A really funny thing is that we flew off from Auckland on Sunday the 5th of February and we landed in Papeete on the Saturday the 4th! We’ve got the chance to have one day twice 🙂 The bad thing about it is that in Tahiti on a Sunday every single shop is closed. Because of this we had to wait until Monday to change our money in polynesian Franc and hung around a bit at our accommodation 20 km out of town.
The water is absolutely clear, a real dream… We could even see the fishs (and take pictures of them) from above the water without any mask!
The capitol Papeete looks like a town in France and everybody speaks french, as well with one another. Nobody uses their own original language anymore! We also didn’t know that this islands still belongs to France, they don’t have their own government! We heard that they are speaking even to introduce the EURO…
After some days on Tahiti we decided to have a look on a different island, as well because this island is not really backpacker friendly. We paid for a dorm room with shared bathroom (and it wasn’t even cleaned once during our stay) nearly 80 Swiss Francs per night! Mo’orea is just a one hour boat trip away from Tahiti.
On this Island we allowed ourself a small bungalow at a beach. The water is absolutely perfect, it is about 29 C warm and the visibility is around 20 to 30 meter. Even stingrays were swimming around us two meters away!
The specialty on French Polynesia is, that one nearly every island the waves break the first time far outside in the water, that’s really nice to see
One day Stephan made a scuba dive in this cristal clear water and had the chance to see two blacktip sharks 🙂 and hundreds of fishes.
Another day we rented a motorbike to explore the island.
There are two wonderful bays, the cook bay
and the opunohu bay.
The weather can change very quickly on this islands and we got totally wet on the way back home by motorbike…
After some nice and expensive days we had to go back to Tahiti. The last evening in Papeete we decided to get the luxury and go eating in a restaurant to have once a different meal than usual (sandwich, pasta or porridge). But during the meal we wished our selfmade dinner back! Something so expensive, so small and so bad we never ate before! Oh no, it wasn’t „nouvelle cuisine“ but it was so awful that we had to left over more than the half of it. Although the stomache of Katja started to rebel and this really bad dinner was followed by a very hot, endlessly long and sleeplessly night! We removed the plastic on our mattress but it didn’t help much then here you don’t even get a ventilator in a 100.- CHF room!
In the morning we got up early that we at least wouldn’t miss breakfast which would only be served until 8 am! Afterwards we walked to the sunday morning market which was already almost finished at half past eight.
at the market
At the church we were luckier. We joined the mass and got a really nice experience with all this different clans inside. Every clan sung a song. We were sitting above them at the second floor and could take some pictures of it. And the 2 hours flew by. The tahitian church is really different from our in Switzerland and probably if it would be so unsteril in Switzerland as well there more people would join on Sunday in church. The kids are allowed to walk around during the mass, some were listening to their walkmans, some others, as well the adults where sometimes talking to eachother, especially during the songs of other clans. It seemed to be more a reunion than a mass.
the whole church is full of women with hats, it seems to be a competition
and it´s even accepted to sleep in the first row! 🙂
and the smaller children are so cutly dressed up 🙂
After this mass the waiting of our nightflight at 1 am started. We haven’t got any room anymore and outside it was extremely hot so we decided to leave our luggage at the hostel and spend the day in restaurants and with shopping. But at this time we didn’t know that on a sunday in Papeete as well the the cafes and restaurants are closed! After two hours outside on a bench in the park we flew to the only open place which we found and where we could afford, although it was more expensive than in Switzerland, the McDonalds! (shame on us 😉 ) The good thing about it was that the room was airconditioned, and we had a table to write. We spent several hours in there, even the Ronald McDonald children birthday party went out faster than we did 😉
About 6 hours before our plane took off we arrived at the airport. You don´t know how long a waiting day can be without a good place to stay and without a shower when you have sweat. And the waiting wasn´t finished at the airport!
the never ending waiting story, here at the queue in front of the check in desk which opened as well too late…
and naturally, a nice sunset, we saw some of them on the islands, shouldn’t be missed!