May 04, 2004
This is how Tahiti got promoted to the west about two centuries ago. Much of which was all false perception about the helf-naked easy-going woman, especially when the missionaries came around and after banning of all joyful things such as traditional dancing and tatooing they made sure the woman got fully covered in boring European style unattractive clothing with long sleeves...
When I got out of the plane at 1 am in the morning on the same day when I left at 18 pm from NZ (plus passing through the day before for 2 hours over the date line), I got my first surprise before seeing these woman in the same 200 years old style dresses in Papetee. The surprise was a little inconvinient: my card, which is an internationally acknowledged one and so far has worked everywhere except Myanmaa where there was no ATM at all, would not get me any money. So, I had time to think about my time jump until the first bank opened at 8 am, only to find out that there is no way I can get money unless I have a French card!? Lucky that I had a 100 USD on me for security. I got it changed and took Le Truck with the locals staright to the main town to make sure all the other banks would give the same information.
Feeling a bit frustrated and disappointed I decided to make a hell of a day in the time I got, so I changed my flight, took a small plane to Moorea over the beautiful lagoons and booked for the next day to swim with the sharks and sting rays. On hearing my unfortunate situation the taxi driver who took me from the small airport to the cheapest camping on the island offered me a little money to get me some food until next day whan he was supposed to pick me up to take me back to the ferry to Tahiti. Normally, I don't do this but he seemed real harmless and very sorry for me and guess what!? He really did not want enything! (He might have been one of those first born boys of French Polynesia who are traditionally raised as a kind of girl who looks after the younger members of the family and whose polite and refined services are so well appreciated in the tourist industry. Of course thare are some transvestites who actually use their body to do business on the streets but the majority of these guys are just well groomed pleasant man with a touch of kind feminity.)
However, this is not the end of my story in French Polynesia for the lady with whom I booked my Motu (special island on the frnge of the coral reef) trip told me there is a way to get money over here and it is not at all unusual to have this card problem. So, I wrote an e-mail about my whareabouts to my boyfriend who magically got the money I needed from my account for the next working day to a Moorean bank. But before I share my impressions with you about Gauguin´s island, let me tell you a bit of history about this sleepy, sparsely visited part of the world almost exactly at the opposite side of the globe to my country where I unexpectedly met the most wonderful fellow travellers during my trip.
French Polynesia, Hawai and New Zealand with the Cook Islands form the triangle to the home of Polynesian people. Lapita for origin they travelled all the way from Papua New Guinea to here through a considerably long time in home-made canous passing through Vanatu, Salamon Islands, Tonga, Samoa and the Easter Islands. They had a very strict hierarchically structured society where oral tradition played and important part and where slaves were sacrificed to the different Gods (God of man, thieves and sailors, creation, craftsman and war) to the purpose of transmitting Mana (supernatural power) onto the warriors, which in turn earned them new tattos through war and cannibalism. The international words of tabu and tatoo in fact come from this part of the world. As well as the idea of surfing which was a very popular sport among the other sports which included canou races, oily rock lifting up to 150 kg! and wrestling just to name a few. The only remaining artefacts are the stone Tikis (half man and half God humanlike figures with delibaretely enlarged eyes and mouth, very similar to the wooden ones in NZ) which almost always imposed Tapu (taboo, or prohibition) to the places where they were installed. The lack of other archeological remains is understandable if you know that the sacred meeting houses (Maraas) were one of the first things the missionaries destroyed by building churches over them.
Today French Polynesia is a perfect melting pot for the different nations who reside here - if they can afford because since the goods are all imported from France and the taxes are up to the sky, the cost of living is extremely expensive. One interesting fact here is that the Chinese here are not congregated in China towns and the French have mixed with locals to form a mixed group of people. Their income is obviously mainly due to the fact of posh tourism and to a lesser extent owes a bit to copra, pinapple, pearl and noni exports. The attraction for rich tourist include the quietness of superexpensive overlagoon bangalows of Bora Bora and dolphin encounters in huge resorts. The energetic translike dances of local dancers also make up for an evening entertainment (of which I enjoyed myself on one night). Sometimes I wondered if it wasn´t for the just perfect tectonic movements of the region which keep throwing up these vulcanos, around which a coral fringe forms and when the island starts to sink those mesmerizing lagoons came by, the whole place would be just a tiny unnown place on the globe.
If you have seen the film about the mutinity of the Bounty, which was filmed on the island I visited, or marvelled the pictures of Gauguin, who left his wife and children to create such masterpieces as´Where do we come from?´ and ´Where are we going?´, or have heard about the unseccessful attempt of the Kon-Tiki expedition, then you may acknowledge knowing almost everything that is possible to know about these islands on the other side of the northern hemisphere. However, there are other interesting facts to discover here. Such as the unsuccessful introdaction of the local staple food of breadfruit to the black slaves in America, which in turn brought the pinapple plant from Rio de Jainero to here.
Talking of flora, it is amazing how many types of wood and flowers are found here today. The strong Ironwood, the lovely smelling Frangipani, giant Hibiscus and Banyan trees, beautiful Rosewood, usueful Banana and Coconut and the famous age stopping Noni is almost enough to mention here. (I had a really nice dessert made from baked papaya, poisson cru (an unusual raw fish meal) and Pina Coladas all made with coconut milk over my stay.)
My memories of this place will forever include the watching of evening lights coming through the palm leaves and leaving strange tigerstripelike shadows on my skin under the many shooting stars at the white-coloured coralsandy beach, the dancing of Flamenco in the gentle tropical breeze, the scaring away of huge confused crabs in the dark, the swimming with the rays and about 30 sharks real close, the walking at night from the dolphins´ pool to the camping, the late night conversations, the strange encounter of a very upset and territorial, crazy Picasso fish, the making of pancakes and tthe eaching of a friend to cook on his birthday, the standing at the drop-off where the undertow of currants pulls you one way while the waves at the surface push you the other, the trip to the bank on bikes where one of us had a punctuated tyre and finally the excellent time just joking around with the people I met here: A 19 year old joiner full of interesting tatoos whose extremely extensive vocabulary of English includes monagerie and the like all in a lovable Yorkshire accent, a Guernsey blondie-boy whose level of maturity sometimes exceeded mine in spite of the fact that we had 11 years between us, balerina Rosy with a touch of poetry and many more lovely and fascinating people.
I must say it was like a big big unexpected present for me, my stay in Moorea.
I wish all of you would find a way to make their yet unknown hopes and dreams come true and if it is materialized through the form of travelling all much the better!
Even though there is so much crap in the world, life is beautiful - take my word for it.
Love:
Kinga