French Polynesia · Practical Tahiti, and the Four O’Clock Market The market opens at four in the morning on Sunday, and by nine it is closing. Not four for the traders and seven for everyone else. Four for everyone. By eight the best of it has gone, and by nine the whole thing is winding … Read more
French Polynesia · Practical Bora Bora, and the Island You Don’t Stay On Most people who spend a week on Bora Bora never set foot on Bora Bora. The airport sits on Motu Mute, an islet on the northern reef, unreachable by road. Everyone arrives by boat. And the great majority of the resorts — … Read more
French Polynesia · Practical Moorea, and the Last Boat The first boat off Moorea leaves at twenty past five in the morning. Not for tourists. For people who live on Moorea and work in Papeete, and who cross a channel to get to the office the way other people take a train. Commuters fill the … Read more
French Polynesia · Practical Fakarava, North or South The atoll is sixty kilometres long. The airport is at the north end. The dive that made the place famous is at the south end, several hours across the lagoon by boat. Nobody tells you this before you book, and it is the whole decision. You are … Read more
French Polynesia · Practical Taha’a, the Island Without an Airport Taha’a has no airport. You land on Raiatea, the island next door, and cross by boat — about half an hour. That single fact does most of the work here. It filters the traffic, it keeps the cruise excursions at arm’s length, and it means … Read more
French Polynesia · Culture Raiatea, Where It Started Hawaii, New Zealand, Easter Island. If you follow the migrations back far enough, a great many of them lead to a peninsula on the east coast of an island most visitors use as an airport. Raiatea sits at the centre of the Polynesian Triangle — the last … Read more
French Polynesia · Practical The Marquesas, Where the Lagoon Stops There is no lagoon. No barrier reef, no turquoise shallows, no motu, no overwater bungalow. The cliffs go straight into open Pacific and the swell arrives from three thousand kilometres away with nothing to slow it down. Everything that makes French Polynesia recognisable in a … Read more
French Polynesia · Practical Which Island: Bora Bora, Moorea, Taha’a, Tahiti or Fakarava Five islands, one archipelago, and nightly rates that run from a family guesthouse to an overwater villa. People generally decide this by looking at photographs, which is the worst available method, because three of the five photograph identically. The water is the … Read more