdo anyone?), before catching the last hilux to the airport. my flight was at 2am, so it was going to be a long wait.
i was pretty unhappy about my 7 hours at the terminal, but it was actually quite interesting. the first thing you notice is the extraordinary ethnic diversity of polynesia: ethnic polynesians, french, and chinese all mix freely, leading to a number of demis, people of mixed race, who are uniformly stunning. the other thing that is surprising is that the cliches are true: they do wear flowers behind their ears and hand out garlands to each other, it's not just a tourist gig for incoming package flights. a more general observation was how much sadness there is at airports: people were leaving their loved ones, usually returning to france, for however long it takes to collate another airfare. behind the forced smiles and the kisses there is an aura of unhappiness that collects around an airport when long haul flights are leaving, and people and memories are left, helpless, behind.
french polynesia was utterly amazing, and i wish i'd spent more time there: there were so many other islands i could have gone to, and it's that perfect combination of things to walk up and beaches to recuperate on. the views, the scenery, it's all unbelievable: get off tahiti, and you find yourself on genuine island paradises, straight off gauguin canvases or somerset maugham pages. incredible stuff.
posted by bicrom @ 10:21 am
<< Home