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Joelle Pettitt & Alex Swales's Travel Journal
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JoAl's Asia-Pacific Splurgefest 06
Last Update: 25-09-2006 Views: 5995
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Mention the word Tahiti to anyone who hasn?t been there and images of stunning white beaches and palm trees spring to mind. When you arrive at Pa?pee?te this image couldn?t be further from reality. We did spend our first 8 hours hanging out at the airport like fools in an atempt to save ourselves $100 we would?ve paid for a hotel. This did leave us sleep deprived and incapable of making any decisions! Once we ventured into the main city we found it filled with French... French people, french bread, french stlye cafes, and french opening hours... this mean that even thought it was the middle of the day everything we needed was in fact closed. The bank... closed. The tourist office... closed. Travel agents... guess what? Closed!! Damn europeans.... even the prices were french!
Realising we couldn't afford to live the life of luxury we?d been dreaming off we left Tahiti less that 24 hours after arriving and headed to one of her sister islands... Mo?orea where we found the cheapest campsite and spent the week living off bread and water. Now we?re really travelling!
We were treated to the most beautiful scenery... mountains in the centre of the island, bays, beaches, lagoons, crystal blue water, and amazing sunsets... of course! There?s no better way to end our time in the South Pacific that lazing on a beach smoothered in enough oil to fry a baby elephant.! Relaxing!
We kayaked through the lagoon battling against intense currents in search of sting-rays... we heard rumours that they swim in these waters and are partial to a hotdog or two. When we found them we discovered this was balone...(and before you ask.. no they don?t like that either)! But feeding them squid will get you a belly-rub and a whole lot of love! Strangely enough sting-rays actually feel exactly like they taste... soft and squidy but meaty delicious (try and get your noodle round that!).
Sting-rays weren?t the only sea creature we managed to get a glipse of while in Moorea. When we were diving we saw a huge Lemon shark, black tip sharks, turtle...etc.. But the creme de la Vanilla creme was the dolphins and 2 humpback whales we saw! It was amazing!!!!
French Polynesia comes close to being heaven on earth... If you take away all the angry french who live here it would be.
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