Our 2nd Honeymoon in Paradise – A Day in Papeete

January 5, 2013 By Million Mile Secrets

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Papeete Roulottes — Daraius at Venus Point in Papeete

On our last day in French Polynesia, Daraius and I took the the ~$7 shuttle from the Hilton to Vaitape and then took the free Air Tahiti boat to the airport. This was about $90 cheaper than the direct airport transfer from the Hilton. The Hilton took our luggage to the airport for us on their boat and left it at the Hilton counter at the airport ready to be picked up by us.

After we arrived at the airport, we got some lunch, but missed getting the good seats on the right side of the plane.

The flight was short from Bora Bora to Papeete, Tahiti, and Daraius had booked a car through Avis since we had a 10 hour layover. We waited at the Avis counter for around 30 minutes since no one was at the counter, and we started inquiring with the other agencies (Hertz, Europcar, etc) on their rates and availability.

By then the Avis rep showed up so we continued with our reservation.

We drove to Cash and Carry, a big supermarket ~5 minutes drive from the airport.

We love browsing through foreign stores, but wondered how folks check out the bicycles before buying them!

Cash & Carry was like a regular supermarket and had an assortment of European and American goods together as well as lower prices on Tahitian local products and souvenirs. We stocked up on more souvenirs since the prices were so good. I’m a huge fan of the Monoi Tiki Tahiti body oils.

We then drove to the city market (marche municipal) and looked around.

It was a nice market but most of the shops had closed by the time we arrived.

We did get a few things to bring back that we didn’t find in the supermarket.

After that, we drove to Venus Point and watched the sunset.

There were lots of families laying by the beach, listening to music on the boomboxes, and playing soccer.

It was a gorgeous view with the sea and mountains. We also saw the lighthouse…

..and the memorial to the descendents of the HMS Bounty.

After Venus Point, we went to the outdoor food stalls, or roulottes.

…and checked out the menus of the various food trucks.

The food was reasonably priced at about 1,100 XOF (~$12) per entree, but was more expensive than I thought.

There were crepes…

And lots of food with Chinese and Asian food.

It was so nice seeing all of the families there with their children so excited to be eating out.

The place had a real community feel to it and there was lovely live music as well. To our surprise, we ran into blogger Bart Lapers at the roulottes!

Daraius decided on some fish curry and a fish kebab for dinner. I had some Powerbars waiting for me in the car since it was too risky for me to eat because of my fish allergy.

Most places had just one pan, fryer, or grill for cooking food and there was fish all over the menus, so the risk of cross contamination was high.

After dinner we drove back to the airport, sad that we couldn’t spend more time in French Polynesia.

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