Survival Guide To Tahiti - Hotels

To come to Tahiti you really to have a budget planned, there is 3 different kinds of hotels: expensive and run down hotels, very expensive 4 stars hotels and expensive family housing.



If you choose the family housing you will get a room on a property belonging by a family that will take care of everything that is about your accommodation, you will eat your meal with the family and all the other persons staying there. That type of accommodation is very good to discover Polynesia with a different eye because you will have access to information only the local population has. The rooms in those kind of place are often average so don’t expect anything fancy, those places are for people who are looking for a family feeling when they go someplace. One night can range from 100$ to 150$.



The hotels which are located in Papeete the capital city are very old, they never got repaired so they are in very bad shape but still are expensive; they are very useful for people like me who come to Polynesia to work but they offer absolutely no service. I you stay in one of those hotels, you will have to find a restaurant to have your breakfast in the morning and for dinner in the evening. One of the main interests of those places is that you can walk home when you have had a drink in a bar or in a nightclub; police security is very tight in the evening to catch those who drive drunk. One night can range from 100$ to 150$.



The 4 stars hotels are most commonly used because most tourists coming to Tahiti have a high income or come for their honeymoon. Of course those hotels provide everything you need to make your stay as pleasant as possible so that you never want to leave the hotel premises to spend your money. The swimming pool is the first thing on the list of things they provide, you can add the fitness centre and the spa, you will have access to a wide range of activities from diving or shopping in the city to hiking or visiting another island. Most hotels have a real beach (there are not that many on Tahiti Island) or an artificial one; in some cases you will have the opportunity to enjoy the luxury bungalows above the lagoon from where you will see the lagoon fishes while you are drinking a cocktail. Of course all this comes with the nice price of around 300$ a night.



In Tahiti my wife and I stayed at a brand new 4 stars hotel called hotel Manava. It is not a hotel in the strict sense of the word as it provides services apartments to the guests instead of a bedroom. The hotel is located 10km from Papeete and is just in front of the island of Moorea, if you rent a flat with the view on the lagoon you will have the pleasure to enjoy the sunset on Moorea from your terrace (photos seen in the previous post).



The hotel doesn’t look at all like what you are used to see in Polynesia, it is not a tall and long piece of concrete nor is it a garden filled with bungalows. The hotel looks like those housing communities you can find in California: you have two 2 floors buildings facing each other with a beautiful tropical garden between them, on the lagoon side you will get a great swimming pool, a deck that will lead you to a sunbathing place and on the side of that place a motu (small island in Tahitian language) that you will have to swim to to be able to be Robinson Crusoe. If you want to see what the hotel looks like, follow this link.



During the week-end you will see more people from Tahiti in the hotel than there usually is, the locals have the habit of spending a family week-end in the hotels. Polynesian housing isn’t the most comfortable, the houses often are simple and big families have to share limited space. Tahitian families have understood that staying at a 4 stars hotels during a week-end would greatly improve everyday life, hotels manager are happy because their hotels are filled to capacity: everyone wins. On one side those 2 day visitors bring life to an often dull and quiet place as there will be much more kids in the swimming pool but on the other side if you were enjoying the calmness of the place you will have to wait till Monday to get it back.




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They Know How To Build In China

In China, when you build a building you have to test if it is strong as you can see below. Enjoy!







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Survival Guide To Tahiti

I am now back home where I am enjoying my holidays, I will none the less take the time to give you a few pointers on life in Tahiti in case one of you is considering going there. As I have a lot of information to give about Polynesia this post will have different parts: today I will talk about service.



As soon as you step out of the plane you have a nice sight: hostesses give you the traditional tiare flower to put on your ear and a band is playing Polynesian music with a ukulele. Everything is done to create this postcard atmosphere even though you will soon see that it doesn’t really exist anymore.



French Polynesia is quite disturbing for the average tourist that expects a certain quality of service. When ordering something in a restaurant or a bar it is quite common to see the waiter/waitress coming back 5 minutes later to confirm your order even though he/she wrote it on a notepad. It is frequent not to get what you ordered because the information was not passed on to the bartender or to the cook or because the waiter forgot to bring back what you ordered. In other cases you will get something totally different than what you ordered...



There is absolutely no need to get pissed of by this kind of behaviour, you are not the first one and you surely won’t be the last one; service is something that doesn’t exist in the local culture, if one order is forgotten well shit happens. You will sometime see restaurant managers shouting at one employee for forgetting a part of the order but they all know how difficult it is to find employees who do not succumb to the fiu (this will be explained later).



The fiu is the condition that will plague an employee and preventing him from going to work for a few days, you could translate fiu to fed up: I am fiu = I am fed up; hard to run a restaurant or a hotel in those conditions. Polynesia has a high level of unemployed youth, the authorities are offering internships in tourism but as those are paid internships many young ones apply to those just to get the pay check at the end of the month even though they are interested in tourism. Thus tourists are met by a trained staff that is not motivated at all by the work, those employees will either get fired or stop coming to work forcing the managers to hire and train new employees.



Those things are hard to understand when you come to Tahiti for the first time, as this was my sixth trip I hope I gave relevant information to those who think about going there without scaring some of you. As you might have seen on my previous posts Polynesia is a unique place. Tomorrow I will talk about hotels.


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My Sound Of The Day

Oldie but goodie: Machine - There But For The Grace Of God Go I.




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My Sound Of The Day

Just lie on a couch and let the music take you: Lindstrom And Prins Thomas - Boney M Down.




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Tylenol

Have you ever been asked a question by a child that you just couldn't answer? It's not that you didn't know the answer but the child was too young to understand the answer. The drug Tylenol has released an ad campaign on that subject: There are some questions that are such a headache.
To see the other images click on the picture.



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Polynesian Rock

In Polynesia they know how to make music without the ukulele, this is Tikahiri - A Tapea Te Paari.




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My Sound Of The Day

I don't listen to a lot of french music but this guy is worth an ear: Spleen - Love Dilemme.




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Let's Play

I like those kind of games that puts your mind at work.

10 daily flash games at gamesforwork.com

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My Sound Of The Day

When i am listening to this, it reminds of the time when i was listening to music on my tape recorder: Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream.




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Big Brother State

I found this video on Numerama the website for numeric leisure, it is a clear, simple and very interesting video.




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Raivavae

Raivavae is the small island located in the austral archipelago, there is nothing particular about it except maybe that the number of tourists allowed to be on the island at one time is limited. The island doesn’t turn to mass tourism because its inhabitants cherish their quality of life, for them life in Tahiti is not very pleasant.



You won’t find any shopping centres, luxury hotels or restaurants on Raivavae, the few shops available will mostly sell everyday use products and food. You will come to the island for the calm, for the kids playing in the streets and for the people greeting you in when you pass them. There is only a handful of things to do:
- do nothing on the beach
- have lunch on a motu after having gotten tridacna clams on the reef
- ride a bike around the island
- go snorkeling
- walk up the mountain



For a little bit of a thrill, i recommend to climb mount Hiro, its highest point is only around 400 meters high but there is no dedicated path, you will first have to walk through the thick forest then you will have to walk along a steep mountain wall. The forest part is fairly easy but as soon as you come close to the mountain the climb becomes steep and climbers who might suffer from vertigo really have to only look in front of them. This part is a little bit more difficult but not dangerous if you are careful where you put your feet and hands.



If you persevere you will be rewarded by a truly beautiful view of the island, the lagoon and the motus. The weather is changing quite rapidly on the island it can often happen that the weather is so so when you are still at ground level but that it is perfect when you have reached the top: you will be able to take great shots.



Almost everyone on the island has built his own home, either all by himself or helped by the people from his town. Faith is a very important thing so there is a lot of churches on the island; 2 churches are being built right now by the people who have no regular activities. There is no real cemetery, so it is quite common to find tombs on the terrace of some homes: the kids will have built the tomb where the parents used to live. Raivavae is a real paradise that I fully recommend.




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