travel - south pacific - french polynesia - d holmes chamberlin jr architect llc

travel south pacific french polynesia

In July of 2007, our boys and their families gave us money for a trip for our thirtieth anniversary... Lynn chose a cruise in the South Pacific.
We flew from Los Angeles to Papeete, Tahiti, where we boarded the Tahitian Princess for a 10 day cruise through French Polynesia and the Cook Islands.

Over a lifetime, I have developed a vision of what I expected a South Pacific island to be.
And, like my vision, the general landscape and people of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands are... beautiful.
However, to the frequent traveler, and especially type "A" personalities like me, life in the "laid back" tropics may not quite meet my visions.
Coming from an "all to with it" fast moving culture, I was not prepared for such an apparent lack of overt expression one might normally see in local art and architecture.
After leaving Papeete and getting to the smaller and quieter islands, my first impression was... where is the living Polynesian culture? Where are the people?

There was, what I call, a disquieting underlayment of 'Disneyesque' manufacture throughout the smaller islands...
It was sometimes hard to imagine people actually living here. The simple stucco homes we saw were mostly laid out along the perimeter roads near the water on most islands.
But, other than the tourist shops, fancy thatched-roof resorts, and local tours, local people living normal lives seemed somewhat invisible most of the time.
One gets the feeling that the whole existence of life on these islands is built around the tourist trade.

A true culture-seeking traveler apparently needs to work hard to find an unbeaten, unmanufactured, path to "real" life... and, most of the time, I didn't work hard enough.
With the compact size of most of the islands, these cultural treasures seem to be well hidden to the casual visitor who is herded from snorkeling, to motu, to viewpoint.
The two exceptions I found through my limited efforts were Papeete on Tahiti where I saw a more conventional, bustling, French style city...
and Fare on Huahine where I saw what appeared to be a normal small island town populated with real people.

The guides did tell us that, like many other places, the industrious young people tend to want to move to the big cities to pursue a more active life.
Maybe it's the period in history... maybe it's the "real" tropics... maybe the population and culture is really dying out... maybe only tourism holds it together...
If I ever return to the islands, it would be to make a concerted effort to spend more time away from tourists trying to meet the people on their own ground.
While I still consider this trip a great relaxing get-a-way, I still hungered for something I didn't find...
some true interaction with the culture... something that I usually find in my travels when I move under my own power... and outside the guided tour.
Maybe I was tired and just let the tropics and Princess Cruise Lines take over.

LINK TO WIKIPEDIA'S PAGE ON FRENCH POLYNESIA

TRAVEL: 2007

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page last revised august 2022