Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Papeete v. II

Papeete July 6th 1000 AM

I rode "le truck" downtown (these are flatbeds with seats and serve as the prolish transportation around the island)...fun....was deposited in a steamy Papeete near the market which I so remember from many years ago (though now it is rather sanitized and even boasts an escalator)....stopped in the RC cathedral to cool off (most underwhelming....it would disgrace a small town in Louisiana)...but like the spirit of the streets: people saying hello, people smiling though not stupidly (the Russians could never understand why we smiled all the time)...hot...not oppressive.....

More about the circle island business: the island is shaped like a schmoo which those of us old enough to have read Al Capp remember....essentially a little circle on top of a big circle with almost no neck (a copy of T. Williams' NO NECK MONSTER?)....one goes around the BIG circle...but ala Kauai there is no road around the little one. My driver, William, is a buddha shaped man (most men here have terrifically thick prolish ankles), a man who loathes the French, loathes the present government, loathes Tahiti (he is a native...father was a German jew, mother Tahitian and he said something about an irish admixture...typical of the flotsam and jetsam which prevails in this port. He adored Elvis Presley. The driver around the island is at times distressing (because it is shocking how little the French have done to enhance the scene: NO good museums, a kitschy privately owned aquarium etc)....there is literally nothing but nature and nice people and riots of flowers, at times so abundant that they look ever so slightly lascivious......still there are lovely stretches including the light house point (named Point Venus) where Cook landed....Lots of houses fly a blue flag which is the sign of the independence-from-France movement...and the French, who make up something like a 38% shortfall in the Tahitian budget, seem actively disliked by the masses. It is sad somehow because said masses have largely taken up a French persona....

One shops here madly for black pearls. I think that they are moderately pretty....prettier at least than a similar sized ball bearing. Isn't it curious how people seem fixated on buying local things here and there around the world which they then display with a bit of embarrassment? Think of all of those matrushka dolls from Russia (though I saw a wonderful Blessed Virgin Mother once who disgorged various stages in the development of the baby jesus)....think of all of those camel saddles from Morocco, alpaca odd wraps from Peru, third grade opals from Australia, petit point bags from Vienna and, perhaps the worst of horrors, those vile little Hummel figures from Deutschland... No French tourist leaves Tahiti without black pearls often displayed in slightly rather ugly settings.

I am sorry to prate on so much...but when one travels alone in a land where English is not spoken, I think one has a tendency to prate....and also, alas, to divigate!

I am liking my hotel more...it is about 15 minutes from town, a good distance (although Papeete has its moments) and the staff is very kind to me. The bar, all open air and playing that nasally Polynesian music with lots of amplification, is pleasant. The dining room is rather accomplished. Last night with a pichon of decent Rose I had a cerviche (or whatever the name for that dish is in Polynesian), a magret of duck cooked wonderfully with grapefruit (I ordered it because I love to say pampelmouse).

A few things here ARE distressing: There is an accomplished tourist center built in pre-European-like buildings (rather ala R. Crusoe) with a lovely staff....but what IS sad to me is that they have so little to talk about other than what is in the water (a life time of study albeit), flowers (another life's work) and the like. Where is the so-called "human culture?" Papeete is about on the level of Malvern, Arkansas when it comes to glorifying human beings and what is sad is that the Polynesian is SUCH an interesting person! Those people who apparently spilled out of SE China and Taiwan in prehistory came LATE to Tahiti....they were almost a THOUSAND years earlier in the Marquesas, the islands I leave for tomorrow which are only 800 miles away. The language utterly beguiles in my opinion and, a bit like Serbo Croat, it seems remarkably easy! The locals have a finely developed sense of color, of carriage, of design at least in simple things. OH there needs to badly to be one of those Canadian-like museums of the common man here! Perhaps the French are too haughty. Perhaps their own manifest destiny precludes such an idea?
Should someone come to Tahiti? At least to the specific ISLAND of Tahiti?
Perhaps.

This is not a resounding affirmation I realize and perhaps by the time it is all over I will do a big volte-face... I know that Tahiti is NOT Polynesia but it is where I am now....and it ain't half bad.

FRED

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