Our ship approached Tahiti at dawn, with the island outlined in the rising sun. As we got closer, I could see that Papeete was a town of more significant size than any on the other islands. With a population of almost 26,000, it is French Polynesia’s capital and cultural center.
When spelling Tahitian words the use of apostrophes may indicate glottal stops, those slight pauses between some vowels similar to the tiny break between “Oh-oh!” in English. Moorea, for example, is pronounced Moh-oh-ray-ah, with a glottal stop between Moh and oh, and thus is often spelled Mo’orea. Likewise, you may see Papeete spelled Pape’ete, pronounced pah-pay-ay-tay. No vowels seem to be wasted or shared and no letter is ignored. But, in French Polynesia, French is the official language and it is a lovely and exotic sound coming from the mouths of these beautiful and friendly brown people. Everything is French…street signs, shopkeepers, menus at nice French bistros. And they even use a French Pacific Franc as the currency.
We visited the Marché de Papeete, the enclosed market with everything from exotic fruits, vegetables, fish and meats, to tropical flowers and handmade leis, island shirts, sarongs, shell and pearl jewelry, hand crafted ukuleles and the relaxing rhythms of Polynesian musicians.
We wandered around the bustling town and settled for lunch at a restaurant along the busy waterfront street, lined with hotels, shops, and cafes, the perfect place to watch the local color…young slim girls in short sundresses, college backpackers, and tourists with wide-brimmed hats.
And, it is impossible not to notice the widely accepted presence of a third gender, a prevalence of men here who live and dress as women. Known as rae-rae, they often wear makeup, pull their hair back in buns with a flower tucked behind one ear, sometimes wearing a dress or sarong and are, in some cases, indistinguishable from women. Though no longer practiced, it was historically a Tahitian tradition for families to raise one of their sons as a girl, and today rae-rae are a common subculture that may elicit a second glance from those otherwise unaccustomed to them.
We returned to Insignia to find the surprise of an arrangement of local exotic florals and fruit adorning our suite, a lingering reminder of the diversity and mystery of this tropical paradise.
Those are beautiful flowers!!!!
Look at those French Fries…….! Yummy. What a beautiful place.
Yep! Maybe they are Pommes Frites in Tahiti!?