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Tahiti, French Polynesia |
Tahiti, French Polynesia
French Polynesia is one of those destinations that I pretty much never expected to visit as it is the stuff of luxury honeymoon brochures and even when we were looking at honeymoons a few years back it was crossed off the list as too expensive. However, whilst New Zealand is in the midst of the ocean with nothing around for miles, Polynesia is actually one of the cheapest and easiest places that you can fly. Sadly we couldn’t see all of the islands that we wanted to as getting between them is expensive to fly and whilst you can go by cargo boat you just have to get there and wait for a ticket, with accommodation costing around £40 a night this was not really a feasible option. We decided that we would fly to Tahiti, then have a few nights over on Moorea island before returning to Tahiti to pick up our cruise.
As I mentioned accommodation in the islands is extortionate which is why we only planned to spend one quick night in Tahiti, or did we???!!!??? You see whilst I now generally consider myself pretty good at travel planning as we have made it most of the way around the world without too many dramas. There is one thing when we planned our stay in Tahiti that never even crossed my mind, that small issue of the International Date Line. For anyone who like me never even gave this a thought, it is the magic line that falls right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean which determines the start and end of the world’s 24 hour zone and in crossing said magical line we managed to travel back in time. We left Auckland on the 30th March and arrived in Tahiti on the 29th March, thereby making our year one day longer as we had no intentions of re-crossing the date line, weird huh!
The most annoying part of this error was that it meant we now needed to pay for two night accommodation. Thankfully we managed to find an Airbnb host who was not too expensive, she lived right in the middle of Papeete , the main town in Tahiti and a short walk from the harbour terminal. As with most things that go wrong for us there was a silver lining in that it meant we had the time to spend one day exploring Tahiti. With the beaches of Moorea coming in the following day we opted to visit the Papenoo Valley in the centre of the island.
Thanks to our AirBnB host we managed to book a tour with Teiva a 14th generation Tahitian who turned up looking well and truly the part. He was tattooed, adorned with shells and teeth, had leaves in his hair and in true island style he had bare feet and wore nothing but a sarong. We piled into the back of his open top jeep with just one French family with two kids and set off. We started all very civilised sat down with seat belts on and the roof cover on and as soon as we hit the entrance to the valley we took off the roof, took off our seatbelts and shoes and stood up on the seats to enjoy the off road journey into the centre of Tahiti where the remnants of the crater that created the island sits.
Along the route Teiva stopped regularly to tell us a story, show us a plant or waterfall or to let us have a swim to cool off in a watering hole. We ate some cool little blue flowers that tasted exactly like mushrooms. Used a plant stamen to make natural lipstick and then used the same plants petals to take it off. We had magical silver fern tattoos applied and ate fresh guava plucked straight from the tree. We saw waterfalls, stunning valley views, the walls of the crater and had the most delicious lunch I have possibly ever eaten on a tour.
At a tiny restaurant in the centre of Tahiti I decided to leave my comfort zone (partially because there was no veggie option aside from a portion of chips) and ordered red tuna sashimi. Our guide warned us that we would never taste any fresher or better fish as it would have been caught and bought at market that morning, but all too used to this spiel I took it with a pinch of salt. It was however the most delicious piece of fish I have ever eaten in my life. It was so fresh it almost tasted like fruit. Tim on the other hand had opted for the less exciting French option of Steak hache and whilst he claimed it was ‘nice’ he looked enviously at my prize lunch until I finally gave in and shared.
After lunch we set off again and crossed through a leaky dark tunnel to the other side of the crater for some even better views before retracing our steps and returning to the city.
At the harbour in Papeete there is a great option to eat cheap and quick, called a Roulette which is set up every night, a selection of food vans arrive with chairs and tables and you can pick and choose whether you have Tahitian fish, Chinese food or French galettes. Like an awesome food fair but every night. The one thing that we very quickly became acquainted with here was that despite the look and feel of it, this was definitely not fast food and we were definitely on island time. I think it took a good hour for our galettes to arrive; just as well we had gained that extra day as we would not have time for this island time malarkey!
As Tahiti is pretty cool it only seems right to include some factoids as to the history of this little paradise which is you happen to have a French passport you can call home, yup, I am very jealous of anyone with a French passport right now.
It is estimated that the first Tahitians arrived in 200BC having travelled by outrigger canoe from South East Asia or Indonesia. The Europeans first visited in 1576, Captain James Cook was there in April 1769 and Captain William Bligh was there on the HMS Bounty in 1788. In 1790 whalers began landing in Tahiti and with them kindly brought alcohol, arms, illness and prostitution which caused a massive drop in the population from 16,000 to just 6,000. In 1797 missionaries arrived and began successfully converting the local tribes to Christianity. Between 1844 and 1847 Tahiti fought a battle of independence with the French which they lost. In 1903 Tahiti along with the other islands within French Polynesia were declared ‘French Establishments in Oceania’. In 1946 Tahitians were granted French citizenship. Between 1966 and 1996 the French Government conducted 193 nuclear bomb tests above atolls in French Polynesia. So there you go, there is a brief history of Tahiti for you!
The following day it was time to make a move to Moorea, another extinct volcanic island renowned for clear blue seas and amazing snorkelling. After months out of the ocean we were excited to say the least….Moorea here we come.
Beans Around The World 