Tahiti Revisited

Well if you read my post on our 4x4 adventure in Tahiti, this picture is taken from google earth if you go into google earth and call up tahiti and then zoom in on the volcanic mountains, you will see the road or what should be a road that cuts through the middle of the Island, the road to hell ... it starts at Papenoo and comes out somewhere close to Papara.

Hotel Surveys

Have you ever filled in those hotel surveys?  I do every now and again, I noticed in my in box while I was travelling that there was one from the Radisson Hotel in Tahiti and I kept meaning to go online and fill it in but decided that I would do it once I got back as I would have more time.

So the other day I duly filled in the survey, now trust me I have complained on surveys before especially the one I got from the hotel in Nottinghill 5 years ago, where the room was practically falling apart, and never even got so much as an apology.   Anyway I filled it in thinking it will probably just be thrown on the pile with the rest of them, I filled it in honestly and then afterwards thought maybe I shouldn't have complained about the arogant pool boy.  As you know from my post on Tahiti, I also complained about the price of food in the hotel.  However for ratings of everything I give them a 4 or a 5, 5 of course being exceptional.

So to my surprise this morning I had an email from the manager at the hotel in Tahiti and here it is:

Dear Rose-Marie:

 Firstly we wish to thank you for taking the time to complete a survey regarding your recent stay with us.

We are sorry to hear that you were not offered our breakfast a la carte menu for your child while dining in our restaurant, which would have best catered for his or her needs. Therefore as a token of our apologies, we have refunded your credit card for the amount of 2,950XPF which is the value of a child's breakfast buffet for the two mornings of 9/7/09 & 10/7/09.

 

On behalf of our entire staff here at the Radisson Hotels & Resorts we thank you for your business and hope you have returned home with some beautiful memories of French Polynesia.

 

Sincerely,

Christopher Turner

Room Division Manager

Hotel Radisson Plaza Resort Tahiti

(689)488888

They even went to the trouble of checking to see which days we were charged for Emily's breakfast and have since refunded us, now that is 5 star service ...

Tahiti, French Polynesia

Date: 9th July to 16th July
Accommodation: The Radisson Plaza Resort, Arue, Tahiti
Weather: 25 Degrees +
Season: Austral Winter
Rain: Some tropical downpours over the mountains very few on the beach
One word: Awesome
Agenda: Rest, Relax, Explore
Tahiti is one of those countries that everyone dreams of going to, but not many people do, so when I saw it on the itinerary it really made up my mind to do it. However once I had booked, I realised the reason why not many people make the journey, Tahiti is very expensive - however there is a way of doing things cheaply, but for our trip we decided that this would be where we spoilt ourselves.

The journey from LA to Faaa airport in Tahiti was 8 and a half hours, we flew Air Tahiti which was awesome, the food was wonderful, the air hostesses looked like they were on holiday it was really magic. We left LA at 23:00 and with time difference arrived in Tahiti at 4:30 in the morning, however it was already about 20 degrees at that time of the morning.

We made our way to the car hire place, as I said everything in Tahiti is very expensive, so we ended up hiring a very small car for the week, not like in the States where a little money gets you a very big car. After a few wrong turns we finally ended up at the hotel, I had booked us in from the previous night so that we did not have to wait until 2 in the afternoon before we got into our room - very wise!

The porter took us to our room which turned out to be and upstairs downstairs, two balconies, the biggest shower I have ever seen and totally awesome.
This photo is the view from our room, looking over the pool and Matavai Bay.

This photo was taken from the upstairs balcony looking down onto the downstairs balcony. Once we arrived we decided to first go down for Breakfast, which was a buffet with loads of tropical fruits and all kinds of stuff, we then headed off to the pool where we spent most of the day, and then went off to sleep as it had been a long day.

The next day after Breakfast we headed out to find a supermarket, which was interesting, what was most interesting was the fact that a lot of their tinned fruits and sweet corn came from South Africa. We stopped at One tree hill on the way back and marvelled at the scenery. After a bit of shopping we headed into Papeete to the Market.Then back to the hotel to spend the rest of the day by the pool and on the beach.

The sand on majority of the beaches in Tahiti is black as it is volcanic sand.

The next day was Saturday, we decided that the hotel was becoming a wee bit too expensive to have breakfast there every morning so we headed to a village close by called Mahina and had brunch, after brunch we drove to the Cascade waterfalls where we stopped to walk to the falls.They were awesome, I also took a picture of our hired car which you will see why further down in my story. We decided from there to drive around the Island, according to the map, there was one road around the Island which takes about 2 hours and then a road through the middle of the Island which intrigued Derrick.

Half way round the Island we decided to stop at a beach on the west coast called Papara so that Em could have a swim, well this was obviously surfers paradise as the waves were rough and their were hundreds of surfers, Em ended up losing the bottom half of her new Bikini. After a swim we headed back to our hotel where D took this amazing photograph of the sunset.

The next day Monday 13th we headed to the supermarket to get Em some strawberries for Breakfast and found a snack bar where we stopped for breakfast, well the difference in cost was just phenomenal, where they had charged us about 7000 xpf (french Polynesian francs) for a buffet breakfast at the hotel, we could get and omelet and coffee at the snack bar and an ice cream for Em for 900 xpf, so we had found our new breakfast bar.

After breakfast or brunch we went to Papeete again and then once again spent the day at the pool and on the beach.

The following day was a public holiday in Tahiti a very important French holiday Bastille Day, we started off with breakfast at our new found snack bar but first a stop at the supermarket for Emily's strawberries. D wanted to find the road that went through the middle of the Island, which he assumed was a short cut and here the story starts:

Indiana Rowe and the tunnel of Doom

We picked up the road at Papenoo which winds along the river bed, there are loads of camping spots and because today was a public holiday there were loads of locals camping, swimming and generally just enjoying their day off. The road was mainly dirt and had some scary bridges but the scenery was beautiful. We stopped in a few places where there were 4x4 tours, and then we got to the sign that said something in French and 4x4, D said that he is sure the trail would be the same as what we had just come through, well ...

We first had to go through a tunnel, with dongas and ditches and water running down, now remember we were in a small 1100 little KIA, I was sitting in front with D and Em at the back, this is the very last picture I took before our adventure as I held on for dear life.As we came through the tunnel there was no road so to speak of but just a trail with big and small boulders winding down and down, with lots of hairpin bends. With almost every movement the car made we could hear the boulders hitting the car underneath, as we kept going down we thought it couldn't get any worse but it did, however there was no turning back as there is no way the car would be able to go up the path it had just come down. Emily was having great fun, and she even said so, in the words "this is so cool, just like a movie". Little did we know but we were actually driving through the crater of the Volcano, we had obviously come up the 4,800ft on the other side of the tunnel and we were now going down.

I kept thinking that if anything happened to us, nobody would know we were missing and would not look for us, and we could be swallowed up by the mountain and be trapped in the rain forest forever, yes I am a bit of sensationalist ;).

After bashing the car underneath about 50 to 100 times over dongas and boulders we finally saw the road (trail) coming to a straight bath at the end of the mountains, and it was now just a matter of heading towards the main road near Mataiea.

The Highway Man

As we headed towards the end of the trail, we noticed a guy on an off road scrambler come past us and then stop, he told us to stop and asked us where we were going, when D told him he told D that the road was closed, my first thought then and there was I was going to get out and walk. We felt sick, but then the guy said not to worry as he can open the road if we paid him 200 xpf which is equivalent to about 2 Euro, so we said no problem.

Then as we passed the first house we had seen in forever, a deranged looking woman wearing a T-shirt with Vietnam on it came running in front of the car telling us to stop shouting at us in French, the guy on the bike then spoke to her and they let us continue.

We then got to the gate that the guy had to unlock and of course he came to collect his money first which had now gone up to 2000 xpf, which is probably because he now had to give some money to the deranged old woman. It felt like we had been hijacked and could not wait to just get out of there.

Once we eventually got to the main road, we thought that by now the exhaust had come loose and who know what other damage had been done to the car, but thank goodness only the front fender was dragging on the ground all the way back to the hotel. Once there Em and I headed for the pool while D proceeded to do a cosmetic job on the car, get rid of the scratches and fix the fender.

I think D and I had about 3 tequilas each that evening just to stable our nerves, we decided that dinner in the restaurant at the hotel was the order of the day, which we all enjoyed.

Our last day

29 Degrees Celsius

It was Wednesday and our last day at the hotel, our flight was leaving for Auckland the next morning at 7 a.m. which meant we had to leave the hotel by 4:30. So today we went into Papeete for the last time, there were two Cruise ships docked, one huge one from London called the "Princess Dawn" and the other smaller one called "The Regus", some of the passengers had come back to the Radisson and while I was watching Em swim I got talking to some of the passengers. I met Claudette and Jim from San Fransisco, what a lovely couple. After sunset we went back to the room and had a wonderful Room service meal.

I would do it all over again, I can see why Marlon Brando fell in love with Tahiti after filming Mutiny on the Bounty, but just a word of advice, go in the Austral winter there are no mozzies or flies and no humidity either.

Travel Agents and stuff

Photos were taken from this amazing website: http://www.onlytahiti.com/NaturalAphrodisiac.html

So where do you start with trying to organise an around the world ticket, first port of call the net, go to google and put in “round the world tickets” and vwala up pops about a million web sites. So you try and eliminate the ones that don’t look that great and in between this you decide: How long do you have to travel, and where you would really like to go.

Then you do some more surfing and finally you see something that looks pretty much like what you want and you pick up the phone and phone the agent, now never do this in the “Silly season” because it just takes ages for them to get back to you.

Anyway I find this deal on the Utravel website: http://www.utravel.ie/148/index.html Price From: €1281Dublin/London - (via) London - Los Angeles - Papeete (Tahiti) - Auckland - Fiji - Brisbane (make your own way)Sydney - Perth - Johannesburg - (via) London – Dublin (Taxes Extra)

So I phone up the travel agent and wouldn’t you just know it, nothing is ever as it seems, she can get us that particular trip however if we leave on the 30th of June it is one price and if we leave on the 1st of July it is another, understandable.

They don’t get back to me till the 5th of January after I send an email to say if I have not heard from you or if you don’ want my business I CAN go elsewhere you know. I get an email back, but guess what, you got it, no trips for the 30th of June, only for the 26th of June – what to do, can’t take Em out of school, well actually we could but don’t want to. So gives me the price if we leave on the 1st of July and a rough itinerary, but leaves out Fiji – WHY?????

However, I compare my original itinerary with the one that the travel agent has given me and hers would work out cheaper, not as many stops, added to that, not as many upheavals from one place to another, enough time in each place to really explore! So let’s go with that, however how much is accommodation going to cost in Tahiti for 8 nights that is the real question, and what will it cost to explore the Islands like Bora Bora? So, first thing this morning email the travel agent to find out how much it will cost. And what about excursions: http://www.truetahitivacation.com/tahiti_activities_excursions/tahiti.htm

Second thing on my list today, I have booked for us to go to London in February as we are meeting up with Gwenie and she is flying back with us, but we have 3 nights in London first, the exchange rate between the pound and the euro has been wonderful if you are living in Ireland, at one stage when we went up to Belfast to buy our TV and go shopping the Pound was 98p to the Euro, however since then it has slowly recovered. In order to save some money (hopefully the pound does not weaken again), I decided that today I am going to change money for our week-end in London.

Oh wait, Em finishes school at 12:00 so will have to fetch her first then go to the bank. Back to the RTW trip and looking at the cost of accommodation in Tahiti, Papeete – there are hundreds of web sites out there but they just don’t give you what you want, so best thing to do is go to the old reliable: http://www.expedia.ie/ and search for hotels. Me has decided that since this is going to be a once in a life time trip and Tahiti will be the only “tropical” Island we will go too, we are not going to scrimp on accommodation here.Got to buy a new camera before we go.

Go to the bank this afternoon and wouldn't you know, 88p they charge me per pound plus a commission, oh well I guess everyone has to make their money somehow, although 88p is still very good!

Later.