doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (12/17/85)
Just got back from Tahiti -- it's everything I'd heard. Here are some
tips for anyone planning to visit there (particularly the main island):
Bring:
patience and sense of humor
shorts, sandals, sneakers, 100% cotton clothes
Visa or American Express card
as good a suntan as you can manage
lots of PABA-based sunblocks (in varying SPF numbers)
mosquito repellent
Solarcaine or similar sunburn/mosquito bite treatment
Optional:
Pepto-Bismol for prevention of "traveler's diarrhea"
diet soda if you *have* to have it
fold-up umbrella
French phrasebook
Don't bother bringing:
neckties and/or nylons
Mastercard
Currency:
French Polynesian francs (CFP's) were running right at 130 per $US.
CFP's are the only legal tender. You cannot buy anything with U.S.
money or traveler's cheques. You have to convert them to CFP's first.
Since there is no departure tax, you can safely reconvert all of your
money to U.S. dollars before leaving.
Language:
French is the official language, and of course the natives speak
Tahitian (or Polynesian, or whatever they call it). English-speaking
tourists from the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand account for most
of the territory's income, so you'll find that almost anyone who
deals with tourists can manage at least a little English. Even when
they don't, you'll find that hand motions and pointing are very
effective :-)
Hotels in Papeete:
The two big hotels are the Tahara'a and the Maeva Beach. The Tahara'a
is astoundingly beautiful, its only disadvantage is that it is a bit
of a distance out of town. The Maeva Beach is more convenient to
town and the airport, but also is more conventional.
The Beachcomber is next door to the Maeva Beach, and its management
would probably be upset that I didn't list it as one of Papeete's
"big hotels". It comes close.
Restaurants in Papeete:
The "must" dinner is Le Belvedere. Situated on a mountain peak which
overlooks Papeete. House specialty is a fondue, which I recommend
(costs around $15 per person). I must be ignorant, I only knew about
cheese fondues and chocolate fondues... this is a "real" fondue, where
you cook bite-size pieces of sirloin in a pot of hot oil. Freaked me
out when they brought out a plate of raw meat. When you make
reservations at Le Belvedere, they will arrange to pick you up at your
hotel. Don't attempt to drive yourself; the road is barely wide
enough for their "bus" and besides, there's no parking to speak of at
the restaurant. Besides, the ride up is quite an experience!
Downtown, check out Acajou. It's on the Boulevard Pomare (the main
street). The French onion soup is great. Another nice thing about
Acajou: they serve continuously rather than having specific meal
times.
By the way, it's against the custom to tip. And there's no sales tax,
either.
Other eats:
The cheapest way to eat is to buy stuff at the local stores. The
"libre service" stores are the closest you'll find to our
supermarkets, while the "magasins" are similar to convenience stores.
In any event, locally-made items such as bread and pastries are
quite reasonable (and very tasty); imported items are quite expensive.
If you're a soft-drink freak (I am), I hope you like Coke or Sprite.
That's what the bottler in Papeete bottles. Plus a bit of Mello Yello
and Fanta Orange. And a teeny bit of Fanta Grape. Price is usually
130 CFP ($1) for a .33 litre (11 oz) can; 234 CFP ($1.80) for a full
litre. I saw one can of Pepsi in one of the libre service stores, I
didn't have the nerve to ask what it cost. There is no sugar-free
soda to be found anywhere, but I did see caffeine-free Like Cola on
Moorea.
Transportation:
Around Papeete, the standard way to get around is on "Le Truck". This
is an odd (by American standards) transportation system. A zillion
open-air trucks, similar to what the Army uses to haul troops, each
independently owned and operated, running up and down the main routes
of Tahiti on their own individual routes and "schedules". But it
works -- if you have to wait more than 30 seconds for the next Le
Truck going your way, you arrived at a bad time. Just hop on, and
when you get near your destination push the signal button. Get off,
walk around to the *right* side, pay your 90 CFP ($0.69) (150 CFP=
$1.15 at night) and you're on your way.
I strongly recommend renting a car to see the island of Tahiti. We
had good luck with Hertz. The rates were (as I recall) 1950 CFP ($15)
per day, 28 CFP/km ($0.35/mile), or 4500 CFP ($34.60) per day with
unlimited mileage (no discounts permitted on the unlimited mileage
rate). When you return the car, they figure out which rate is the
cheapest based on how many kilometers you actually drove; pretty nice.
Collision insurance is around 750 CFP ($5.75) per day. Oh yes,
you buy the gas, at 100 CFP/litre ($2.94/gallon). [You can drive a
stick shift, I hope?]
Total distance around Tahiti Nui (the big part of the island) is about
120 km (75 miles). There are three dead-end routes into Tahiti Iti
(the little part of the island); the longest of these is about 45 km
(28 miles) one-way.
Outside of Papeete, street addresses are based on kilometre distance
from Papeete (nobody tells you this, so pay attention :-) For example
the "blowhole" is located at Cote Est 22,0 -- this means 22.0 km from
Papeete on the East Coast. Most tourist maps don't even give you the
location; find one that does. Anyhow, every kilometre along the
highway you will find a marker (it looks like a short, fat gravestone)
which tells you how far it is to the next major hamlet. On the side
of that same marker is the important number: how far you are from
Papeete.
There are no signs for any of the non-commercial tourist attractions.
If you don't know where the blowhole is, you'll never find it (unless
you happen to pass by while a tour bus is stopped there).
And even the commercial signs tend to be downright dinky by U.S.
standards. You have to look really sharp or you'll go right on past.
There is a regular passenger ferry service from Papeete to Moorea.
As I recall, it costs about 700 CFP ($5.40) one way. For a bit more,
you can take the Keke III which is almost twice as fast and is much
more comfortable. For somewhat more than that, you can take the
Keke III to Cook's Bay on Moorea. It docks at the Club Bali Hai
(not to be confused with the Hotel Bali Hai), across the street from
the Moorea Pearl Center.
Shopping:
Since almost everything in Tahiti is imported in the first place,
there aren't many good bargains to be found. The "classic" item to
buy in Tahiti is the black pearl. But be prepared for the prices.
When you see a black pearl necklace in an ad, it probably costs
around $5,000 to $20,000. Individual, unmounted black pearls start
at about $50 for one that's small, poorly shaped, and quite flawed.
Although the people at the Maeva Beach hotel recommended that we do
our pearl shopping at The Pearl Center, that place didn't have any
unmounted pearls, and the least expensive item that they had was
150,000 CFP ($1150). After considerable effort, we located a place
that had advertised in the English-language newspaper there. It's
called "Polynesian Black Pearls", and specializes in unmounted pearls.
They're on the West Coast at 12.8 km; one reason they're hard to find
is that their sign is in French only: "Perles Noires de Polynesie".
The owner speaks good English, and has a very large assortment of
unmounted pearls; sufficient that we were able to select 3 matching
ones (for earrings and a matching pendant). Cost: 45,000 CFP ($346)
for the trio.
A bunch of folks from our group went crazy in the duty-free shops at
the airport. There are also a number of shops in downtown Papeete
which can sell duty-free (airport delivery, of course). I don't have
much use for the kind of items that are real bargains when duty-free,
so I can't say if the duty-free deals were really big deals or not.
Special considerations:
Tahiti is a bunch of French-owned islands thousands of miles from the
nearest industrial center. And those thousands of miles aren't truck
miles nor rail miles, either. Anything not produced locally has to
be brought in by the slow boat or else by expensive air freight. So
a lot of things we take for granted are either non-existent or are
so expensive that they might as well be.
As a result, the locals don't accept the philosophy that "If it's
worth doing, it's worth doing well." Doing something well is either
impossible or prohibitively expensive. They're quite satisfied with
"good enough".
To enjoy Tahiti, you can't pretend you're in the U.S. In the U.S., if
you were eating in a restaurant and a lizard walked up the wall, you
might well complain to the management. In Tahiti, it would be a full-
time job trying to keep the lizards away. Besides, the lizards eat
the mosquitos, so you should be *glad* there's a lizard on the wall!
Like everything else in Tahiti, most food is prepared and served in
the open air. That means with flies. Usually not too many, but some.
Personally, I have trouble with this. But I was surprised to find
that I was able to accept this situation and enjoy the food anyway.
I cannot express in strong enough words just how intense the sun is.
Especially this time of year, when it is directly overhead. In the
U.S. we treat an SPF 15 sun-block as if it was 100% protection; you
will learn otherwise in Tahiti. You spend so much time out of doors,
and the sun is so intense, that unless you already have a good tan
you will be sunburned after your first day even though you used SPF 15
religiously. Even after a few days, and after you've acquired a very
dark tan, you will still need to use an SPF 4 to 6 sunblock all day to
keep from sunburning by the end of the day.
About 50% of the group I was travelling with encountered diarrhea at
some point or other during the two weeks we were in Tahiti. This is
despite many assurances that the water was maintained at European
standards and therefore very safe to drink. I think that the people
were actually experiencing a number of different problems, because
the severity, duration of problems, and other symptoms varied a lot.
I think my personal problems were the result of outraging my
intestinal flora with a change of diet; the food there tends to be
low in (imported) meat, and high in grains and other vegetarian stuff.
Anyhow, the local pharmacists can fix you up with some capsules
that'll take care of the problem; no prescription needed.
I didn't think much of their milk. I suspect most of it was either
goat's milk or reconstituted powdered milk. Yeccch.
I had heard that there was no Tahitian word for "punctual", but at
least in Papeete I found that things were done within plus-or-minus
five minutes of the scheduled time. However, that doesn't always mean
"quickly". Here's the departure schedule our group had: 12 noon pay
hotel bill. 2 pm baggage pick-up. 3 pm vacate room and drop key at
front desk. 6 pm board bus for airport. 6:30 bus leaves on 5-minute
drive to airport. 7 pm airline workers show up to check passengers
in. 8 pm passengers allowed into duty-free area. 9 pm board plane.
10 pm plane departs. The schedule allowed ten hours for hotel check-
out and airport check-in!
Summary:
Best vacation I ever had. I'm looking forward to returning at the end
of June.
--
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {hardy,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!dougkosower@harvard.UUCP (David A. Kosower) (12/20/85)
In message <943@terak.UUCP>, Doug Pardee writes: > ... this is a "real" fondue, where > you cook bite-size pieces of sirloin in a pot of hot oil. Freaked me > out when they brought out a plate of raw meat. It might have been good, but it was NOT "real" fondue; the real thing is Swiss. A melted cheese ``broth'' (mostly Gruyere) is kept hot over a low alcohol flame. One spears a piece of slightly-stale bread (thick country bread is best) on a small-tined fork and dips it into the cheese, twirls the fork to get as much cheese as possible onto the bread, and eats it. It is best when eaten on a cold day, after skiing, preferrably in the company of svelte young blondes. David A. Kosower kosower@harvard.Harvard.EDU
tj@alliant.UUCP (Tom Jaskiewicz) (12/20/85)
In article <943@terak.UUCP> doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) writes: >Just got back from Tahiti -- it's everything I'd heard. Here are some >tips for anyone planning to visit there (particularly the main island): I was there 2 years ago, and basically agree with you. I have a few more tips to add. >Other eats: In the evening the cheapest dinner is down at the waterfront. There are 20 odd trucks and vans selling cooked food. Some of it is cafeteria quality, but some is *VERY* good. My favorite was the Chocolate Grand Marnier crepes; I had 4 one evening (from different trucks); 3 were just good, the 4th was superb. > If you're a soft-drink freak, try the Ananas (pineapple) soda. It was the favorite in our group. > There is a regular passenger ferry service from Papeete to Moorea. For about twice(?) the cost of the ferry, you can fly a small plane either way. >Special considerations: Don't expect anything like Hawaii or the Caribean - the style in Tahiti is very different. For example, there are more hotel rooms in the Waikiki Hilton than there are in all of French Polynesia. It isn't crawling with tourists, nor is Tahiti run with tourism in mind. But it is a superb place to just relax. -- +--------------------------------+ | uucp: decvax!linus!alliant!tj | +--------------------------------+ Bernese are mountains of love.
smh@mhuxl.UUCP (henning) (12/22/85)
**** **** From the keys of Steve Henning, AT&T Bell Labs, Reading, PA mhuxl!smh > > ... this is a "real" fondue, where > > you cook bite-size pieces of sirloin in a pot of hot oil. This is called Chinese hot pot in the US. Probably in China it is called Tahitian fondue. > It might have been good, but it was NOT "real" fondue; the real thing > is Swiss. A melted cheese ``broth'' (mostly Gruyere) is kept hot over a > low alcohol flame. One spears a piece of slightly-stale bread (thick country > bread is best) on a small-tined fork and dips it into the cheese, twirls > the fork to get as much cheese as possible onto the bread, and eats it.