Tuesday, March 14, 2017 – Huahine

We had a terrible sleep due to the extreme heat and humidity that did not let up even in the middle of the night. April had trouble getting comfortable and Bill had a terrible cough from his cold.

We had breakfast just after 7:30 at the pension—baguette, butter, jam, and slices of watermelon, and a cup of tea each.

We returned to our room and got ready to walk to town. We took the back road route to town, so we could stop by the pharmacy to see if there was something to help Bill get over his persistent cough and cold. The knowledgeable pharmacist, who spoke excellent English, helped Bill find a nasal spray and expectorant for the cough. April found some temanu oil and some monoi oil with Tahitian tiare flower in it.

We walked to the bank after and managed to get some money out of the machine with a debit card, but for the credit card we had to get the assistance of the bank teller again.

We walked further towards Fare and bought a few items at the Super Fare market, including a popsicle each, which in the mid-morning 30 degree heat melted very, very quickly. We ate our popsicles and had a cool drink, as we sat on a dock and looked out at the turquoise waters.

We looked in an artisan shop and then went to the Restaurant Huahine Yacht Club for lunch. Bill felt very sick and had only a starter salad. while April had the fish burger with salad. We both had coconut water straight from a young coconut served with a straw. One of our cat friends joined us for the meal and took scraps from us and let us pet him.

Fresh coconut water right from the source.

Where's my coconut?

We walked back to the pension, changed into our swimsuits and went to the beach. April spent almost the entire time (a couple of hours) snorkelling. Bill was not feeling well and spent some time lying in the shade resting and then came out to snorkel with April for the last part.

The path between the beach and Pension Meherio.

We went back to the pension in the late afternoon, showered, and had a nap. First, Bill started awake and then April started awake. Individually, we both thought we had imagined it, but when comparing our experiences, it seems as though something jumped on and over us. Given that we have only seen tiny ants and geckos in our room, it must have been a very brave gecko. This may have been payback from the gecko we scared the night before by trying to take photos of it.

We dressed, and walked into Fare, where we had dinner at the the Restaurant Huahine Yacht Club. As they were out of the Mahi Mahi that we were going to eat, we had Oahu fish on the recommendation of the waitress.

The fish was served in a vanilla sauce (vanilla is grown in French Polynesia, including on Huahine). April had her fish with fries and Bill had his with green beans. For dessert, April had warm coconut cake with coconut ice cream (this was absolutely excellent). Bill had mango sorbet, but had trouble eating much, as he had a coughing spell.

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The beach between Fare and our pension.

We walked back to the pension along the beach. We tried to air out our room to make it cooler. So far we have not seen a single mosquito, just some little flies and tiny ants. 

April wrote in her journal, while Bill coughed.

April’s ankles and feet were still very swollen as they have been since the flight. The heat and humidity are probably not helping, but many pregnant women have this difficulty on vacation, especially after long flights. 

We had a cool shower before bed as we were gross and sweaty again. It has not been cooling off at night. 

Sunday, March 12, 2017 – Rediscovering Papetee

We have returned.

Our cab dropped us off at the Hotel Sarah Nui. The jolly cab driver entertained us as he drove us into town by singing at the top of his lungs to local ukulele-filled Polynesian music on the radio. We also learned that he was from the Marquesas islands, had taken a Tahitian wife, and had three girls and two boys. He had a Marquesan wooden necklace that he showed us and when he dropped us off he showed us a beautiful carving he was working on that was sitting in the back of his Dacia Logan.

The Hotel Sarah Nui is a small hotel located near to the centre of Papetee (the capital of Tahiti). We chose it for its close location to the harbour, where there is a square where the Roulettes (food trucks) come to serve dinner at night and for its walkability to the local market.

We tried to check in when we arrived at the Hotel Sarah Nui, however we were not able to check in yet as it was only about 7 AM local time (currently French Polynesia is 3 hours behind Pacific Daylight Time, as French Polynesia does not observe daylight savings time, which created confusion for our sleep deprived brains as daylight savings time took effect the same day we arrived). Check-in time for this hotel is 1:00 PM. Our room was not yet ready. So, we stored our bags with the hotel, brushed our teeth in the lobby bathroom, and left the hotel to wander the Sunday streets of Papetee.

We were shattered from the series of three flights, not sleeping much overnight on the third flight, and by the complete change in locale. We had obtained a map from the hotel, however, it was unnecessary, because it was very simple to walk to the harbour front. We stopped by an ATM by the hotel and tried to get more money out, as many places do not accept credit cards, and some of our accommodations that we will be staying at later in the trip only take cash. It proved to be almost impossible to withdraw money from this ATM either. It would only allow us to have a small amount of cash out on one of our cards, like the other ATM (but not doubt the bank fee will still be high).

We first walked to the tourist office, which is located along the harbour front. The office was not yet open, however their washrooms were, which April was very thankful for. After, we went to the local market. As it was a Sunday, the upper floor of the market (which has most of the non food related items such as souvenirs), was not open. We were able to browse the produce stands, however, and we bought some lovely little local bananas to eat (a bunch of about 10 was about $1.00).

Moorea in the background.

Dramatic skies.

We stopped by a patisserie that we used to go to during our last trip to Papetee. We had a croissant, and pain au chocolat and an Orangina. We also bought a piece of cake to eat later to belatedly celebrate April’s birthday. We tried out a couple of ATMs on our way back to the hotel and continued to have no luck withdrawing cash.

Mmm mmm pastries.

We returned to the hotel and fought to stay away sitting on couches in the lobby. We still had hours to kill before check-in. Bill called one of our banks to ask them why we were having trouble withdrawing money (we were afraid they had seen the strange locations we were trying to withdraw from and had frozen our accounts), but they knew we were in Tahiti, as we dutifully put notes on our accounts in advance of leaving, and they said there shouldn’t be any issue. We were confused, but had heard that sometimes ATMs run out of money in French Polynesia and as it was Sunday, hopefully we would have more luck tomorrow.

We ordered a couple of cold drinks and two Margarita pizzas from the hotel’s snack bar for lunch and ate them as we waited for our room to be readied. 

At noon, the check-in clerk told us that our room was ready. We proceeded to our room, unpacked a few things, so that we could have a shower, had a shower, and went for a nap. April’s feet were very swollen from the three flights, which is a common pregnancy symptom.

There was a street racing course set up on the streets by our hotel, and for a few hours there were deafening motorsport noises that pierced our ear drums as we drifted in and out of consciousness.

After our rest, we walked from the hotel to the bank machine by our hotel to try and get money out again. We then walked down to the harbour front to Vaiete Place to see what the Roulettes had to offer for dinner. We ended up having pizza. It wasn’t as good as the pizza we had had last time we were at the Roulettes in 2008, but it was still pretty good. We had cold drinks with our pizza and watched the sunset and the beautiful stars come out.

 

It was a very warm and humid evening with the sky going dark just before 7 PM. We admired the full moon rising as we returned to our hotel to get an early night’s sleep in advance of our flight to Huahine the next morning. 

June 30, 2015- Last Full Day in Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, Shopping, Fancy Dinner, Goodbye Montmartre

We Overdo it on our Last Day in Paris, Breakfast at Home, An Unlimited Metro Pass Because We Meant Business, Sainte-Chapelle Church, Pantheon Under Construction, Yet More Depot-Ventes, A Proper French Lunch, More Depot-Ventes, A Used Scottish Sweater is Not a Proper Souvenir, Hermes is Always the Answer, Sardine Tin Subway, A Fancy Dinner in Montmartre, Last Visit to Sacre-Coeur

Today was our final full day in Paris. We had breakfast at home and then went to the metro. We bought the unlimited one day pass for today, because we knew we'd be swiping more than four times (the magic number where it makes sense instead of buying a value pack of 10 tickets as we had been before).

First, we took the metro down to Ile de la Cite and joined the lineup for Sainte-Chapelle church. The church is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture and has one of the largest and oldest collections of original stained glass windows in the world. April though she had been to Paris a few times before had never been inside. Bill and April were blown away by the church once inside and agreed that it was more beautiful than larger Notre Dame or the perhaps more impressive Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. The light filtering through the magnificent stained glass windows was ethereal.

We left the church and walked over the bridge and towards the Pantheon. It was under construction and closed, so we just walked around it.

We caught the metro to near to the Bois de Boulogne again to look in a few different Depot-Ventes for a unique French souvenir (in case you can't tell April loves vintage). We found a wonderful lunch at Le Francois Coppee. April had grilled chicken and fries. Bill had a steak and fries. For dessert, April had an apple tarte which tasted like a combination of apple pie and apple sauce, amazing (especially when vanilla ice cream was added at her request). Bill had sorbet. It actually tasted like the fruit that it was advertised to be. Why is it in Canada we have lost the ability to produce real fruit flavours and instead when you order say strawberry, it tastes like what someone who has never tasted a strawberry would think that strawberry tastes like based on looking at a photo of a strawberry and hearing other people's descriptions of what a strawberry actually tastes like?

We then took the metro to another area of town where there was a Depot-Vente that had seven different stores in the same street, Reciproque. Neither of us found anything other than the yellow cashmere sweater in like new condition that was from Scotland originally that April found. It didn't really scream French souvenir. Disappointed we went home. Bill saw that April needed a true French souvenir and roused her from the couch and out the door into the sweaty and super hot day again and back onto the metro.

On the metro there was some weird delay to do with one of the stations and it was impacting all the other ones (we could only hear part of the rapid French announcement as it was very crowded and loud in the metro). We eventually were able to get onto the train, but it was completely packed. April and Bill became separated and April, who was right against a central pole, became completely crushed and lodged against it after a few stops of a sea of more and more people fighting their way onto the train. All semblance of order and French politeness suddenly vanished in the panic for commuters to get home. Women were screaming for people to stop coming onto the train, everyone was sweating profusely, and April and Bill were very happy to emerge unscathed later near Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.

Bill dragged April at high speed down the packed street, becoming lost only once, and then right into the flagship store of Hermes. They looked at a few things in the three story high store that was just closing. Mostly, the spectacle lay in the tourists who were dropping Euros like the world was ending (95% Chinese we'd say).  Finally, we viewed all of the gorgeous scarves and not being able to decide between a scarf that looked almost Moroccan and a little twilly scarf with a pattern and colour scheme that looked very 1970s, Bill bought both of them for April and whisked her out of the side door and back into the blazing day.

Unfortunately, the weird metro problem was still happening and we were crushed back onto the metro, this time with Bill making sure he was right by April. There could not have been even one more person on that train back to our apartment. You didn't even have to hold onto a pole because you were wedged in so tightly that you could not have fallen over even if you had tried. It was far more packed and chaotic than anything we experienced in Japan. This was the seventh and final time we swiped our metro card that day.

At the apartment we had a cool shower to erase the sweaty metro embraces we had just experienced, packed, and then dressed in fancy clothes to go out to a nice restaurant recommended by our host, Eric. The place appealed to us right away because it specializes in seafood, La Mascotte (it's been around since the 1870s). We climbed the hill halfway up Montmartre to the restaurant in suit and silk gown and had a lovely dinner of duck pate with toast, escargot, mussels, fries, fish and chips, and molten chocolate cake with vanilla cream sauce. We reflected how the Impressionists that we had observed in the galleries might have been sitting around that same restaurant living it up back in the day (the successful ones at least).

We left the restaurant and walked up Montmartre further to Sacre-Coeur where we overlooked Paris at night, straining our necks for a view of the lit up Eiffel Tower (while avoiding the African merchants who were now shoving beer in our faces instead of miniature Eiffel Towers).  We saw the searchlight on top of the Eiffel Tower shining out over the night and all of the many lights of marvelous Paris twinkling. We returned home to sleep our last night in the City of Lights.

13.14 km walked today.

Sainte-Chapelle Cathedral

 

Outside Hermes' flagship store in Paris

The Moulin Rouge in Montmartre

Our fancy dinner called for fancy clothes

Oh look in the mirror behind April

Farewell Sacre-Coeur