French Polynesia – (1) Tahiti & Moorea

French Polynesia (Polynesie Francaise) is an overseas collectivity of French Republic. It’s composed of many groups of islands and I was told the expanse of French Polynesia is at least equivalent if not larger than the size of Europe ( i didn’t fact check it yet). In this passage, I am going to write about my first interesting journey to French Polynesia – starting with my first two stops in Tahiti and Moorea. Will write more about consequent stops in the next articles.

Flying in : as of the momentI wrote this article, there are limited places getting direct flight to French polynesia : Hawaii, Auckland, Los Angeles, Japan, Melbourne (please do let me know if you know other options). And this time we picked Auckland as the stopover for Tahiti as we always loved the steak, coromandel oysters and ice-cream sandwich for a day trip in north island – what’s a strong reason 🙂 .For me, it’s my first time to visit this piece of soil/water in south pacific while Jean was born here so he’s just going home. Our first stop is Papeete in Tahiti.

After long connecting flights, we finally landed Papeete. Interesting enough, once I stepped out of the plane , I saw a local musical band was playing music to welcome us lol. When we stepped out of the arrival hall, I was even further impressed that many of Jean’s relatives were welcoming us at the airport. And everyone gave each of us a flower ring and shell necklace. That’s my first time to experience it to be honest. Though we visited Hawaii/Maldives/etc , I never felt that heartfelt sweet welcoming as here in Tahiti or it’s more because they are all family 🙂

Great, my travel started officially, I was so excited to know where’s the first stop I was going to visit. Please note that local people here spoke French and for English speaker I could only guess my best out from their family conversations. And after some driving we finally arrived a very beautiful area with good mountain back and seaview. So where is it ? It’s a CEMETERY! The first stop of traveling to french polynesia, it’s a cemetery. Don’t take me wrong, I am fine to respect Jean’s family definitely, just a bit shocked that even before we went to hotel to put down our luggage, we should visit first the ancestors. That said, the cemetery in Tahiti is of very good Fung Shui (if you want to borrow the Chinese term). That’s very peaceful and beautiful too. It’s a very serious place while I saw lots of sentimental moments here. Fully respect this local sacred and peaceful place

After showing respect, we went to the “Downtown” of Tahiti. Have a glimpse of “busy” local market , some snacks and pearl markets. Wow , I love so much Tahitian natural pearls. All are so beautiful :).

After that, we finally landed out first resort – Intercontinental Resort Tahiti. It’s truly relaxing. This resort is located more on the rocky shore but it turns out not bad and very cozy. See photos below. Food was really good too particularly my favourite Tahitian Poisson Cru (fresh tuna sashimi with lemon/coconut sauce)

During days in Tahiti, our main activities are definitely visiting relatives which is normal and that’s amazing to meet many many relatives of Jean 🙂 . He seriously has a giant family. (Btw, I realised throughout the journey that he has relatives almost on every single island. So we had a bit of relatives catchup activities almost when we travelled to every island. But i like it as they are all super nice and i could learn more about local traditions and day to day. It’s definitely interesting as first time.

Food in Tahiti generally is good. I particularly love the experience of food truck by a roadside in Tahiti (indeed hotel food are great too). Food i seriously good that you would be impressed. Having said that, Tahitian really eats a lot (i mean a lot lot), I don’t think running buffet is a profitable business here so I observed all hotels/restaurants offer only a la carte services lol. In addition, don’t trust them when they told you let’s go to have a snack. The first time i heard snack, i was expecting just some small finger food etc, but their snacks are real steak & fries with a size as a main course. Very confusing when they keep telling me about “snacks”

After the “city visit” in Tahiti, we are heading to the very close by island Moorea as our next stop.

Moorea

Flying in : When I say it’s very close by, I do mean it! The flight time is just 15 minutes only. So basically after I walked in the plane (ATR type), everything on the plane is so simple and light as if you walked in to a coach. I was like, wow how come. And Jean told me, you would see. I wonder what I was going to see :(. So after I fastened my seat belt and the plane started to take off, the flight attendant announced the usual take off speech through the speakers. But in about 5 minute (or less than that) after she announced the previous taking off speech, she immediately started the landing preparation speech. Oh my god, i am preparing to land so soon. I looked at Jean full of doubt, and his cunning face were smiling with so much joy. That’s seriously so short the flight. And i then realised Jean’s parents were taking the vehicle ferry to join us in Moorea which was just 30 mins ferry ride ;). After all, it’s very interesting short coach-flight experience

Moorea is a very beautiful island with so much white sand beach, rich inland plantation, very beautiful cost line , I even found sting rays in very shallow beach water of Jean’s relatives’ place. In Moorea, we stayed in Sofitel which was also a very cozy hotel with lots of yummy food.

When you visit Moorea, i would highly recommend you should try out the pineapple , pineapple juice and coconut juice. Thanks to the strong sun, all these fruits are extremely fresh and sweet. I especially love the Rotui pineapple juice. It’s so good that we have to buy packs of boxes to ship back home to drink. I am serious about the pineapple juice, that’s far much better than what you could taste in Hawaii, Philippines, Taiwan, etc. Try to drink much more here as you cannot find those in other countries considering the expensive local products and export cost+ taxes.

I think most people will anyway start by Tahiti and Moorea when you travel to French Polynesia unless you enter by a cruise . Overall these two places are interesting to visit as it’s not only about beautiful water, but also a lot of local culture, traditions, hospitality and local cuisine. I am going to write about my next stops in next articles which i enjoyed super much 😉