We have been to Papeete, in Tahiti, on several occasions now and it remains an island of contrasts. It sounds so exotic, but Papeete always feels a bit run down and unless you get outside of the town, it can almost be depressing, particularly if it is raining.
I was up at 6:15 and once again, headed for doughnut central on deck 5. After satisfying the inner man, I picked up my Clive Cussler novel (The Assassin) and sat on a lounger on deck 7, commonly known as the promenade deck, away from the air conditioning. It is under cover and the majority of walkers do their 1/3 mile laps at any time of the day – generally after 7am. Sitting there reading as we approached Papeete, it was very noticeable that quite a few people, even when walking, are very heavy footed, probably oblivious that their stomping along the decks can be heard below. Fortunately, there aren’t too many cabins on deck six, except at the bow end of the ship.
Ship berthed on the port side, having executed a 180 degree turn on arrival.
Both our el Cheapo, $30 Vodafone pre-pay phones worked, as we are now back in Vodafone territory, rather than AT & T.
The ship had collected our passports to deal with Immigration.
A simple walk off and no one asked for photo ID on our return.
Papeete doesn’t have a HoHo bus and no need for shuttles, as it docks in town.
Although the local currency is French Polynesian Francs, at 100pfr to the USD, most traders took the US Dollars, even in the market.
Hand luggage scanned on board, so booze to be declared, though I’m not sure than many found cheap bargains anyway.
Jo’s group were off on a Catamaran for the day and ready early, although port clearance and gangway set up seemed slow, we decided to wait on our balcony to see them go – even though we were well past breakfast time by then, so that we could video their departure. They didn’t even wave…
After a light breakfast yet again (oh how I am looking forward to decent poached eggs, decent bacon, tomatoes toast and a large coffee when we return. Despite the various sausage options on board, I do miss decent runny poached eggs!) we took our time and just wandered ashore. Whether it was because there was a ship in, or we picked the right day of the week, we are not too sure, but in the market (and elsewhere) there were ukulele groups playing. I say ukulele groups, but most consisted of 1 or 2 genuine or standard ukuleles, one guitar and maybe 1 or 2 local ukuleles. The local version tends to be solid, with 4 or 8 strings and strung with nylon fishing line and gives a slightly tinny sound. We did look at maybe purchasing one, but they were horrifically expensive for what they were. $380USD.
There were also displays of coconut cutting and flax weaving in the market, making for a nice atmosphere. Outside, we opted for a morning drink, with Paula having a nice lemon meringue pie and I had a warmed banana and chocolate muffin – which came with a scoop of chocolate ice cream.
Having walked the town, we headed back and a lunch of pork vindaloo with rice, and a piece of river trout.
I have no idea how much fish I have sampled on this trip, but from memory, it has included the trout, delicious salmon, tilapia, snapper, perch, barramundi, breaded catfish, plus various fish that I either can’t remember or which weren’t labelled. Most of them have been enjoyable as a taster, but very few would have appealed as a full meal or a meat substitute.
The saga of the ASB Bank access (or lack of it) continued and I had a response from the ASB who explained what needed to be done – by Princess. I passed that on to Cruise Director Mark (the only email address I have) and asked that it be forwarded to the Customer Service Dept, the IT manager on board and to Head Office IT. We’ll see.
A quick nod and we woke to fairly heavy rain. I looked out of the window to see that the catamaran had just returned at 3:30 – 2 hours early. I videoed their return to pass on to Garry, our ace videographer.
Up on deck 12, they had a ‘Wine & Beer Festival’ (sic). With six ‘Ezi-Ups’ with display tables inside, they were offering free nibbles (cold) and the opportunity to buy beers and wines. Please note, buy, not sample. I have no idea which marketing genius thought that up for a port day, when they were offering 6 beers for $36 - and in poor weather. The same genius must also have spent a hefty budget on signage, for an ‘event’ almost at the end of the voyage, when most regular wine and beer drinkers had already stocked up anyway, legally or illegally, as we head for cooler climes. I do know that buying an extra six beers or ciders at well above treble any shore price, with just 1 port and 4 sea days to go, was not at all tempting. As we passed by several times, in the early evening darkness, you couldn’t even read their blurb, so no wonder we didn’t actually see anyone taking advantage.
The rain seemed to set in. We nipped up to the buffet for a snack and knew that the Tasmanian fish chowder was a bit light on fish, so I added a chunk of salmon to it. That made it more substantial. Later, we caught up with Mary and Ian from our dinner table who were heading ashore to try the ‘truck’ food. For anyone not familiar with the concept, food vans roll up late afternoon, setting up outdoor tables and chairs. In the past, we have been lucky enough to be there on a Friday, which is traditionally truck night, with maybe 30 to 40 establishments selling hot food. Being a Wednesday, there were only about 6 or 7 vans and most tables weren’t under cover.
We spied Jo and Garry, Ed and Bev, waiting patiently for their order, under a small awning. I think they’d ordered the special chow Mein – but waited over an hour for it, as there was only one wok burner. Ian and Mary and several others got fed up of waiting, got their money back and left, opting to eat elsewhere. The return of the rain didn’t help.
Nothing on offer appealed to us at all so we returned to the adjacent ship.
The rain stopped in time for the sailaway and afterwards, we gave the buffet another hit. I was still in an eating lightly frame of mind, so had another crack at the fish chowder - with extra salmon of course.
The head was still very uncomfortable with no signs of improvement, which is annoying, but we do have our last port of call tomorrow, the nearby tropical island of Bora Bora. That should really be ‘Pora Pora’, as the letter ‘B’ was never part of the local language, but was misheard by the first Europeans. There’s a good trivia question.
We have nothing planned for Bora Bora either, so will make our decision tomorrow, based on the weather, which once again, may be a bit changeable, but it is also a tender port, so no rush to get off and join the usual melee.
Our last port so it will be a mix of sadness and excitement when we board tomorrow. It is also a tender port, so a free boat ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment