FARAWAY
It takes 24 hours to reach Papeete from Paris! Take Air Tahiti Nui. Stopover in LA or Seattle. Be carefull you need a valid Esta for the US even if just go in and go out the transit zone. The airline company is good. Take business class. Dont forget that you will stay 24 hours in the plane! However it is truly an expensive ticket!
DREAM
Of course Tahiti name sounds magic and it is truly beautiful: trees, flowers, sea, colour of the sky. You cannot imagine the beauty of the islands. The weather is always nice even if sometimes it is too hot and too humid. You will be welcome by a collar of flowers and you will be surprised by the quantity of flowers everywhere!
ACCOMODATION
I did stay in the Hilton hotel. Five stars! The pool and the view from the rooms are amazing. Breakfast is very good. The staff is correct not more. The restaurants be it the Brasserie, the Italian one or the Japanese are not excellent. The 2 last one are much better than the Brasserie.
PAPEETE.
The city is not beautiful but the market is not bad. Prices are very high when it comes to craftmanship. Restaurants are not that good but people love the food trucks.
ISLAND
The main island is very green and it is a kind of moutain. It’s worth climbing if you have the legs for it. Take a car and see the beaches, the gardens, and the life around! it is worth it.
DANCERS
I had the opportunity to see a contest between groups of dancers. It’s really incredible. Men and women are very solid and muscular It’s impressive. They are very nice and apparently are friendly between each other.
PEOPLE
The locals are complaining quite frequently about the colonial past and they refer often to the changes France brought to the island. The independant movement is quite strong and they refer a lot to their maori roots .Generally speaking people leaving there are happy, in particular the French people from the metropolis. Often they decide to establish themselves there beacuse for children life is much much beter than leaving in grey and noisy and polluted French cities like Paris or others. Locals are also enjoying life even if the costs of living there are quite high. As a tourist there is no much point to stay a long time in the main island and generally tourists go very soon to the various and beautiful islands all around.
WORTH
MENTIONNING
There is a Tahiti fashion week around the end of June. Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier, Olivier Theyskens, Elvis Pompilio and others have been invited as special guest. That event which is proposed in a very professional way might interest those who like to see the expression of various cultures in different sector. It goes also for hats. There is a local craftmanship with hats. They are made in all the islands in a traditional way. Results are amazing.