Tahiti - the price of paradise

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Some say it is uncouth to discuss money, especially on a refined blog such as this one, and to be honest we normally wouldn't but flipping hell Tahiti is expensive.

Breakfast for two, surprisingly not included in our rate, was $100 - yes folks, that is 50 pounds. For some muesli!! It rather tarnishes the stay when you realise that you are going to pay 200 pounds for breakfast for a 4 night stay. Especially as that is our normal daily budget for everything!! We declined breakfast after that. However literally everything is incredibly expensive. At least twice the price of the UK i reckon and about 5 times the price of Argentina.. ok that's enough of that...

So what about the place.. well yes it's got palm trees, yes it has black pearls (boy do you get to know about the black pearls) yes it has beautiful clear blue water lagoons, yes pineapple/coconut flavoured cocktails are readily available but for us it trades too much on the "paradise" label and doesn't actually feel like a real place. It's full of honeymooners and French people, sometimes both and after the "reality" of South America we found it somewhat lacking.

We didn't visit any of the other islands as our stay was so short but our tour round Tahiti didn't do much to change this opinion - Dave the Rave showed us round some of the Island's best parking spots, some caves which we could look at from 25m away and a Gaugin museum which had none of Gaugin's paintings and was situated in a convenient spot for the owner and not actually anywhere Gaugin had lived. Dave also had an unusual habit, he would talk to you like a normal person and then he remembered he was a tour guide, went all glassy eyed and unleashed the tourist patter which was well-rehearsed to say the least.

Of course, we had to endure the ritual tourist dancing humiliation - please see photos for full effect - where i got pulled out of the crowd and made to fail complicated polynesian dance moves to the amusement of the French honeymooners. Look at the big english girl who can't swivel her hips - how amusante!!

We overslept and nearly missed our transfer but were pleased to leave before the bank account got completely drained.

To New Zealand please!!

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