Wednesday, March 30, 2005 (Papeete - Tahiti)
One last good-bye present from New Zealand we
could have done without. Airport formalities now second nature. A Polynesian
greeting at the airport. How many Kilometres can we drive in Tahiti? Where to
stay in Tahiti on a budget.
Day 387 (197). It was just a little bit hurried
this morning since we didn’t get up particularly early but still had to
vacate the room by ten o’clock to avoid a late checkout fee. I doubt the
rather nice owners would have levied such a fee but it was enough of an
incentive anyway for us to get things moving. We decided to simply boil some
eggs to take with us on the road for breakfast. The plan was to stop somewhere
on the way to the airport to buy some rolls. The hostel’s free food shelf
was the lucky recipient of several or our bits and pieces that we decided not to
take along with us on the flight this afternoon. Naturally, I whipped out the
laptop for one last whiz on the Internet to up and download
e-mails.
A bit on a nasty going away
present was awaiting me on the windscreen of the car when I started to load it
this morning. Although I was parked in a spot where I was allowed to park, I was
hit with a NZ$40 (€23,20) fine for facing the wrong direction. Facing the
wrong bloody direction? What the hell is that all about? Thanks New Zealand; I
really needed that! Ordinarily, this sort of bad luck would have hurtled me into
a very bad mood for the rest of the day but I did my best to laugh this one off.
At the very least, it makes for an interesting tale to tell in the years to
come. That’s it, Chris, you keep telling yourself
that.
After packing and bidding the
nice owners of the Aloe Lodge hostel farewell, we set off to find a supermarket.
As it happens the same supermarket that we visited yesterday has its own car
park, even though you do have to spend more than NZ$5 (€2,50) just to get
the allotted two hours of free parking in it. We picked up some fresh bread
rolls and a few other titbits at the supermarket and, with a few directions from
the parking attendant, we were finally off to the airport. Actually, we first
sat in the car in the car park and ate the boiled eggs and rolls. Somewhat
naively, I just followed the signs to the rental car return bay but it seems
that our particular rental agency does not have a stand at the actual airport
itself, despite what it says on the rental agreement about having to return the
car to the airport. It turned out that we needed to be just outside the airport
itself but we did manage to find it in the end with the help of an idle taxi
driver. We paid the deposit for the rental car on the credit card and with this
being our last day here, I didn’t want the city parking authorities to
follow our electronic trail to hit us with an even bigger fine for not paying
the ridiculous ‘facing the wrong bloody direction’ one we just
landed. The young girl manning the desk at the rental agency was actually quite
sympathetic about the parking ticket and thought it just as ludicrous as I did.
Fortunately, I was able to pay the fine directly to them, and they will then
pass it on to the city authorities. They apparently do this quite a bit. She
gave me a receipt to show that the fine had been paid so that should be the end
of that. We jumped onto the rental agency’s shuttle to the airport and,
once we arrived, had to go back again to collect a couple of things we’d
forgotten to take out of the car. We take these things in our stride
now.
Queues at the airport for our
flight were quite long but, again, we take these things in our stride now and
just tagged on to the end of the one we thought was correct. I say
‘thought was correct’ since the flight number that is printed in our
flight coupon was not actually displayed anywhere on the screens. The queue we
joined, however, was for a flight bound for our destination with the same
departure and arrival times so I was confident that we were in the right place,
which turned out in the end to be
correct.
All the usual airport
formalities are now so second nature to us both that we barely acknowledge them
any more. We leisurely stopped for a snack in the departures hall and by the
time we got to the gate, the last remaining passengers were already boarding the
flight. Sandy had asked for an isle seat at check-in and we were happy to find
that we were placed in the bulkhead seats right next to the emergency exit
– so we’ll be the first to be sucked out if it fails. Actually, the
plane was a very nice and practically new Airbus A330 and was very comfortable.
This Qantas flight was a code share with Air Tahiti Nui and with Tahiti being
French Polynesian, all the staff on board were speaking
French.
We lost another two hours to
the time zone fairy by the time we arrived in Papeete. On the flip side to that
problem, however, we gained a full day for having passed over the International
Date Line. That’s why there are now two log entries for March thirtieth
(this one and the next). Originally, I had tried to plan that we pass the
International Date Line on March twenty first, so that I could have my birthday
twice. That plan was another casualty that was lost to the pregnancy
fairy.
I have to stay that I had some
misgivings about our intended arrival in Papeete. Tahiti is known throughout the
backpacker community as a very expensive and budget-busting destination.
I’ve also heard tales of no independent tourist infrastructure at the
airport itself. This has supposedly thwarted many an independent traveller upon
arrival. Fortunately, we at least have a car and our one night’s
accommodation already sorted.
It was
well into the night when we landed at Papeete and the beautifully adorned girls
handing each arriving passenger a small flower to tuck behind their ear was a
nice touch, as was the three-man-band of musicians playing traditional music as
we lined up for the immigration formalities. After collecting our bags, there
was a very long queue at the green channel to clear customs so we walked over to
the empty red channel to hand in the two oranges that we still had with us.
Unfortunately, after relieving us of our oranges, our man sent us back over to
the green channel queue again. Oh well, nothing ventured – nothing gained.
It works sometimes.
The arrivals hall
at Tahiti was actually quite a bit of a surprise. It was much bigger than I had
earlier been led to believe and there was even a manned information counter. We
swiftly located the Avis rental car desk to collect our car but I had a bit of
an issue with the French-speaking woman about the number of free Kilometre
allowance that came with the rental agreement. I had made the reservation over
the Internet and had the foresight to save the page that displayed the
agreement, wherein it clearly states that we have an allowance of eighty-four
Kilometres. Mrs. French, however, was insistent that it was only to be fifty.
There’s well over two hundred Kilometres of potential road to explore and
back again on Tahiti and I didn’t much fancy paying a small fortune in
additional Kilometre charges when I returned the car so I whipped out the laptop
and showed her the booking screen, which I had the foresight to save when I made
the booking. She was still insistent until she noticed that the reservation was
for one day and a couple of hours as opposed to the stock one-day term. She told
me not to worry and that she would sort it out in the system. I had my doubts
but with communications being what it was, it seemed fruitless to pursue the
matter further.
The people at the
information desk were very helpful when it came to hunting around for a budget
place to sleep for the night. We already had the reservation with the one place
that I’ve been e-mailing with but I didn’t see the harm in shopping
around a bit anyway just to make sure we weren’t being ripped off. As it
turned out, they rang around all the budget places and ended up with the one
place that we had already booked with. If nothing else, at least it proved that
we were not being hard done by. The fact that everywhere else was fully booked
just goes to show that simply showing up on Tahiti unprepared is not a good
idea. As I was talking to the information desk girl about the room rate and
directions, a representative from the pension we had booked over the Internet
showed up to give us directions. How’s that for
service?
With our brand new French
car, we drove out of the muggy airport and towards Papeete itself. All the road
signs here are the same as those you’d find in France too. I should say at
this point that Tahiti is really nothing like I expected it to be. The image I
always had of Tahiti was one of tropical, palm-lined, sandy beaches with beach
hut accommodation raised over the edge of the water and a boardwalk linking all
the huts to the mainland. Our budget, unfortunately, is just not going to extend
to allowing us to see any such thing. What we’ve seen so far are
developed, if slightly worn and a little run down, roads that link together
small towns. As we entered Papeete itself, what immediately struck us was that
almost everywhere was closed with shutters in front of all the shop windows.
This didn’t bode well for our designs on grabbing a bite to eat for the
night. In fact, we did manage to spot one restaurant that still looked like it
was open for business so we found a spot to park the car and walked over. The
restaurant owner spoke good English and seemed like a nice guy. The food was
good too. The bill came to FCP3,500 (€31,82) – not bad for Tahiti, I
thought.
Now fed and somewhat rested
from the flight, we set to the task of locating our pension. It was supposed to
be just a couple of streets up into town but that didn’t stop us driving
up and down a couple of times before we located the correct turnoff. The main
problem was that all the street signs appeared to be nearly completely bleached
out and they were barely legible. We finally found our road exactly where it was
supposed to be based on the map on the little brochure we picked up from the
airport. I parked the car and rang the bell on the gate outside. After several
minutes, a young girl came out to greet us. This pretty little Polynesian
looking teenager had clearly just woken up and it took several minutes before
she was fully conscious and coherent. Luckily, she spoke relatively good English
(certainly much better than our French) and we first all sat around the patio
table for a few minutes going over the formalities. The room rate turned out to
be FCP7,990 (€72,64) after tax but that was for the room without en-suite
and we picked up a few suggestions of where to go to kill time tomorrow.
Communication was a bit broken at times but we somehow muddled through.
There’s no air-conditioning in the room but a floor-standing fan will
suffice. All three of us were now clearly very tired so we freshened up and
popped off to bed.
Posted: Wed - March 30, 2005 at 11:57 PM