French Polynesia – (2) Fall in Love with Taha’a

Taha’a , so far, is my favourite place of French Polynesia. Indeed, it’s simply based on my very limited sample size as I am yet able to explore every part of the beautiful French polynesia as of this stage. If I can only use three words to express my impression of Taha’a, I would say : Romance, Adventure & Fragrance. I am going to elaborate the reason for each of these words below.

Taha’a is located among the western island group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. To fly in, there are two options

1) By Helicopter from Bora – I didn’t pick this option 🙂

2) By Aeroplane. There’s no airport in Taha’a, so we took domestic plane first from Tahiti through Moorea to Raiatea. Raiatea and Taha’a are enclosed by the same coral reef and may have been the same island long time ago. After landing at the Raiatea airport, to be honest, i didn’t realise that was an airport. It seems to me more a bus terminal (with only one bus lol) next to a ferry terminal :). There’s not even any luggage belt here. Just pay attention to spot any muscular gentleman moving multiple luggages out from a simple iron gate :). After picking our luggage, we were fetched by the resort shuttle boat and started our journey to the hotel. It’s around 35-minute boat ride navigating through a very beautiful coastal line between Raiatea and Tahaa. That was in fact a very enjoyable boat ride with nice sea breeze.

Le Taha’s Private Island and Resort – Finally we arrived our favourite resort. We first landed on the pier with welcome cool towels and nice cocktails under a fanning straw-made booth. Then we were crowned with some beautiful flower rings :). Staff here were so sweet and nice. After that, we walked on the long wooden bridge from the Pier to the main reception hut on the beach side to check in.

Why Romance

Le Taha’a Private Island and Resort is truly beautiful like a paradise. We love our water villa so much. It looks like a very traditional style house made by straws, wood and bamboo by outside but very modernised and comfortably equipped inside. I especially love the cute bamboo sign at every door which is a creative while effective to signal do you need privacy or ask for cleanup the room. In our water villa, there are two levels of terrace outside. On the top level, half of it is under the sun with two sunbath chairs while half of it is under cover with nice tables and cushioned chairs for us to enjoy a glass of champagne.

Inside the room, besides the usual good quality and clean facilities, I was more attracted by a long glass box with wooden framed at the foot of the bed. I could actually open it from the top and put bread crumbs down to the sea below to attract fish. That’s very nice setup especially at night time.

At the foot of the bed, that’s the fish feeding glass shelve

Our water villa is situated above a turquoise lagoon. It’s truly beautiful that we can spend days here to enjoy the view or getting into the water. We could even taste our champagne in the shallow lagoon as well 🙂

This resort is big but there’s mainly one centralised building for restaurants. Don’t take me wrong, the food here is truly fresh, tasty and with large variety. We managed to eat different meals for several days without repeating orders 🙂 Our usual dinner included starter, main and dessert. So they truly have much variety. The restaurant here in fact is very beautiful with good sea view and nice sea breeze during your meal. In the day time, it has beautiful blue seaview. At night time, it has the beautiful big moon shining on the sea surface.

Why Adventure

This resort offers a lot of adventure opportunities. I love the most is definitely the coral reef natural garden. It’s gorgeous and what we needed to do was mainly walking to the tip of the island (at that spot, i could also see the signature peak from Bora 🙂 ), then entered the water to start snorkelling by following the current.

Since we started from the entrance of the stream, so we were naturally pushed by the current through the coral garden. Everything is so peaceful and beautiful. You could use their snorkelling gears but I brought my own already in order to see much clearer the sea garden.

The other thing we enjoyed so much was a small island in the middle of the huge turquoise lagoon. The view was so beautiful and we took lots of photos with our toys indeed.

Beautiful Lagoon (small island as background)

We could also try out Va’a (Tahitian Canoe) , Kayak and Standup Paddle boarding on the beautiful water. It’s truly relaxing while full of fun. While we were exploring as much activities as we could on the island, we wondered how come some hotels guests preferred staying in the swimming pool next to the bar. I don’t mean that’s not nice, but when you could communicate with the nature in such luxurious private resort, why you prefer stay in the swimming pool. It’s ok, that’s people’s choice. And we got the answer finally. I forgot to mention earlier in fact on this private island, you could only received wifi signal near the central restaurant and bar building. If you would like to play internet, you gotta stay nearby (no wifi even inside your water villa lol). Everything is understood now. But still, I think the price to stay in the resort would not worth playing internet for the whole day 🙂 .

Why Fragrance

Taha’a is also named as the “Vanilla Island” because it produces 70-80% of all French Polynesia’s vanilla which is very famous for the pervasive aroma. Indeed, Taha’a also produces pearls with exceptional quality. Therefore, Jean decided to show me some good Taha’a vanilla plantation up the hillside.

Tahitian vanilla bean is one of the most famous flavor in the world. The special part of this product is the floral flavor with sweet taste like raisins , wine or cherry. As it comes from special place and the long and hard process from planting untill post harvesting, the price is usually higher. Tahitian vanilla beans are best used in foods that don’t require intense heat to prepare. Tahitian vanilla beans are usually paired with delicate desserts, such as fruit-based items, ice creams and custards. But Jean told me in fact you could add vanilla even in main course or salty meals. Tahitian vanilla offers very soothing aroma which give comfort feeling that could effect to the whole day. Jean and I personally love so much Tahitian vanilla (far much more than Bourbon ones). When we eat out, Jean could always tell whether the cuisine is made by Tahitian vanilla or not, so interesting.

It’s truly fabulous experience to visit the vanilla plantain in person to understand the process. The pollination of vanilla only happens with help. In nature, it is helped by bees. Vanilla flowers have pale yellow colour with thin petals. The flower’s age is only one day. If the pollination does not happen at that day, the flower will fall. So that workers in vanilla plantation should visit the plants every day, to check the flower and help the pollination. The workers can help pollination with a simple tools, like a toothpick. The ovary has sticky part, so that with a little help, it can catch the pollen. Tahitian vanilla is the product of crossing between vanilla planifolia and vanilla pompona. This create plants that produce bigger pods, but has less seeds. Tahitian vanilla beans will be ripe about 6–9 months after pollination. Along this time, other flower may appear and other pods may ripe. So that the work in vanilla plantation could never stop.

After visiting the plantation, we had to take resort shuttle boat back to the hotel. At the pier waiting for the boat, Jean suddenly found below snacks Tahitians eat in a small store. He said I needed to try. OK, it’s canned food. I am ok to give a try but seriously it’s not something I would recommend :). When he told his relatives about this food later, his relatives laughed at him about showing me that food, as that action was “n’importe quoi” Lol.