French Polynesia, Moorea: An Itchy, Costly Beginning to Paradise

The first island that we visited in the South Pacific, the island of Moorea, during the "Pacific Paradise" portion of our 2007 travels around the world, was a nice introduction to that part of the globe, but we did get off to a slightly bumpy start there. The bumpy start was with respect to the prices of everything being too high, to many mosquitoes ravaging our bodies, to our accommodation being covered by a thick rain cloud for most of the day, and to the lack of necessary transportation needed to do anything around the island. Despite all of the obstacles we faced on the French Polynesian island, we still had a great time, mostly because we overcame the obstacles as well as we did.

Polynesians living on the islands of French Polynesia are a multi-racial mix of people of Maohi (Maori) extraction, Europeans, Asians and mixed races. They have been noted for their hospitality, friendliness and easygoing nature, and they speak French and Tahitian, which are the two official languages of the country, but English is (somewhat) spoken in the hotels and shops. The country today covers as many square miles of the south Pacific Ocean as the continent of Europe and there are many different islands making up the nation, making it stand out strongly in that part of the world.

A bicycle ride around part of the island allowed us the proof that there was actually sun and good weather in the South Pacific

Hundreds of years after the ancient Polynesians created a Pacific base for their huge voyaging canoes, many European explorers made brief unplanned visits to the islands in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, but it wasn't until later in the 18th century that explorers such as Bougainville, Wallis, Vancouver and Cook "discovered" Tahiti and called it the "Garden of Eden". Captain Cook returned three times to study the transition of Venus, Captain Bligh came to collect seedlings from the wondrous 'Uru' or breadfruit tree and the insubordinate Fletcher Christian returned to the islands that caused the mutiny on the Bounty. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the islands were divided into districts, each governed by a Chief. The islands went through the process of being a protectorate of France to becoming a French colony (in 1800), and then, finally, a French Overseas Territory (in 1957), which it still remains today.

The circumference of Moorea was 37 miles; rather, that was the distance of the paved road circling the outer edge of the main island. Around the main island was a large lagoon varying in depth from extremely shallow water to deep passages leading into the lagoon from the Pacific Ocean. At the edge of the lagoon was a coral reef the also circled the island, plus a few small motus, or islets. Along the reef, there were several passages leading in from the ocean.

Most of the islands in French Polynesia held similar characteristics to this one, but a lot of the other islands had many outer motus encircling the lagoon, separating it from the outer coral reef. Also, many of the other islands had fewer passages leading in from the ocean, therefore causing the lagoons to be much shallower and calmer. When you read our next journal entry for Bora Bora, you will understand this better and also see that lagoon activities are a big highlight of any trip to French Polynesia.

French Polynesia was the thirteenth country that we visited in 2007. For those of you following our travels, you will know that our three months in the United States (country #12) resulted in us catching up with many people that we both knew who lived there. Kyle thought he might have a second chance to meet up with an old friend of his, Poppy, who lived in LA and was travelling to Moorea at the same time we were, but that reunion never took place, unfortunately. We only had a short period of time, a late evening and the following morning, in which we could meet up, and it just didn't work out logistically. Kyle was gutted because he really wanted to see his friend, whom he had not seen for several years.

We mentioned a few obstacles that we had to overcome and here they are:

Obstacle 1: Extremely Expensive Food, aka "£3.50 Loaf of Bread (that's about $7.00!)"

In order to overcome this obstacle, we decided to cook food at the bungalow in which we stayed during our time on the island, at Bungalow Village Temanoha, situated in a mountain valley in Baie de Cook (translated: Cook's Bay). The place was a nice choice for accommodation, had it not been for the mosquitoes (see Obstacle 2), cloudy weather (see Obstacle 3) or long-distance travel (Obstacle 4). We mentioned how expensive a loaf of bread was, but we did find out that a baguette was much more economical, and we also learned how to get really creative, by cooking eggs for breakfast, tuna mayo sandwiches for lunch and pasta for dinner, pretty much every day. There wasn't a huge variety in the food available in supermarkets, since almost everything was imported, but we made the most of what was on offer.

Obstacle 2: Villainous Mosquitoes, aka "Even Kyle Got Bit This Time!"

Throughout Southeast Asia, it was Dan who was attacked constantly by mosquitoes. From what we remember, Kyle had only been bitten a couple of times at the start of the year. Dan had seen a programme on mosquitoes, and once had told Kyle about the kind with black and white striped legs (the Asian tiger mosquito), which were the most aggressive type of the species. We can't say that we were overjoyed when we noticed, a few minutes after checking into our bungalow, that there were many of the black and white mosquitoes hovering around the place, and around our bodies.

Throughout our time on Moorea, we were bitten. Then, we were bitten some more. And, finally, we were bitten even more. It didn't help that the bungalow had an opening at the top of the walls, between the walls and the roof, enabling an easy entry point for our ferocious flying friends to use. We applied 50% DEET, which didn't help much, and we finally resorted to wearing long trousers and socks to keep them away. That helped a bit, but, one evening, while sleeping under a large mosquito net, where we forgot to check for the presence of mosquitoes, we were ravaged more than ever. One thing that really would have helped would have been a mosquito coil, or seven of them, which was something we came to rely upon when we visited the island of Aitutaki in Cook Islands a few weeks later.

Obstacle 3: Mountain Cloud Cover, aka "Too Cloudy to Sunbathe in the Tropics!"

Bungalow Village Temanoha was situated right at the base of the mountain in the middle of the island. Clouds formed around the mountain throughout the day and became denser throughout the afternoon, with it often raining during some part of the day. There were a couple of occasions during our four days on Moorea when the clouds had not fully formed, and a bicycle ride around part of the island allowed us the proof that there was actually sun and good weather in the South Pacific. In fact, our sunniest weather was along the coast when we cycled away from the mountainous interior, which is what we would have expected anyway.

Obstacle 4: Transportation Troubles, aka "Half Hour Walk to the Grocery Store, One Way!"

The village in which our bungalow was located was situated 25 minutes by foot from the main road along a bumpy, and graded, gravelly dirt road. That was the road we traversed by foot every day to get to the local supermarket in Cook's Bay. We enjoyed the long walk because it led us past many interesting things to see, including local villagers working in their lawns or in their small fields, and small traditional houses and farms. The interior of the island was really thick and dense with a lot of flowering plants and trees, another intriguing factor of our walks.

Around the village, there were chickens and dogs everywhere. That was not an uncommon sighting on any island that we visited in French Polynesia, or Cook Islands, for that matter, except Aitutaki, where dogs had been banned years ago because they were blamed as carriers of leprosy. What we didn't enjoy about the walks to and from our bungalow was having to carry heavy grocery bags back from the supermarket, because the bag handles dug deeper and deeper into our palms the longer we walked with them, for the 25 minutes that we had to walk back. The day that we had hired (that's the same as rented for the Americans reading this) bicycles to explore some of the island, we rejoiced to see that there were large baskets on the front, perfect for our grocery shopping the same afternoon. Also, riding bicycles for about ten miles around the island enabled us to see a bit of good weather, as mentioned previously, but also a couple of nice beaches, a large golf course and some other small villages.

Obstacle 5: Language Barriers for Most Things, aka "Nous ne sommes pas Francais!"

Everyone, and we mean everyone, in French Polynesia spoke French. We rarely heard the locals speaking their own Polynesian language during our time there. The thing about French Polynesia was that everyone spoke French, but they also assumed that everyone else was French, or spoke French, regardless of their nationality.

It's a good thing that we have some basic French conversational skills because we rarely had the opportunity to try and learn some Polynesian phrases, something that we would have really liked to do, since that was an objective for both of us during our year travels, to immerse ourselves in different cultures and languages. You can bet that as soon as we learned how to say hello in Polynesian, "la orana", we stopped returning people's "bonjours" with similar "bonjours" and gave them the traditional, customary "la orana". Of course, it was great to practice our French speaking skills, too, but we can do that easily from London by hopping on the Eurostar for a weekend away in Paris.

Now, you should have a feeling as to how we overcame the obstacles we faced. We used Moorea to ease slowly into "island life", since we had planned five weeks in the South Pacific. To get to French Polynesia, we travelled from our last stop in the United States, whereby we flew with Air Tahiti Nui from Los Angeles, leaving on a flight at 11:00pm, and arriving on the island of Tahiti at 6:00am the next morning. It was early enough for us to get a ferry on the same day to Moorea, and we headed to the capital city of French Polynesia to do just that.

Tahiti's international airport was located in a village called Faa'a (pronounced fah-ah-ah), which was a short bus ride to the capital city of Papeete. At the low price of 160 CFP (Polynesian Francs) per person, the bus fare was cheap and gave us high hopes for our travel budget from the start. Each of us spending just under £1, or $2, was a good beginning to the day, since we finished our three months in the US way over budget. When we arrived at the ferry terminal in Papeete, we had to wait an hour and a half for the next ferry crossing to Moorea, so, to bide our time, we ordered coffees at an outdoor cafe near the pier and read our books, trying to stay awake whilst fighting our jet lag.

The boat we took to Moorea was dubbed Aremiti 5 and the crossing only took 30 minutes. We knew that our bungalow was located somewhere in Cook's Bay and we hopped on a local bus at Vaiare, the village where the ferry terminated, to get there. We should have realised the potential increase of our financial woes at that point, since the bus journey on that island was triple the cost of the one we had taken on Tahiti, but we were excited about arriving and a little bit dazed from the overnight flight. The bus journey to Cook's Bay was under half an hour and, when we got there, the bus driver tried to phone Bungalow Village Temanoha for us, to let them know we were there. We learned later that the driver was trying to get them to come and pick us up, since we had such a long walk in front of us.

With our large backpacks on our backs and our smaller daypacks on our fronts, we set off walking in the general direction that the bus driver had pointed. We actually had no idea where to go, though. After walking for around 15 minutes, fully working up a sweat in the tropical heat, we were picked up on the small gravel road by Lulu, who worked at Bungalow Village Temanoha. We were really lucky that she turned up then because we had come to a junction, ready to take a wrong road in the wrong direction.

When we left the bungalows a few days later, we acquisitioned a ride to the ferry terminal in Vaiare from a French teacher, who had been living on the island for many years. He lived next to the bungalows and we only had to pay him a small fare, which worked out much cheaper than a taxi. There was not really a bus back to the village that could have taken us back, so that was really the best option for us. We both suffered a little bit on the journey back to the ferry terminal, with Kyle having to endure a fast French conversation with the driver about education and corrupt French government officials, and Dan having to endure a stuffy, hot and uncomfortable ride sitting on a tyre in the back of a small minivan with no air conditioning.

During our days on the island, we constantly heard the screams and shouts of cockerels (that's the same as a rooster for the Americans reading this) living on the island. They served as an alarm clock every morning, but also sounded out at many other times throughout the day, whenever they pleased. There was a group of randy (that's the same as horny for the Americans reading this, but you should know that if you have seen any of the Austin Powers films) cockerels chasing some hens around our bungalow, so we were introduced to some new noises that neither of us had ever heard coming from chickens. The more bearable noise during our stay came from several large groups of baby chicks that tweet, tweet, tweeted to their heart's content.

When we made it back to Tahiti after our stay on Moorea, we had an afternoon and evening to kill before leaving early the next morning for Bora Bora. That evening, we ended up staying in a pension called Chez Fifi that was located right across the road from the international airport in the small village of Faa'a. When our ferry arrived back at Papeete, we spent a couple of hours in a cafe there before catching the bus to Faa'a and finding the place to stay. We stayed in a dorm, one of only a few this year, and once again decided to stick to private rooms as much as possible, since neither of us slept much that evening, with too many noises and people moving about in the night when we were trying to get some rest.

For the rest of the day in Faa'a, we went across the street to the airport to eat some food and work on our travel journal. There was an unusual McDonald's inside the airport that didn't serve any beef or chicken products. Instead, they offered paninis and an interesting sandwich choice called a "Croque McDo". We shared one of each and enjoyed both. If you want to know what a Croque McDo looked like, you can see a photo of one in the photo album for this journal entry. Our early flight to Bora Bora left on time and we were happy to be exploring our second island then; we didn't count Tahiti as our second island because we planned on heading back there for a few days after Bora Bora.