Tahiti Pictures
French Polynesia, South Pacific

Tahiti island seen from above Moorea island's best beach, Temae, northeast coast. Moorea's ring reef that runs all the way round the island, keeping inner waters calm, is clearly visible.

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Tahiti is a tired ex-paradise that’s well past its sell-by date, 100 years past it according to Gaugin who arrived for his second visit in 1900 and declared it too spoilt by civilisation even then. Big G immediately took off for the Marquesas Islands, where he died. Ironically the Gaugin museum is one of the best 'sights' on an island that is pretty short of exciting things to see.

Tahiti is expensive but has an international airport (Faaa) and frequent flights that arrive very late so many visitors have no choice but to stay a couple of nights en route to far more attractive Bora Bora, neighbouring Moorea or other lesser know islands.

Tahiti's 114km (72 mls) ring road, showing typical black sand beaches and moderate surf.

You can drive around Tahiti in four easy hours on a circular road running beside the sea, lined with tropical vegetation and little plasterboard bungalows, unexciting but pleasant, in spite of fairly constant traffic. En route you will come across rocky black sand beaches (with reasonable surf because there's little protective barrier reef on this island), and one or two anaemic sights - tall waterfalls and sea puffing lava tubes. The lagoonarium is especially knackered.

Best Tahiti weather: May, June, September, October. Tahiti and Moorea are warm and humid all year. The dry season is climatically the best, from May to October, but, July and August can get very busy.
Beware the November to April wet season. It may rain for an hour, it may rain for days on end, and even when it isn't raining the cloud cover, winds and choppy water make marine activities less attractive.

Tahiti's capital, Papeete

Papeete, Tahiti's capital, is car dominated and lacking in any kind of ethnic niceties or even decent architecture but does offer some excellent pricey restaurants and shops. With a large port (unseen, over to the left), dark, stony beaches and a lot of unprepossessing buildings it's hardly a beach paradise though there are some stunning and secluded hotels where it may seem that way.

The best thing about Papeete is the evening mobile kitchens set up in the main harbourside plaza and delivering quality food outdoors for a fair price, though no booze is served.

One of the back streets of Papeete. Nice people, pity about the shabby, sticky environment totally lacking in heavenly attributes.

Paul Gauguin, a French stockbroker, abandoned his wife, six children and Paris life in 1891 to sail to Tahiti and develop his passion for impressionistic painting. As it happened he also developed a passion for lithe and liberated Polynesian girls, painting them vividly and nakedly as well as interacting with them on a more physical plane, outraging French colonial society and ensuring that he would be an outcast on the island.

The Paul Gauguin Museum.

Gauguin particularly disliked Papeete, the capital (who doesn't?), and lived for two years on Tahiti's south coast. He then made a trip back to Paris, perhaps as a marketing exercise, perhaps because he tired of the tropical life but whatever the reason France didn't work for him second time around either so he returned to Tahiti in 1990.

Unfortunately civilisation had arrived in the meantime and the island was way too sophisticated and spoilt for him, so he sailed off to the Marquesas Islands where he died, penniless, in 1993. Gaugin's paintings are now worth many millions of dollars.

Tahiti's Gauguin Museum is user-friendly with a relaxed and varied collection of copies, artifacts from that era and stories about the G man.

Map of Tahiti and Moorea islands in French Polynesia. Moorea is much closer to most people's picture of a tropical paradise.

Some French Polynesia Downsides:

- traffic: all the islands experience different degrees of traffic noise around the usual circular coast road; even heavenly Bora Bora suffers from scooter whine.

- tropical islands see regular cloud and some rain due to the heat and humidity, so don't expect constant sunshine even in the dry season from May-October.

- the islands see a fair bit of thieving from hotel rooms, even in good resorts and Papeete's back streets can get dodgy after dark.

- mosquitoes will always be out looking for blood so prepare yourself. For outdoor patio life, i.e. having a drink outside your bungalow after dark, the old favourite mosquito coils can't be beaten by electronics and are for sale everywhere while inside mesh nets on windows, mosquito nets over beds or electric mozzie-mats are preferable (not available in Tahiti).

Sunset over Moorea island seen from a luxury hotel in Papeete, Tahiti; photo by Remi Jouan. Next, Moorea Pictures

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