To explain the title of this blog post, those of you of a certain age might remember that ad where a husband and wife are in a spa in an aeroplane (you can do anything in an ad!) She's looking at a tourist brochure and says, "Tahiti looks nice". He calls to the captain, "Simon........ Tahiti" and the plane banks presumably towards Tahiti. And it was all for a soap!
So why are we here? Courtney is living in Buenos Aires so we thought it was a good opportunity to visit that part of the world. However, Buenos Aires has roughly the same weather as Melbourne and we wanted some winter sunshine. While we were making our travel plans, we were reading Mutiny on the Bounty. What an amazing story! In the book, the Bounty stopped at Tahiti and the island sounded amazing. Tahiti is the main island of French Polynesia and is roughly half way between Australia and Argentina so it made sense that we visit it on the way to see Courtney.
We also found out that the Tahitian annual cultural festival, called Heiva, occurs in the first couple of weeks of July so we set our dates around that. After a rather difficult period of planning (it's high season so booking accommodation and flights was tricky) we headed off at the start of July.
First stop was an overnight in New Zealand. I had forgotten how friendly the Kiwis are. Even though we only stayed in an airport hotel we had a great time. We really need to go back there and try some of their walking tracks.....
We arrived in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia in the evening. It was pleasantly warm but not too hot. We headed along the waterfront, which was lovely.
An American couple who were on the same flight as us were also staying at the same accommodation so we ended up having dinner together. There is an area where food vans serve up a variety of local foods. We knew French Polynesia would be expensive but we had our first real lesson in this when a simple meal at a food van costed around $25!
We spent the next few days getting things organised and exploring the town. There are some lovely simple churches.
There was quite a bit of cool art on buildings.
From the beautiful to the ugly - we've seen some weird mannequins in the past but this one wins the ugly award!
Lunch most days was a baguette. They're huge!
One of the more interesting features of Polynesian culture are the mahu. These are local men who not only dress as women but are raised as women. This has been a part of the culture for a long time. Captain Bligh, of Bounty fame, even wrote about them. We've seen plenty of them working in the shops. They are treated just like anyone else.
They speak mainly French here and we've struggled with it. John's French is pretty good usually, but we haven't used it for ages and John's is rusty while mine is almost non-existent.
We had allowed two nights in Papeete to see the Heiva festival. We went to buy tickets but could only get in on the opening night. We made our way there on the night and it was fun seeing people getting ready for their performances.
Inside the stadium, we took a photo of the lovely ushers. It turned out though that photos aren't allowed to be taken of the performances, much to the dismay of most of the tourists. The lady on the left ended up being the camera Nazi, stopping everyone taking photos, including me.
The show started with the opening ceremony. We were surprised there were so few people in their seats at that stage, as we knew the show was nearly booked out. We soon learned why. The speeches dragged on and on. I snapped a few pics cos I figured this wasn't actually the performance, and I got quite a few before the camera Nazi stopped me.
There were different percussion groups through the night and they were all amazing.
Finally, the first of the singing groups started. Their harmonies were incredible. I tried to film them surrepticiously but it was difficult. You can just see one of the groups coming in in this video before someone blocks my camera's view.
In this one you can hear the high voices that sounded amazingly like bagpipes!
The singing was lovely but it got VERY repetitive. John was soon suggesting we leave but I thought we'd see what came in next. We had to sit through more talking as we were told every detail about the story that was about to performed by dancers - it was first told extensively in French, then English, then Tahitian. Seasons could change in the time it took for the description to finish.
Finally, it was over and the dancers entered - all 140 of them in absolutely sensational costumes! We were bowled over by the colours, the dancing and the sheer numbers of performers. For about an hour they danced, formed choreographed patterns and shimmied those hips! They went through a number of costume changes. Over 100 ladies in the same costumes performing in sync was quite a sight!
There were featured performers too. Some were kings or queens in the stories but it seemed to be a requirement that there was a solo performance by a male and a female dancer. The male solos featured a lot of squatting and knee-knocking, often at the same time. The females could walk while they squatted but the hip-shaking was the feature. Apparently these groups practice for around six months to get ready for this competition.
Hours and hours of work must have gone into the costumes too. They mostly featured natural products like grasses, shells and feathers but they were often coloured in bright colours. As I couldn't get photos, I found some online of last year's Heiva festival to give you an idea of what they were like. Sadly, I couldn't find a pic of the large groups all dancing at once.
It was a great night!
We spent the next day organising things and managed to get good enough internet most of the time to watch the Tiges thrash Gold Coast - yay! We watched the footy while eating $28 pizzas. This is seriously not a budget country!
Tomorrow we leave to go to the first of our island destinations. I can't wait to have a look at the underwater life there.
Till next time,
Heather and John
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