Tahiti for less: Moorea

Did you know they speak French out here? It might make sense, I mean the country is called French Polynesia. It´s capital, Papeete, is whack. Spent a day there killing time and it was quite boring.Did you know its stupid expensive out here? That might make sense too, as all the tourists flock here and prices are inflated being a remote bunch of islands. And they really flock here in droves. And in style...like on the Queen Elizabeth II. Just so happened to see it docked at the Papeete ferry port while it was on its last voyage around the planet. Ok, enough of the rich cruise type stories. This is how a backpacker can enjoy Tahiti without splurging over $200 a night in some luxury bungaloo on the beach. Go to Moorea. Theres a place called Moorea Camping with hostel like dorms. As long as you dont mind taking a dump with cockroaches then youre an ideal candidate to come here. And its right on the beach...so sunsets like this are commonplace everyday. All that for $12 a night. Not bad at all. Still gota drop $15 for a hamburger but if you indulge in $7 baguettes all the time youre golden. Though at times there are some weird characters here. This guy reminded me of Dhahsim from Street Fighter. He´s been sitting here for 4 months meditating.

Transport though, is an issue out here. The le truck only runs in the morning when the ferry from Tahiti arrives. I will explain about le truck. Its really some local person who has a flatbed truck with a box and seats on back to make it look like a bus. Like this:And for $3 a ride it sure beats any $30 taxi. Met other backpackers from Jersey and Canada so we decided to tour the island of Moorea. Checked out Cooks Bay...think some famous explorer found this place. John Cook or something.

And right there, after a 2 hour walk in extreme heat, we found the Moorea Fruits de Jus factory a.k.a the pineapple juice factory. We rolled up in sweat and to our surprise...no more factory tours because of health safety reasons. Prolly didnt want a bunch of dirty backpackers in there or something. But they had a gift shop with free drink samples. Great. One of those rich old people tour groups came in while we were there. And I must say they were the rudest people on Earth. Not sure what shitty country they originated from but they were simply stuck up and rude. This old lady was yelling at the counter because she didnt like pineapples. Then why come you old fart? This other old guy literally decided he could shove me out of the way so he can walk in a straight line to buy a bar of pineapple soap. The whole lot of them had this Im better than you younger peons attitude. So you know what I did about it? As we walked down the narrow street from the factory their stupid rich tour bus was coming down the hill. I decided to walk in the middle of the street and not move an inch, wanting them to wait until I made it to the bottom of the hill. Unfortunately their driver was in this rush to get them back to their luxury cruise ship so all he could do was tap his breaks real hard until at the last moment after the bus slowed down I jumped out of its way. But I took solace in the fact that I gave 40 old pricks the seat belt check. Boy I wish I could have seen their limpy little necks stretch forward into the seat pocket in front of them. IF I ever end up like that someone please kick me. Old grumpy people who splurge retirement on luxury liners shouldnt act like pricks. And luxuiry liners shouldnt be landing on Moorea. Ever hear about sustainable tourism? Bring 3000 people on a boat and all they do is take a dump and occasionally buy something from the locals. Well do you think the local sewage system can handle all those craps? All that attitude? Id like to see them contribute more to the local economy other than docking ashore for 2 days and leaving crap behind. This problem is here and its in other places too, like Belize. Oh well. Now that we were at the end of the hill, there was no le truck running in the afternoon heat. I asked a lady how we can make it back to our hostel. Her response...walk to the end of the road and stick out your thumb. And she was serious. After walking a half hour, realizing it would be 3 more, we all put our thumbs out. Two cars later a friendly local dude pulled up and offered a ride to the other end of Moorea. We found out its the norm to hitchhike on Moorea because unless you have a car or moped youre not going anywhere. Nice dude too, and he offered a stay at his beach house his wife rents for 20,000CLP a week. Too bad I lost the number.

But its all worth it to come out here, budget or no budget. Cause you got beach views like this everyday:

One of these days out here happened to be Valentines Day. Spent it with my fellow backpackers at a creperie joint...interesting storyman Mike in the middle here and on the left the accountant kid from Jersey who quit his job too. We all enjoyed hot sunny Moorea together for a few days. Not bad.