Tahiti & Papeete –Everyone Told Me to Stay Away, But I Still Loved It
Written: Jun 15 '02 (Updated Sep 28 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The Market, the Traffic, the Rugged Landscape, the Roulettes, the Culture
Cons: Modernized Polynesia, Expensive Taxis
The Bottom Line: Tahiti is a great little city. Don't listen to all of the complaints, just go and enjoy the culture and the experience.
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| twunschl's Full Review: Tahiti |
When I was planning our trip to Tahiti & French Polynesia, everyone said to stay as far away from Tahiti as possible. Since the flight schedules into and out of Tahiti are usually in the middle of the night, you almost have to stay at least part of a day in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. When I did more research, I decided that Tahiti & Papeete didn?t sound half bad and I planned a day and half on Tahiti our last days. We loved Tahiti and I am so glad that we had time to explore her splendor.
Let's Get the Negatives Out of the Way
OK. I can honestly tell you why people don?t recommend Tahiti. When you think of going to a tropical paradise, you don't think of a bustling downtown, traffic or modern conveniences. True, true, true. But after two weeks of spending time in overwater bungalows, viewing the ocean and living without electricity, the little downtown of Papeete was a nice change. It also helped us get acclimated to city life again. After living without electricity or lights at the Sauvage, I was honestly shocked to see a conveyor belt at the Papeete airport. Papeete is not why you go to paradise, but we loved the small shops selling pareu and material, the department store that had sewing machines and stoves that looked like they came from the 50's, the fact that there were no street signs to be found and especially the Municipal Market. Papeete is definitely a busy downtown, but it is a city with the culture and flair of the Polynesian people.
The other negative is the extremely expensive taxi fares. To go for a three minute ride from the airport to our hotel, we paid $11 during the day and almost $20 at night. If you are going to Tahiti on a package, you will probably not have to worry about getting a taxi, but if you plan on going to a restaurant, keep in mind that you will pay a small fortune.
Now that THAT?S out of the way, let's get to the GOOD stuff!
Municipal Market
We decided to rent a car for the entire day that we were on Tahiti. That way we could go downtown, drive around the island, go to dinner and then drive ourselves to the airport. We decided to find the market first. I had quite a few things to buy, including vanilla and monoi. We asked for directions and were told that we could go to the Europcar rental agency right around the corner from the Market. That way we could park and not have to pay since our car was from Europcar. We headed out, after all how hard could it be? There is only one major road around the island.
I don't know why everyone always said that there is only one road. When you get into the downtown, there are many roads. You will be driving and then all of a sudden, the road ends or branches off into three different roads or you are forced to turn. I had a map of Papeete with all of the road names. The problem though is that most of the roads did not have any sign or if I could find a sign, it looked like it had been painted in 1910 and you couldn?t read it. We drove around and stopped for directions three times. As soon as we would be outside of the main city center, we knew that we had gone too far. I would go into a store, ask "Parlez-vous anglais"?, hope that they spoke a little English and then give them my map. I would then ask "Where am I"?. Finally, after some pretty good directions, we ended up at Europcar, parked our car and then walked over to the Market.
As we walked into the large, two story building, we were immediately hit with the scent of vanilla. The market is beautiful. Filled with brightly colored pareu, shirts, fruits, baskets, bags, flowers and of course vanilla, as you step inside, you know that you are in a tropical place. We scanned some of the different vendors and discovered that pricing was competitive and you couldn?t go wrong with any of them. We went up the escalator to the upstairs where there were a few restaurants and mostly pareu for sale. Since I already had my pareo, we went back downstairs to the vendor that I saw with a nice selection of items.
I bought five packages of vanilla, smelled the vendor?s homemade monoi oil and decided that it was nicer than the commercial bottles that I had seen all over Tahiti and then picked up some soap. She was also selling coconut tea that we had on Rangiroa and Noni juice, a fruit grown on Tahiti that is supposed to have healthy ingredients to help with circulation and even helps with cancer patients. Since I bought so many items and spent about $65, the vendor gave me two free bars of soap. The total was 8450CFP. I gave her 8500CFP and when she reached in to give me change, I told her to keep it. Since tipping is not part of the Polynesian culture, she immediately argued with me and grabbed my hand to keep me from walking away. I tried to argue again but she put the 50CFP in my hand with a big smile on her face. I said ?Merci beaucoup? with an amazed look on my face. She had refused to keep the equivalent of about $0.42. She had also just given me another unforgettable memory. Something that I will never forget is the amazing kindness of the people in French Polynesia.
Downtown and the Traffic
After leaving the market, we walked back to our car and stopped at a few of the shops along the way. One of my favorite stores was a small shop that was selling Tahiti made shirts. When we walked inside, the entire store was filled with beautiful, colorful materials that went from the floor to the ceiling. I told the shop keeper that it must be wonderful to work in such a beautiful place everyday. We continued back to our car and decided to try and find the Sheraton, our hotel for that evening.
We finally found the secret to driving in the traffic. If you can go, ?GO?. If you can?t go, ?TRY and GO ANYWAY?. If you follow that simple rule, you will be fine. Driving was an experience that we will never forget. The other tip that we figured out after driving for a while is to bring your map with you, but don?t try and look for the non-existent street signs. Find the ferry docks and always keep them in your site. All of the streets seem to fan off from the docks and it is a good land mark for finding your way around.
We drove in the direction of the Sheraton and quickly discovered that the ?one road? had exits. So how only ?one road? can have roads exiting from it, I?ll never know. The other problem that we discovered very quickly was that all of the signs told you the city that you were going toward. Since I had no idea what the city names were, I finally looked in my guide book to figure out where to go. The Sheraton was in Fa?aa, the same city as the airport. We followed the exit for the airport (after turning around twice) and finally found the Sheraton. We checked in, dropped off our luggage and started out on our circle island tour.
Our Drive Around the Island
As we headed out of Papeete, we were immediately on a road that appeared totally different than the city. There really was only ?one road? and we had the ocean crashing into the beach on one side of us and the rugged volcanic mountain on the other. Each time we went over a bridge, we had a spectacular view of a view between the mountains. Along the way, we stopped at one of the black sand beaches, the blow hole on the side of the road and followed the road up to the three waterfalls. I only ventured in to see the first waterfall, a short walk on an easy trail, littered with chickens. Everything is fairly well marked, but the mile markets take some getting used to. They are marked with a small white square stone on the side of the road. When driving toward Tahiti Iti, the smaller section of Tahiti, the sign will tell you how many more kilometers that you have to drive. As you pass the sign, it will be marked with PK and the kilometer number. If you have a passenger in the car, they can easily read these signs.
As we drove around, we saw many signs of life on a Polynesian island. There were the large boxes that looked like mail boxes, but were actually boxes for delivering bread. We drove behind the small trolleys that were actually school buses and we saw dozens of people carrying loaves of large bread, the staple of the Tahitian diet. As we got closer to the Papeete and the day got later, we saw dozens of people with fish hanging at the side of the road. Our drive was originally a way of just killing time during the day, but it became a look into the day and culture of the people on Tahiti.
The Roulettes
To continue our Tahitian life theme, we decided to eat at the trucks at the ferry docks instead of going to a nice restaurant. I had read all about the traveling kitchens that set up each night at the ferry docks. It seemed like eating with the locals for our last night was a great way to end the vacation. We jumped into our car, found a public parking lot and walked over to the thirty or so trucks. As we approached, there was live music coming from a band set up in a pavilion. There were so many different trucks and my biggest surprise was that each truck had a full menu, not just a few items. While looking around at all of the different trucks; Chinese, Fish, Steaks, Crepes, and Waffles, we started to notice that some trucks already had all of their tables full, while others did not. We decided to go with the masses and that the locals knew which places were the best. Chinese sounded good and we found a truck that had just two seats left.
We took the two stools that were lined up along the sides of the truck. The sides of each truck open up to reveal the traveling kitchen on the inside. Some of the trucks had bar stools et up along the side, while others had picnic tables, for eating. At the back of each truck, the kitchen spilled out onto the cement. We saw barbeques, woks and cooler after cooler set up outside to extend their kitchens. We were handed a menu and I was again shocked at the selection available from a truck. There we 130 items on the menu! The service was fast and friendly and the food was excellent. I walked around and went to one of the Creperies for dessert, but settled for a coffee ice cream shake. If you are looking for a different experience while on Tahiti, do not miss the Roulettes. Le Truck, the public bus, still runs at night and it should be easy to catch a ride from any area hotel.
Conclusion
I thought that our last day, waiting until 2:30 in the morning, might have been a miserable day for us. We loved Tahiti and Papeete. When we go to French Polynesia again, I will definitely include a few days on Tahiti again.
For pictures and video of our trip, visit my website
www.tahiti.wunschl.com
Read my other reviews from our French Polynesia Trip
Moorea
http://www.epinions.com/content_70580276868
Sheraton Moorea Lagoon Resort
http://www.epinions.com/content_66105675396
Bora Bora
http://www.epinions.com/content_66986806916
Sofitel Motu
http://www.epinions.com/content_66291601028
Rangiroa
http://www.epinions.com/content_66400063108
Kia Ora Village
http://www.epinions.com/content_2687869060
Kia Ora Sauvage
http://www.epinions.com/content_2691276932
Tahiti
http://www.epinions.com/content_66968260228
Tahiti Beachcomber Inter-Continental
http://www.epinions.com/content_66996309636
Sheraton Tahiti
http://www.epinions.com/content_66102398596
And for more great reviews, read LordBalfor's reviews and visit his website at
http://community.webshots.com/user/lordbalfor
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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twunschl
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Location: Wishing I was back in Tahiti
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 68 members
About Me:
Our Tahiti pictures and video are on-line. Go to www.tahiti.wunschl.com
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