8 Aout 13, 21h28, Tahiti, French Polynesia

Wow. What a fantastic day we had in Moorea!  We took the ferry across the ocean, even taking our rental car with us. The whole day cost us about $15.000 Pacific Frank’s, including our lunch at this really nice roadside Canadian restaurant, where I had my first crepe ever. Yummy!
Moorea is a beautiful little island, about an hour by large ferry from Tahiti. It is about 45 miles around the whole island, so one can easily take the 9:45 ferry and enjoy what the island has to offer before boarding back at 16:30 to head back to Tahiti. There are several nice beaches, and quite a few points of interest like Belvedere, which affords the viewer a spectacular sight from near the top of a mountain, looking down at two different bays from a high vantage point.  The little island is full of small villages, little traffic, and no real cities, which means a slower pace for the weary traveler.  We took our rental car from Tahiti on the boat, so we were able to drive around th island on our own instead of having to rely on a tour bus to get us around.

The beach we stopped at was right near the airport, and it was nice and quiet, with an immense amount of open sand beaches and a small amount of visitors. It was great. It took us about two hours to drive all the way around the island, with stopping at the beach and for lunch additional to that.

We returned on the boat and got to see a beautiful sunset over Moorea in the distance. One thing we have both noticed about this whole trip is the laid back lifestyle that everyone seems to have. We have traveled a lot, and in most places we have been, people are at some point rude. Not here. Everyone with whom we have dealt has been nice and cordial, truly appreciative of our tourism and business. Even today on the boat, there was none of the usual “sit down, don’t move, don’t get up, don’t go down to the cargo hold” that we would have expected and unfortunately received elsewhere. Today on the island, a couple asked me to photo them on the beach, and the way they asked, one could tell it was not a forgone conclusion that I would do so. I have also enjoyed watching the way that the French parents interact with their children, letting them be kids instead of wanting them to be adults, as well as letting them swim naked in the ocean if they want. Try that at home, and you would have the stupid social workers and child protective services on you. Ridiculous. Those two groups do way more harm than good by coming down hard on parents who actually make their kids mind and behave than doing something about the kids living in trailers without connected septic systems. Typical social worker bullshit.

But here, you have none of that. Amazingly, you don’t see kids acting badly. You don’t see homeless people everywhere. You don’t see beggars on every street corner. You see only the ocean, the .mountains, th a Palm trees, and the summer breeze, with happy kids and parents along the way.

It was a great day, but I am beginning to see that just about any day away from the US is a good day, with all that is going  on there right now. Might be a good time to become an ex-pat.