The first full day in Tahiti began with breakfast at the Pensione. Breakfast consisted of random fruits and cereal with gross warm milk out of a box. I later discovered there was also fresh baguettes hiding from me, this was fully taken advantage of for the remaining breakfasts.
After breakfast I was on a mission to get some bottled water as the tap water is not safe to drink and I had not purchased any the night (morning) before given the time of day and my need for sleep. Luckily only about a 5 minute walk away there was a small store which seemed to sell everything, except for cold water. The only water they had was warm on the shelf.
I kept on walking in the same direction until the heat got too much to walk too much further which conincidently happened to be near a bus stop. The bus stops here are not like bus stops at home, they are simply a sign that has a picture of a bus with a tiny bit of room for the bus to pull over. I remembered Fred saying the night before something about having to wave the bus drivers down or they drive straight past the stops, waving down the driver and boarding with a 500CXF note, fingers crossed it would be enough to get me into town I simply said Papetee to the driver and he seemed to know what I wanted. If anyone cares the trip was 250CXF and it cost me the same to return later that day, more on that trip later.
This day I learnt almost straight away that my high school french is NOT enough to understand people when they talk to you, nor ask for anything. I am reasonably good at reading signs and knowing what they are all about but the spoken language, not so much. They speak very quickly and I’m lucky to pick up a couple of words in the sentence so tend to stare blankly, which is then met with them switching to English, it must be common for them.
I didn’t think much of Papetee town, although I had no real reason to be there. The dock for the cruise ships is quiet nice and the ships are gigantic! There was a cool church that I walked past as well which is conveniently named the Notre Dame, although I didn’t end up getting a photo as there were a lot of people around and I couldn’t be bothered getting out my camera.
Back to the bus ride home, that was an experience. I was the only tourist on the bus by the looks of it, after showing the driver where on the map I wanted to go I managed to get one of the last seats on the bus, next to what I can only presume is the town crazy or someone who just loves christmas, he was an old man wearing a santa hat who pointed for me to squeeze past him and on to the seat beside him. Sure why not I thought, thinking he would stand up so I could get past, apparently not. A lot of clambering later both my backpack and myself made it on to the seat to discover that it was the seat with the engine or something else ridiculously hot underneath it and your feet are almost up around your shoulders. This is going to be a fun trip I thought!
I think I spoke too soon on the fun trip part. I had made sure I was keeping an eye out for any landmarks on the ride into town that would signal roughly where I needed to get off. I remembered that the Meridian wasn’t too much further after I stopped walking and waited at the bus stop so figured I would just get off one stop after the Meridian and walk the rest of the way. By this point no-one had gotten off the bus however people were still climbing on everytime it stopped, therefore all the seats and the aisles were full and for some reason the back door was blocked with a whole lot of boxes.
The Meridian wooshed by so next stop was me, we then wooshed past a bus stop without stopping. What a treat, looks as though the bus only stops if someone is waiting at the bus stop. The next bus stopped the bus stopped at to let someone on, meanwhile I am getting past the old man that loves christmas and trying to work my way past all the people in the aisle with a very bad excusez-moi, excusez-moi and the bus starts going again. Oh crapsticks this is fun, not! After pushing my way through a number of people someone obviously worked out that I was trying to get off the bus and whistled to the driver who pulled over and I managed to squeeze past the last couple of passengers in the aisle and get off the bus.
I honestly have no idea how they stop the bus as there were no buttons like on buses in NZ to signal the driver to stop, they must just whistle or yell something, although given that no-one had gotten off the bus during the time I was on it I had no idea what the process was.
After all that excitment I stopped at the supermarket on the walk back to the Pensione and stocked up on some goodies for lunch and dinner. Baguette with ham and cheese (I am over ham at the moment after eating it for christmas and leftovers the days afterwards, however could not find anything else that I knew what it was and there was no cooked Poulet (chicken), knowing the french word for ham was Jambon when I found it I knew it would have to do as I was not braving random meats that looked spicy), dried melon of some description and interesting pineapple flavoured yoghurt. How very french of me.
I had wondered why the locals were carrying their baguettes with no bags on them, I found the reason when I looked at my receipt; they charge for the ‘Sac a Pain’, not a lot – prob around 10 cents at home. Guess they are keeping up with the warehouse and other stores that have caught on the charging for plastic bags bandwagon. They also didn’t give me a bag to take my goodies home in, looks as though you bring your own here. Luckily I had my bag in a bag in my day bag (try say that 10 times fast!). One of those bags that fold down into almost nothing and go inside a little case that you throw in your handbag.
This post is long enough so I will continue with my Tahiti Adventures in the next post.