Taha’a - The vanilla island.

This is bora bora at 5 am. Which is about 5 hours earlier than any human being should ever be expected to wake up. I didn’t even know a world existed at 5 am. Why then was I awake at such an outlandish hour? Two words… ROAD TRIP!!!

Without the road, that is. Cuz yesterday I went to Taha’a, which is an island about 2 hours from bora and about 4 times as big. Dominique invited me to his native land during my days off this week, so, of course, I jumped at the opportunity and soon found myself on the boat headed south.



There were dolphins jumping all around us as we headed through the pass and out of bora’s lagoon. Our boat was small. Like those little hydrofoils going to haiphong, but smaller. And this thing shoots out at amazing speeds right into the south pacific, I don’t think those things are meant to go onto a full-fledged ocean. This boat was bobbing like crazy with the huge waves- it was like 90° vertical- ‘oooh sky’ and then back down 180° ‘ooh sea’ for about 2 hours.

Then I finally wobbled off the boat and arrived in Taha’a. And it is absolutely beautiful. Its like one huge park. They use flower bushes instead of fences there (which are stylishly underlined by barbed wire) On the outside of the road there is a line of neatly cut grass that goes all around the island, dotted by palms and other trees, and with benches about every 100 meters looking out onto the ocean. On the inside is and extremely thick rainforest that covers all the hills, mountains, and valleys of Taha’a. All around its got bays that cut deep into the island and lakes on either side of you.



Dominique let me borrow his scooter to go around the island. Yes, the same Dominique that gave me the bike from hell…so I was a bit suspicious. But I didn’t explode and wasn’t jettisoned onto a spikey rock quarry, so its all ok.

Once I turned off the motor for a bench break I realized that it is quiet. If you want peace relaxation then this is where you need to be. There’s hardly any cars or transport of any kind… no construction or noisy people, not even waves. Sometimes you’ll see a sailboat lazily exiting the bay, a pearl farmer diving into the water or a fisherman reeling in his catch.



A bit too peaceful. There’s 1 restaurant on the whole island. No bars, nightclubs are illegal, no tourists either. Ya. Good thing I’m only visiting. So I spent the day encircling the island on my scooter, slept at Dominique’s and oop, come 5am I’m awake again. Time to take the boat back to bora. Except Thursdays there is no shuttle- Thursday you go by cargo ship.



The Vae Anu- formerly from hamburg- comes once a week. Unloads all its goods from Tahiti, loads its 6 or 7 passangers, and goes on its way. For $10 you can get to bora bora. The highlight of my trip. Cargo ship is a great way to travel, not only cuz you get to lay on wooden planks for 2 hours while bobbing like crazy, but mainly cuz people that travel by cargo ship are cool. I met a 70 year old Hawaiian returning to bora bora after 40 years. Last time he was here there was only 1 hotel and 500m of road. 3 french students backpacking through the islands. A Chilean who’d been on the ship since Tahiti (two weeks) and started swaying when he got on land.