posted 12-07-2001 06:50 PM            

I havent even gotten my journal entries typed out hardly at all, but heres the first four days or so. I had planned on adding stuff after I saw the photos, but right now there's just no time. Aloha-Toby.

The story thus far:

November 18, 2001

Okay, so Thanksgiving dinner came and went unnoticed and unmentioned, somewhere here in this trip, and tonight us dining at a table with a pair of Japanese Newlyweds in a French Territory, it never crosses my mind. (I’m going to have to look up Thanksgiving’s date as I don’t know it, but I don’t recall any mention of it at all. Apparently it wasn’t that important to us, and I’m certain the French couldn’t care when a handful of dislodged British upstarts began eating turkeys with stuffing and cranberry sauce.) The flight had been uneventful, as was to be expected- on my part a lot of anxiety wasted on a smooth flight and a perfect landing. But I suppose that’s to be expected also, given the way my last flight to Papaette had ended- in the ocean with us wearing life vests and going down the slide, at 2:15 in the morning on Christmas eve day.
We touched down on the runway at Faaa, Tahiti- French Polynesia- at around 12:15, and I silently cheered at the sound of the last set of wheels hitting the Tarmac. I stretched my back and had my cameras and gear out of the overhead seconds after the plane came to a complete stop. I was pretty well rested and ready to get out of the confinement of the plane- I’d had a whole row of seats to myself and so lay down and cat-napped fitfully for a couple hours on the way over- after the in flight meal of Bad Ravioli and soda, of course. I don’t really remember what the movie was, coming over or going back- I was busy trying to sleep and to not think disastrous thoughts- that was the game plan and I stuck to it for the most part, only straying here and there to look out the window and be sure the engines were still fastened securely to the wings.
We checked into the Sheraton at Papaette around 2am, and I slept like a stone. I awoke at 6am with the mother of all sinus headaches- likely the nasty side effect of the half a valium I ate before boarding the plane to ward off any pesky anxieties and as it turned out a “just in case” measure. I traveled the rest of the trip with the balance of the sedatives safely tucked away in my bag- though I did have a couple Hinanos prior to take-off on my way back. I suppose one measure’s as bad as the other, but the Hinano’s don’t make me look like such a Nancy and so I prefer them, of course.
With my hand massaging my eyes and nose I stumbled directly to the restaurant and downed a pot of coffee, put it on my room tab and got out my cameras and shot a couple rolls of film before the girls got up. To my recollection I got a couple shots of a platter of Hibiscus a Tahitian man was putting together from the bushes around the hotel, apparently for dining table center pieces. Also I got a shack out in the middle of the bay, and maybe some cruise ships? I don’t remember exactly. Oh- and myself in a window reflection, some of the Sheraton’s architecture, and some vespas and a street off of a bridge in front of the Hotel.
Last time I was in Tahiti was the Christmas before, and after our plane skidded to a stop in the soft mud of the bay (taking out the fence and lights at the end of the runway in the process) most of my cameras and equipment were locked up tight at the airport for the balance of the trip. So it was kind of a nice luxury to have the whole arsenal at my fingertips. Still, it would have been great to have some two-wheeled transportation to shoot anything really great in and around Faaa and the outlying areas Papaette, as there isn’t much parking and traffic moves too fast to let you get off a decent shot on the fly. There’s really no place to stop on the treacherous little third world highways, and it’s hit or miss shooting anything at all from the confines of a moving cab. So I stuck with my Macro shots of the flowers and my street shots, knowing that I’d get some time in the heart of the city towards the end of the trip.

After breakfast we headed back to the airport and caught our flight out to Moorea, just across the bay and only an eight or ten-minute flight in the tiny Twin Otter, which seats about 22 and you can watch the pilot at work from just over his shoulder. We landed in Moorea at around 10:30, and caught a cab to the hotel in a Cab. The cab driver was a woman, and she explained to us that a couple hotels were closing soon for renovations, one (ours) leaving 140 local people looking for work for the duration of the project, about 18 months. She had the usual “bombai” or “soon come” attitude of local Polynesians throughout the Pacific, and seemed to be just taking everything in stride. It was no small thing, that- especially right before Christmas.

We arrived at Club Med Moorea right before lunch, and after we checked in and ate I went off and rented a bike. At the bike rental I ran into a friend from my last trip here, a Rasta about my age named “Matu” (Mathew, I think.) He had driven us into the backcountry in a big 4x Toyota defender, and took us to some waterfalls and showed us the pineapple farms and the Vanilla plantations, and a few other things, including a world-class surf spot called “Teha”. Matu was born in France but raised in Tahiti. His family moved back to France, but he tried to live there and just couldn’t take it- so he moved back to Tahiti, where he now lives with his wife and baby. He also is going to be out of work when Club Med closes, but he didn’t seem terribly worried about it, though I don’t know if he’s got something lined up or is just taking it all in stride. He’ll get by was his basic attitude. He lined me out a bit on surfing here, though I have yet to bring a board. There’s so much to do, and boards are tough to travel with. Anyhow, he asked me if I was here to surf, and I told him no, and he said again that if I ever came over to surf, he’d take care of me. He also said that he’d lost my email and address, so I gave him my card again and we talked a bit and then went on our ways. It was nice of him to remember, as we hadn’t spent that much time together last time- just an afternoon- but he was such a nice guy that I’d given him my card and told him the usual “if you ever get to Kona…” and we gave him a pound of Kona Coffee we’d brought along for a gift.
While the girls slept I went on a small adventure South, and got some pictures of a horse pastured under some coconut trees, a rotisserie chicken truck, and a bunch of Pareos in front of a shop. I then rode back to the hotel and shot this little aqueduct that I had shot last time, only this time with a variety of filters to mess with. It’s a little unnerving to come up on a spot like the aqueduct, and for just a moment before you come up the ground crawls with Land Crabs and then it’s all still as they’re out of sight within their holes. They’re perfectly harmless, but it’s still a little creepy until you get used to it. I also suspect that they’re a bunch of little cannibals, as I often see them in parts and pieces around their holes- but that’s just a guess, and I don’t want to slander the little fellows. Could be cats and dogs just as easily.
Got “dressed” for dinner, which is a fun change and something different for me. Had a beer at dinner and slept soundly, probably from a combination of being travel weary and the beer with dinner.

November 19

Woke at 5am and went jogging. There’s no time difference between Tahiti and Hawaii, so I woke at my usual time, unfortunately. I always seem to, no matter how late I’m up. Oh well. I ran south, and after a mile or so a local guy pulls out of a driveway on an old bike. He smiled over at me and said “Bonjour.” And I bonjour’ed him back, and gave him a wave. As we went along I found that he was pacing off of me, and I pushed myself to keep up. I think maybe he knew I was doing my best to keep up, because he slowly brought the speed up, little by little over the course of the mile. I just kept on, pushing on. I’d say it was around a mile before I had to finally let up, and I looked over at him, and he at me, and we both had a good laugh and he flashed me a shaka and rode off ahead of me, as I jogged behind, laughing to myself.
I don’t think that a lot of people jog here. People looked at me kind of funny, and the kids in the street waiting for school gave me some strange looks. I guess in a place where shoes are a luxury and where cars often times run bikes or even other cars off of the road as seemingly a matter of course, jogging would be pretty much elective, at best. But I kept up my jogging exactly one day while on vacation, the balance of the time my jogging shoes kept my long pants company in the suitcase. It was shorts and flip-flops for the balance of the trip, and my exercise regimen fell completely by the wayside, only to be replaced by a steady diet of good food and Hinano beer. I did swim and ride bike diligently, and managed to not turn into a blimp of a man over the course of the two-week visit, but still I felt a little guilt for not trying harder. But that’s what vacations are all about I suppose- a good time to break the rules a little and remember how to relax, for at least a bit.
I jogged twenty minutes south of town, and as I ran I could hear the surf pounding relentlessly across the barrier reef a half-mile or so out across the front of the island. The sun wasn’t yet over the mountain when I turned around and headed back, and the emerald cliffs towered dark above me as I ran, the lush vegetation making me wonder about mosquitoes and Dengue Fever and I quickened my pace a bit just in case. It was a really cool run, probably one of my most memorable to date, just because of how beautiful the island is. On the way through town I passed little pods of stores and cafes, and groups of people on the street, baguettes and the daily issue of “Le Figaro” under their arms, and it was all very European in a Polynesian sort of way.
By the time I got back to the club it was still only 6:20, and breakfast doesn’t begin until 7:30, so I got a quick swim in to make up for missing my thrice weekly gym workout, and then had a hot shower.
Breakfast was Okay- the quality of food and service is fast deteriorating as we near the final days of the Club Med Moorea. They cant be blamed, though- the staff that is. They’ll soon be out of work, and the best of the staff are probably already gone, and as far as I can tell a couple people are standing in due to the fact that there’s no general manager that I’ve seen. Everyone who’s left is just kind of hanging in there, and I figure they’re doing pretty well. There’s an air of defeat around the sparsely populated hotel common areas, and the lounge reminds me of Sydney Schanberg’s descriptions of the Hotel Phnom shortly before the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps not quite that morbid in defeat- but defeat was definitely in the air.
I sat at a table with some French people who live in San Francisco, which is good because I have this knack for picking tables where no one speaks the same language, and we eat in this uncomfortable silence, occasionally glancing up at each other and smiling, talking quietly amongst ourselves. So yeah- it’s better when we all speak a common language. It’s frustrating because it seems a lot of the Europeans speak French and German, Italian and English, while we struggle along with Spanish at best. I have a pretty good grasp at Japanese, so one night I sat at a table with a Japanese couple, and that was fun. It was also good to speak another language, just because I’d hate for the Europeans to think we’re all terribly undereducated. As far as I could tell, none of the Europeans had much of a grasp for Japanese. Luckily though, most of the Japanese have a grasp of English, because our conversations are stilted and concise if it’s just up to me.
As I walked back from the dining hall I saw a local guy picking flowers for dining table centerpieces. He had a pareo on and a topknot in his hair, a load of multicolored Hibiscus in his arms, and the morning sun was perfect glancing across him and casting shadows on half of his features. I jogged back to the cabin and grabbed my camera with the telephoto lense, but when I got back there he was gone. This is a recurring theme with me, and as the trip progressed I became more and more adamant about having my cameras with me- every time I left them home I missed some really good shots. The best would probably have been the kitten in the dining hall, reaching its paw down to the water of the lily pond, creating little ripples. It was awfully cute and the textures of the concrete and stucco were really good for portraiture, but oh well. I resigned myself to chasing kittens around the whole rest of the trip, trying to make up for it.

Around ten we took Veronica down to the ski dock and we signed up to go water-skiing. The guys that ran the ski venture were two local guys, Teiva and another guy that never gave me his name. The guys were bros, and once they found that we were here from Hawaii, we kind of bonded together, in a detached sort of way. They loved Veronica, just her tenacity and spirit, and she became their protégé. They gave her instruction and told her exactly how to get up and how to stand, and then when her turn came up she popped. She fell a couple of times, just until she got a feel for it, and then the rest of the day she did 4 perfect runs, falling only on the last one I think because she was tired. I don’t think the Ski guys are used to kids who take instruction so well, but she’s been through Modeling school and dance class, music class and Karate, and I think she’s just figured out that if you listen and follow instructions, things usually work out pretty OK. At any rate, they seemed to really like her and we skied daily the entire rest of the Moorea leg of the trip.
After skiing all afternoon we took naps- I drank a couple Hinanos and messed with my cameras while everyone else napped, and then by two I was out cold myself while they all spent the rest of the day skiing. Before dinner we played scrabble and then at 6:15 went to cocktails, which is another fun, different thing. A lot of the euros go to cocktails at 6:15 and then straight to dinner form there at 7:30. I had to watch myself because I can get fairly sloshed in an hour and fifteen minutes, especially with the ready supply of drinks at hand. Again, it’s fun to “dress” for dinner, and everyone kind of “checks you out” at cocktails as if you’re going to be their competition later in the nightclub. Doubtful. After dinner it’s 8:30 and I’m way ready for bed.

Tuesday, November 20.
Woke at 4:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I grabbed my cameras and rode my bike North about 45 minutes, to the bay just south of Cooks Bay. The island was just beginning to wake, and people were getting out a little, though there was scant traffic on the road at this time. I saw quite a few people out paddling their wood canoes, assumably checking nets or traps, getting breakfast or an early start on the days work. In the outer islands (outside of Tahiti proper) a lot of people wear Pareos as a daily part of their attire, and it’s attractive and colorful. Very foreign to me, but so simple I adopt it for most of the trip myself, except when I’m out riding the bike. Funny, in Moorea it’s really common that everyone wears pareos, but on Bora it was more Board shorts and T-shirts. Bora has more of a reputation as a tourist spot, and I would think it’d be the other way around. On either island, though, it’s either Pareos or Cheap shorts and tops. I don’t know much about the economy here, but I’d say that there isn’t a ton of money around.
I got back to the club at around six am, and took a long swim around the point and then showered before breakfast. Then wrote a bit before we left for the dining hall, and thought some about the merits of travel and leaving ones problems far away at home.

Teiva (one of the ski guys) says that when club med Moorea closes he’s hopeful that he’ll be relocating to the Club Med on his home island of Bora Bora. He’s introspective about it, and doesn’t really seem that bummed. He’s waiting on the outcome of a meeting somewhere far away as to whether he teaches sailing at Bora Bora, teaches skiing at Club Med Mauritius, or is just plain out of work. He apparently isn’t super worried about it. I went walking for an hour or so this morning, just tripping around with my cameras. A Tahitian bus driver was bottle-feeding his baby and he let me get off a couple pictures. I’ve found that a whole lot of “aloha” exists amongst the local people. There are some horrible, obnoxious tourists that come here, just pushy and rude- and the Tahitians and even the French don’t seem to judge us too harshly in light of that. They seem to understand that we too must endure these people, and I try doubly hard to be on my best behavior when abroad, in hopes of making amends for those “other” Americans.
When we finished skiing today I hung out and talked with the Teiva a bit. Both of the guys that run the ski concession have spent vacation time in Oahu, shopping of course. There’s a sort of camaraderie amongst us because Hawaii’s kind of there sister Island, I guess, and because of the many shared similarities in our cultures. Anyhow, I told him thanks for treating us so well, and especially for Veronica who just loved them, and he just shook my hand (in the full on Bro handshake, which is all time here) and said “Mahalo nui loa, right?” And I just laughed and said “Yeah- Mahalo nui loa.” I was pretty flattered that he’d made the effort. It was a cool exchange and they were truly nice guys.
After lunch I rode my bike south with the hope of quickly getting through the stuff I’d seen last trip so I could see some new terrain. I stopped at the freshwater stream that I shot last year and walked on the beach some. Last year I’d had to kind of sneak by some farm workers that were clearing a banana patch next to the stream- they were just finishing up clearing the lot, I’d assumed for building or planting a crop. This time the lot was all grown back with weeds and scrub bushes, and nothing had been done with it at all. The erosion into the stream was pretty apparent and had changed the hillside and the course of the stream.
I walked towards the water as far as I could and shot back at the beach and the mountains. Last trip I had been way to apprehensive about where I could and couldn’t be. It seems you can go just about anywhere in French Polynesia without getting in too much trouble. People just don’t seem to be as territorial or possessive about land like they can be elsewhere. I also got some pretty mundane pictures of birds on rocks. Hopefully the black and white stuff will turn out nice.
I rode the bike further and shot a section of road with some trees hanging over it. A Tahitian girl rode by on her bike and I smiled and gave her a wave. She smiled and waved back. A smile goes a long way to opening a freindship here. I think that the local people sometimes get a little burnt by the French tourists, perhaps, and are pleasantly surprised to see you wave and say “bon jour”, because they really seem happy about the exchange, and very receptive to friendship. It’s pretty refreshing for me, really, as I’m so burned out on humanity that it’s nice to see some kindness that just transcends everything.
I rode into a town that I thought was Hapiti (because that’s what the sign said) but it turns out the whole coast is Hapiti so I really have no idea where I was, except at the beginning of Hapiti. The kids were just getting out of school, I think, and these huge Tahitian man and women were escorting them across the road from the soccer field to the school proper. They’re beautiful people, and the kids are adorable. Kids are always beautiful, but Tahitian kids are even more so, if that’s possible- and the school site backdropped by lush green mountains nearly caused me to have sensory overload, and I badly wanted to shoot a picture of the whole scene but I was on my bike and past them before I knew it. You have to pay attention to your biking in Polynesia or you can find yourself run off the road by a fast moving baguette or rotisserie chicken truck. Drivers in French Polynesia don’t have a whole lot of respect for bikes, though they do seem to give pedestrians a bit of deference. I’d get burned out on bicycling tourists blocking the road, I suppose- but sometimes it seems they aim for you even when you’re on the side. Anyhow, I could’ve kept going forever on this little bike trip, and probably would have if I’d been astute enough to take some extra film. I ended the day shooting black and white, and turned around just past the Hapiti sign, right in front of the church where I figured out I was out of color film. Too bad, too, because I had kind of earmarked a couple spots to shoot on the way back when the sun was lower, and I never did get a chance to snap off those shots. Oh well- I suppose there can always be a next time.

This morning I had smelled a lot of wood smoke, and hadn’t thought much more than what a great smell that is. I didn’t think much of it at all until this afternoon when I was out biking and saw an underground cable being dug in and I started scrutinizing living conditions a bit more. A lot of homes here are really no more than four walls and a roof, and I think power is purely elective here on Moorea. I’ve looked into a lot of windows (unobtrusively and from the road, of course) and there are a lot of one room places with four or five beds in the living room, and then the kitchen’s on the porch. The funny thing is that there’s also a lot of wide screen TVs and satellite dishes on the very same houses. Priorities. I noticed on Bora Bore- shoes are a luxury but nearly everyone has a cell phone, and I suspect that before Cellular technology most people used the public phones or phoned from a central location somewhere. It’s odd though, to see a very local local person in bare feet and Pareo, selling fruit or fish having to answer the little musical chime of the cell phone. Strange dichotomy.
Anyhow, I think a lot of homes are heated with wood smoke (though you’re probably saying “Heat?!!why heat?”) It gets chilly on a person in the morning, especially if you just dress for the heat, which it seems most people do. You don’t see a lot of jackets or sweaters around here. From what I’ve seen I think a lot of the island is living below what we’d call a “middle class” economy (maybe just lower middle class, by Hawaii standards). I think the balance of the population would be considered (by mainland social workers) to live below the poverty level, yet it seems that they just don’t need as much, and don’t use as much, and that’s just how you live here. Most people seem healthy and happy, though a lot of people smoke. The living conditions vary from very clean and neat to squalid, but for the most part things are pretty OK, I think. It’s just strange for me to see people living with so little- by these standards we don’t even have any poverty in Hawaii.
But despite all of this, when I smile and say bon jour or ioarana it seems most local people want to drop what they’re doing and chat for a while, about life and the family, rather than go about their daily business. I find that endearing and have fallen in love with the people and their culture quickly, and can only wish to posses such a great outlook on life someday.

Wednesday, November 21st.
I awoke to the sound of thunder- how far off I sat and wondered. Weather is a little different here than in Hawaii. The storms are a little more frequent, the thunderheads a little closer to shore. This makes for breathtaking sunsets and devastating hurricanes. The rain is tapping out a staccato on the roof, probably my favorite percussion ever. The yellow foot birds are out there on the porch, diligent as ever, begging bread. I shot some stills of Veronica lying in bed in really low light, just shadows really, nearly monochromatic. She’s so easy to photograph, I know at least some of my pictures will be a success. I also shoot my yellow flip-flops on the rainy porch- zen self portrait, I suppose. I switch my film to 800 as it’s rainy and gray out, and the light’s going to be pretty dim, and I put 400 black and white in my old Nikon.
The rain taps out a symphony on our little roof, building and building to a crescendo and then receding again, mesmerizing. I’m thinking of taking an umbrella and venturing out. We’ll have to see.

I went and posted e-mails on the internet and bought a couple of Pareos. The pareos are so pretty I can’t hardly resist. I wish we wore them at home, as they’re way more comfy than trunks, and way more stylish. I wanted to take some panning shots of vespas cruising through the town center, but the right Vespas never did come along, though I sat there waiting for the longest time. I took a half dozen shots anyhow- filtered and unfiltered, color and B&W. Then I went and sat in a café and drank espresso, waiting still for something really interesting to come up. Nothing ever did. That’s life- if I left the cameras on my bed back in the cabin, I’m sure I would’ve seen any number of interesting things going on. I got back to the club just ahead of another rain, and was shooting the water lilies in their pond when I had to run for cover ahead of a downpour. I hope some of my pictures turn out. I’ve found that the last time I was here I used up all of the easy stuff, and the season was maybe a little better as far as light is concerned, and I just hope it isn’t all going to be dingy and gray. I’m having to use my imagination, I suppose, to come up with better stuff now.

Okay- this’ll be a brief aside here, because I don’t know if this belongs in here or not. I’ve kept my personal/emotional issues out of my writing for the most part for a while here, because I was perpetuating some stuff inside of me (in my writing and in my mind) that didn’t really give me that great of a future- I was dwelling in a bad place, I guess. But this isn’t about that at all, but it’s certainly not “Travel commentary” either.
Okay- I do a lot of people watching, especially when I travel. I could live without TV forever- the world is my TV, and I watch people all of the time. I find them funny and stupid and sometimes funny and brilliant, and I like to see what they do and how they react and interact. Anyhow, from this, I found that my belief is that the “Help” (the white euro upper echelon “help”, not the local hands on labor help, though this is pretty much about “hands on” anyhow)- that they “service” the single customers, if the customer doesn’t hook up with someone and seem to be not having a good time because of that. Maybe sometimes, some of the more opportunist of the help jump the gun a bit and hook up with the really good looking customers before any of the other customers get the chance. Ande maybe sometimes they have to draw straws or something to see who gets the homely one, but they always seem to be enthusiastic about it. I saw this one young French guy that entertained this forty something lady all week, and although she was clean and sharply dressed, she looked like she’d done a ton of coke, and most of the time she was drinking at the bar. She had some really hard miles on her, but this young guy stuck with her and made sure she was all taken care of. And I saw a couple girls come in and register and the male help circled like sharks, sniffing the air and getting a reading. It was kind of embarrassing. The funny thing is, I saw at Moorea one of the male staff hit on my wife (with me right there, no less-shameless). But at Bora Bora, the male staff only hit on me. I found that hilarious, and when we were at Moorea I had told my wife Lisa that “See? You’ve still got it.” But at Bora I was all “See? I’ve still got it!” and laughing. It was all in fun, and it was funny- I’m at a point in my life where that stuff doesn’t hurt my little ego so much like it did when I was younger.
Anyhow, this one GO (or club employee) had his eye on Lisa. We had all gone water-skiing on Monday. My daughter Veronica loved it so much that on Tuesday we did it again, only in the afternoon I begged off and went walkabout, shooting photos, and then had a nap. Apparently this guy (his name’s Marco, a Brazillian- but I like to refer to him as Rico Suave) had showed up to help out at the ski concession, and it seemed he took a real liking to Lisa. You know, I understand how stuff works, and it’s all in sport, I suppose- though she did have Veronica with her and a huge diamond ring I gave her (okay- not huge but fairly noticeable ) and a wedding band- but he was still pretty persistant.
Now I didn’t know any of this, and at the end of the day I showed up to watch the girls ski, and as we were showering down by the beach the guy was carrying a ski off and heading home, and I said “Thanks, eh?” like I do, just thanks for taking care of my family and thanks for letting us ski- whatever- and he just turned and gave me this really blank look and turned his back to me, and I was like “Whatever.” I took it a little personally, but sometimes I don’t speak clearly, and I thought “maybe this guy doesn’t have a firm grasp of the language”, and so I wrote it off as a misunderstanding and forgot about it for the most part.
Then the next morning I saw the guy again-I was with the girls-and I always try to be a good guy and I just gave him a nod and said “Hi.” And he did the same thing, and then waved to the girls and gave them this big smile.
Then at the dock that afternoon (we only skied for four days, but my daughter was pretty hooked, and if there was skiing at Bora we probably would’ve had a big row over whether we ski or do other stuff.) it happened again- He showed up and I was now a little leery of him but still gave him the nod and said “What’s up?” and he just ignored me and went over to Lisa and Veronica and was all “Ohhhh Veronica.” In a nice enough way but I was about over being burnt by this guy, and just losing face all over the place. But in my head I knew that at first he had had no idea originally that I was with them, and he had had designs on Lisa at that time. So he was just kinda burnt himself- and he didn’t even know how bad he could’ve been burnt. Lisa and I laughed some while drinking wine down at the beach (They give you tons of wine here- to keep the masses sedate, I suppose) when I said that he had no idea what a big nut he was hitting on, and how big a psycho her husband is (and he was awfully lucky, really- back a ways I was pretty jealous and fairly quick to throw blows.). I didn’t say it in a bad way, and it came out better then than it does on paper- it looks kinda harsh here, but it wasn’t. The way things have been these last months it was just kind of endearing ala the adams family, I suppose. I told her that “Yeah- she’s still got it.”-but really he was a little short for her (in all fairness he was a pretty good looking guy and pretty smooth- though a little pretty.) Anyhow- wonderful judgement on his part- he’s lucky they didn’t find him off floating somewhere.
But the rest of the guys at the ski dock were real gentkemen and jkust the biggest bros ever, and they took such good care of us.
(I guess I should add that during a performance Rico Suave was in at the theater, he was trying embarrassingly hard to make eye contact with Lisa, and I’d had a few Hinanos, she wine- and I finally just smiled and scratched my eye with my middle finger, obviously giving him the finger until he looked over again. I just smiled and gave him the nod, and he kind of wilted and left us alone the rest of the trip. I’m pretty mature and grown up like that sometimes. Lisa and I may have had our ups and down, and probably still will- but to do that when the husband is there is kind of a low class stunt, and one just must sometimes do stupid stuff.)

Got one last run in at the ski dock and said our goodbyes. Gave Teiva a couple cards and extended the standard invitation “If you’re ever on the big Island…” We always have people coming from all over because of that. Life’s too short, and you cant have too many friends. Shot a few more photos, took care of my room charges, checked out and caught the cab to the airport.
Our plane got delayed for an hour or so, so we sat around the Moorea airport for a while. The Air Tahiti lady gave me these boarding passes good for drinks at the bar, and I boosted my ever present pre-flight stress level with more espresso. “A cup of angst, please.”
The Moorea airport has chickens and dogs milling around in it, and local people sit there all day and talk story back and forth across the walkways. The smell of av-gas inundates the place every time a plane takes off or lands, and when you’re standing in the bathroom at the urinal you can look out the door and see all kinds of people sitting there. Strange. Just stuff I noticed.

posted 12-07-2001 07:01 PM            

There were cats everywhere. I missed a couple really good cat shots because my cameras were in the room, so I spent the balance of the trip chasing cats around french polynesia and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to get them to be cute or do something funny or pose or whatever. In typical cat fashion, they refused for the most part to cooperate.


I woke up pretty much around 5 throughout the trip- my usual time to go to work. So i just got up and drank coffee out on the beach, watching the sunrise. The help got to know me wherever we stayd because no one else was stupid enough to be up that early. The light was best in the morning. by the second or third day the help would call out "iaorana" and I'd reply in kind, and we were just the same, them and I. I always fit in better with the help, no matter where I end up.

This guy was catching an Air Tahiti flight to work. You cant really see it, but his other leg has a killer stripe down the back about an inch+ wide, Tahitian style, and then an ankle band. I wish the resolution was better, because you can just make out what a killer tattoo it is in the still.

I'm stuck inside and it's dumping rain, so I shot a series of my wife and daughter that came out outstanding, and then when they got sick of me pointing cameras at them resorted to shooting my shoes.


I was shooting this sunset and it was pretty mundane, even with the color filters. Then as I was just giving up and walking away, I noticed Lie and Koji, these two Japanese newlyweds that I met later, sitting on a bench. I really quick shot these and a couple others. In the orange one they kiss, but the lights a little muddy and I dont know if you can see it.

There were just flies everywhere her. I'll have to post a wide angle view. This was an open air market in papaette, Tahiti- in the heart of the city. Pretty much ghetto in parts, but downtown was your typical just above third world city epicenter. The lady sitting there is half heartedly waving a palm frond at the flies, which are just buzzing all over. This is where the fishmarkets are, and then there's just miles of fresh vegetables, and then baskets and cloth and textile stuff. Upstairs there's catwalks (perfect for shooting stills) and on the sides upstairs there are booths selling pareos, ukeleles,handmade jewelry, little touristy knicknacks and bottles of raw vanilla, coconut oil- the bottles are like quart liquor bottles, but it's pretty cheap. I have like 30 good stills from this market- I couldn't really go wrong. I could've given my camera to a monkey and they'd of still come out. The subject was killer. I was in full on sensory overload mode. I went back again the next day, but only half the stuff was there because it was a weekend.

At noon most everyone in retail goes off and gets soused at lunch, drinking wine and eating bread. Then they beg off til two and open back up. Nice work schedule- I got right into the groove and hit the bottle with em- the french are a bunch of lushes. So anyhow, the streets are just frigging chaos, and pedestrians beware- they're friggen nuts drivers. Anyhow- then after two it's just a ghost town, the streets are pretty much deserted and then all of the cafes are full. You get soused and then drink espresso to sober up and go back to work. I was speedballing Hinanos and espressos the entire trip. It was fun and different, but I'd die young at that pace. Before the trip was through I was already over it.



The Vespa Worship Center.

posted 12-08-2001 02:12 AM            

Okay- I guess I left this little page out, because it was kinda negative- but I'm really against not saying what I mean, and what I'm thinking, mostly- and so after seeing the page go by a couple times I figured maybe I should expound on it a little. Anyhow- I really have found i dont like Americans very much, especially when I'm abroad. I mean, yeah- there's a bunch of really cool people that I like in America, but it really amounts to this tiny little part of the population, and the more I see of the bulk of the American public, the less I like them. Running a close second is white people in general, but I think maybe I could save that for another time. The example that is closest at hand would be this guy I saw at the bar in Moorea. Now I realise that this is club med, and that a lot of morons are going to congregate here, just because it is what it is and they are what they are. If I were a pushy, nasty, obnoxious, whiny dork (I guess this is assuming a lot here, but I'm hoping I'm not) the last place I'd want to be is abroad where people like that are already vulnerable. I mean, some people find Americans abroad to be an easy target, just because they're Americans. Anyhow- I was getting a couple bottles of water from the bar at Moorea and I was like third or forth in line, and this guy is at the bar, polyester slacks and topsiders, and a bad beige wannabe mai-tai shirt (the only real mai-tai shirt must be splashed with color as if the artist went to magaritaville, drank Tequila and plastisol and then puked day-glo hibiscus and hula girls, IMHO). Anyhow, this guy clearly orders a maitai and a coke. When the bartender a minute later asks him if he'd said a mai tai (with a french accent, mind you- but not unintelligible) the American guy just holds up his menu and points at a Pina Colada and says, really loud (as if saying it louder will make someone who doesn't speak the language understand more clearly?) "I said, a PI-NA CO-LA-DA AND A COKE!" I see the french bartender recognize this gent as the complete asshole that he really is, and he smiles and says "Oh- I'm sorry- I thought you said Mai Tai." The aamerican guy mumbles some shit under his breath and looks to me for empathy. I just turn my head because I cant stand most people no matter what their nationality, but I found this guy doubly lame because I get lumped together with him as an "American" (note: I'm not ashamed or proud of my nationality- I didnt have much to do with it and take no credit or blame- and for the record I'm Swedish-scottish and Irish American, I suppose.) the bartender mixes up the Maitai and sets it before the guy, and then produces the coke with a flourish and tells him gently, "Coca Cola- Made in America." I stifle a laugh as the bartender is such a good guy that he never really does do anything to harm the guy, yet makes him lose face just the same. He just winks at me, even though he knows full well I'm american, and goes on serving his customers. I walk away laughing to myself, and making a mental note to not order typically American stuff til I get home. In fact, it even got me to try some really gnarly looking local dishes that turned out to be really good, and I made a point of watching what the locals ate and ordering the same. I'm such a tourist, though- half the time I'd just point at someones plate at another table and say "I'll have what she's having." I guess I too can be as ugly as the rest of em, but I do try.

posted 12-08-2001 10:30 AM            

Got one last run in at the ski dock and said our goodbyes. Gave Teiva a couple cards and extended the standard invitation “If you’re ever on the big Island…” We always have people coming from all over because of that. Life’s too short, and you cant have too many friends. Shot a few more photos, took care of my room charges, checked out and caught the cab to the airport.
Our plane got delayed for an hour or so, so we sat around the Moorea airport for a while. The Air Tahiti lady gave me these boarding passes good for drinks at the bar, and I boosted my ever present pre-flight stress level with more espresso. “A cup of angst, please.”
The Moorea airport has chickens and dogs milling around in it, and local people sit there all day and talk story back and forth across the walkways. The smell of av-gas inundates the place every time a plane takes off or lands, and when you’re standing in the bathroom at the urinal you can look out the door and see all kinds of people sitting there. Strange. Just stuff I noticed.

posted 12-08-2001 03:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by RC:Mork-vs-Fonzi!

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posted 12-08-2001 10:54 PM            

The Flight to Bora Bora was uneventful, though in my mind there were a dozen near misses or catastrophes. Ever since our plane mishap last Christmas I’ve been just a little more skeptical of air travel, and though I try to relax and resign myself to fate, small turbulents that before wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow make me pretty anxious.
The landing strip at the Bora airport is just a strip of earth pushed off the edge of the atoll into the ocean. I see it out the window of our plane, and as I wonder if we’ve missed it the pilot banks super hard left, cranks this full on mid-air stunt u-turn, and we just dive right in. Frigging motor head pilots, probably reminiscing about Vietnam up there, flying in to Laos under heavy fire. Or maybe it’s just me- most likely, because everyone else says “Oh- what a nice landing.” As I wipe the sweat from my forehead and consider the airport bar for a moment.
During World war two Bora Bora was the farthest the American Troops were going to allow the Japanese to conquer, and 5000 American soldiers were based here, along with some huge cannons that are still up on the tops of the mountains. We built the airport in 43 I think. The Japanese were stopped at Guadalcanal, so Bora Bora was spared the heartache of a full-scale war, and 5000 troops were basically on a big vacation. The airstrip, being French Polynesia’s largest for years, became their international airport until around 1974 when the Faaa international airport was built on Tahiti. It’s difficult to see this tiny atoll being an international hub, but we’re way the hell out in the middle of the Pacific, and some of these atolls are so far out in the country it’s like being in a time warp to 1900. The Bora airport is a pleasant little airport, though it had a certain, un-definable air that smacked of tourism that was just impossible to get with the chickens and dogs and the horrible fuel smell of Moorea.

Once we disembarked from the plane we had to do this circus of claiming our baggage at the gate and then handing it to the guy who loaded it onto the ferry that takes you to Vaitape, on the main island. The airport is out on the edge of the atoll, and most of the population is in the center on the main island. Bora Bora was once a stereotypical Atoll, with the island in the center of a huge ring of live coral, but now there’s land mostly all around the island instead of coral, and hotels and houses out on the outer ring- there are “Motu Taxis” that take you to the places the ferry wont go. So anyhow, we waited a short time, grabbed our luggage from an airline employee, turned and handed it to a ferry employee who in turn put it on a boat that took us to the main island.
The ferry lands us in Vaitape after a twenty-five minute trip, and then we catch a bus to the hotel. This time we stand in a dirt parking lot at the little Vaitape harbor, and we take our luggage from the ferry employee and turn and hand it to the bus employee. It seems we’ll never keep hold of our luggage for very long. This after our trip from the Big Island of Hawaii to Honolulu where- in reaction to the whole WTC affair- we had to claim our luggage from Hawaiian air outer island terminal and give it back to the same handlers at the Hawaiian air international counter. But, after much searching for knives and bombs and stuff on our end, the French authorities hardly glanced at it, and just let us disembark, and even pretty much allowed us free reign on the return trip. Pretty Lax over here, even with all of the WTC stuff. Anyhow, we shuffled luggage a lot despite it being lax, and if I were to do it over again I’d take way less clothes. I also drug a bunch of CDs and a Walkman around the whole trip without ever listening to it even once. I mostly shot photos and wrote and read my camera books and a small Tahiti guidebook that was invaluable (the lonely Planet guide.) So we had left Moorea at around 12:15, and we took off from the airport at 2:15. Then we got to the Hotel in Bora after the plane, ferry and bus trip at around 4:15. It was kind of a multi-media travel day, and it was fun and not too tiring.

Saturday, November 24
This morning I rented a bike and rode counterclockwise around the island, I guess due North from the hotel. I took a couple photos, but pretty much didn’t find anything really breathtaking. The light was marginal and the sky and sea were gray. I was kind of melancholy. My troubles stay with me wherever I go, despite the distance between myself and the things that trouble me. Anyhow, the four days at Moorea I was still hanging onto my problems, but by the fifth and sixth days it all seemed so far away and unreal. I’m a little more detached from that other world where I spend my life, and now I’m barefoot and riding my bike through dingy towns in the south pacific where the houses flood every time it rains and children call out to me in Tahitian and French as I pass, and I just smile and say bonjour and take their pictures. They are fascinated with the tattoo of the koi fish on my shoulder, and always point at it and chatter amongst themselves. Although nearly everyone has tattoos here, they don’t have colored tattoo ink here, and so the orange and red is I’m sure just breathtaking to them. Anyhow, this is all a pleasant distraction, but still it all lingers in the back of my consciousness, and I get a little bummed despite the thousands of miles between myself and the rest of the world. I lay my bike on the grassy shoulder of a turn in the road, just feet between the odd passing car and the turquoise glass of the ocean. I get my cameras out and wait, hoping to get a shot of the quintessential Tahitian family car, the Vespa 125. Here you see a lot of the Tahitians riding with mom on the seat, steering- and the smallest kid in front, and the bigger kid in back, arms around his mom and holding on tight to little brother or sister up front. I waited for the longest time, but to no avail. I had a perfect shot back dropped by the ocean and homes, and boats in the background. Instead I had five opportunities at shots from the other direction, but after I turned the other way nothing else came. Story of my life. I finally gave up and packed up my stuff and rode on down the road.
I rode on about 3 or 4 miles over around the point to the leeward side. I passed a bamboo factory where they were milling and cutting, and the workers were mostly standing around or directing traffic as a front-end loader filled a dump truck with wood chips. There were rafts of bamboo floating in the ocean, assumably to salt water treat it, but I never did figure out what it was for. As I rode into another little village it began to rain. I quick ran for the cover of a big tree and covered my cameras, most of which were riding unprotected in the front basket of my bike. As I ducked under a low branch of the tree land crabs scattered and dove for the cover of their holes, making that ominous rustling sound I suppose one would hear in a bad dream if one heard it enough. Land crabs are just a part of life in French Polynesia, as they’re everywhere. They’re fairly innocuous though- they run for cover at the first sign of humans. Still, they left a bit of an impression on me, and I hated walking barefoot across the grass at night while I was there, but they never did give me any trouble.
I waited under the tree until the rain subsided and decided to gamble on riding further to leeward, ignoring the squall lines that lay over the ocean to the east. The dirt scrabble yards around the shacks lining the road were muddy and sad looking after the rain, and did little to lift my spirits. This side of the island seemed pretty impoverished, and there was more rubbish and random mess than I saw anywhere on Moorea. It’s difficult to head back to the hotel with a clear conscience knowing that people are living like they do here, and it takes some of the fun out of my trip. Sometimes I wonder, though, how much of it is just the fact that they’ve never had that much here, and never seemed to need that much. The environment is pretty forgiving here, barring the odd hurricane. Food grows on the trees and out of the ground, and the ocean provides you with plenty of protein. There aren’t too many houses here that don’t have boats and nets. I suppose they look at us with our shelves lined with so much clutter and all of our stress and debt, and they probably wonder a little too. But still- I know that the local hotel employees see the lifestyle that people are living and then have to go home to something entirely different, and it makes me feel selfish and consumerist and fat and lazy. Funny, that. I don’t know what else to say about it.

I rode on and took a picture of the mountains towering above the little shacks, and the contrast of the lush green cliffs over the muddy little hovels seemed to create a strange dichotomy. Anywhere else developers would have gentrified and parceled and sold off this beautiful ocean frontage to the “haves”, pushing the “have nots” into town to live in close quarters and work at the MacDonald’s and Burger Kings, making room for more banks and more money. But here things happen slowly or not at all, and hopefully that will never happen at all. I presently watch beach after beach here in Hawaii eaten up by hotels and developments, and it’s tough to find a spot of sand to sit yourself down here anymore. The French government has been threatening to pull out all of their interests from French Polynesia by 2007, to stop subsidizing and leave Tahiti and the outlying islands to the Tahitians. I think perhaps things will get worse before they get better.

I got caught in the rain again, and while the local kids ran for cover under the eaves of their houses they laughed at me as I rode on in the rain as I had no where to hide. I still can’t decide whether it’s ok for me to stop and hide from the rain under someone’s eave and so I ride on towards the sun. I headed back to the hotel and got a shower and some lunch, feeling a bit of guilt at the luxuries I was receiving that those kids on the other side will most likely never experience. The go-getters here for the most part work in the service industry, cleaning rooms and gardening hotel grounds, or if they’re lucky waiting tables or on rare occasion cooking. Very few of the management seem to be Tahitian- mostly French or foreign. Club Med does seem to have seven or eight local people in key positions, which makes me happy. And Moorea had the ski crew, and those guys were in management positions, which really surprised me- but those guys were very sharp, and Teiva for sure spoke English, French and Tahitian, and I heard him getting by in Italian and he had a fair vocabulary in Japanese too. They were destined for bigger things, I think. That was the biggest thing I saw there- that the ski crew had jumped that “white-French” barrier and had attained management status, and now (due to the closure of club med Moorea for renovations) were trying to get jobs abroad. That would open up whole new worlds to them. French Polynesia is very, very small.

posted 12-09-2001 03:33 PM            

Friday, November 23.
We searched all over behind the hotel for the famed tunnel that goes under the road. Supposedly it was a tunnel built to access the Belvedere trail, a trail up the steep mountainside to an overlook nearly at the top of the mountain. We walked the length of the resort and found the tennis courts at the far end of the property, several washed out and dreary houses on a palm frond littered beach beyond the rusted chain link fence. I wonder to myself whether the fence is to keep them out or us in. The tennis courts are deserted and I don’t know that they get used much. It’s a beautiful place to play, though- if that’s how you wanted to spend your vacation. I figure if I was into tennis my raquet would be sitting with my running shoes back in the room while I drink Hinanos and wine wearing pareos and flip-flops- vacation is vacation, and running requires a discipline and schedule that quickly fall by the wayside in this environment. There’s a sort of personal trainer here at the hotel, and she holds a cardio fitness class every morning and evening outside of the dining hall. I sit outside of the lounge and watch Veronica and Lisa play ping-pong and I see the same people down there every evening sticking to their regimen, and I see those same people agonizing over what they can eat at dinner, and I feel sorry for them. For me, vacation is a time when you can break the rules. You work hard up to vacation to be in shape and it costs a lot of money to travel- you need to enjoy it. I’m not saying that those people weren’t enjoying themselves, but I think they didn’t ever really look like they slowed down and relaxed. When I go somewhere I just want to try and adopt some of the local culture, and I usually gravitate towards someplace that is kind of mellow, like Polynesia or Mexico. I guess that’s just me- I have enough of schedules and stress back in that other world where I live. Now’s the time to decompress and soak up the culture.
I finally give in against my stubborn determination and ask at the desk, where’s that tunnel to the Belvedere trail that I’ve heard about? Fatima behind the desk gives me the sweetest smile and directions in that French accent the girls here have, soft and silky- it drives me nuts but I manage to grasp the basic directions. I go back and gather Veronica and Lisa and we head back down to where we’d looked before. We’d passed scant yards from the trail, but there was just a little sign. The gate over the tunnel is locked, probably because of the heavy rains that doused the island for a few days prior to us arriving, so we decide to go back and try the frontage road. We walk down the road single file because traffic is kind of psycho, and we climb over the rail and trudge up the steep mountainside.
The trail has been cut into the soft mud and rock and there’s wood stairs held in place by sticks of rebar driven into the ground, zigging and zagging through the trees. Between the sets of stairs are short expanses of slick mud where you have to walk gingerly at risk of slipping back down to where you came from. The shady canopy of the forest makes me thing of gorillas in the mist, and snakes, and large cats. But none of that is here, and we climb the entire mountain without seeing any wildlife. The 25 minute climb is worth it as the view is spectacular. We can see two panoramas, one East towards Huahine, and the roof tops of our hotel are small below us- the other view is back towards Vaitape, but there’s some trees blocking my perfect picture of the ocean below and the other mountain a mile or two away. Any view of Matira point is blocked by the ridge of the mountain that we stand on running down to the sea. There’s a small palapa (a palm frond roof over posts and beams) in a clearing, and we sit and rest, reading the graffiti that has accumulated over the years. Most graffiti here is in English, though I cant tell you why.
We head back down to the hotel being careful not to slip on the mud that makes up the trail. I fall once, holding my camera high and braking my fall with my ass and one hand to spare my backpack full of camera equipment the direct force of the impact. My wrist aches the rest of the day.

Okay- two things. One- beautiful young women speaking French is pretty alright, and I understand now what they mean when they say “romance language”. And- Kids speaking French in their little kid tones is just infinitely cute. The general manager of the Hotel is a really fun Frenchman named Phillipe. He lives here on the grounds with his Australian wife and their boy, Tom, who we got to know pretty well during our stay. There weren’t too many kids at the hotel when we were there which is fine with Veronica because she’s older and stays busy, but young Tom (he’s like 6 or 7) was starved for someone to play with. He played ping pong with us whenever we were around, and he was just a great kid. One time he rode up on his scooter and shows me a hermit crab that he’s carrying with him. He calls it a “Behr-nard” (like saint “Bear-nard”) and I say, “Oh- that’s a Hermit Crab.” Mistake- he argues with me that no- it’s a Behr-nard. I say oh yeah well right- Ok- in French that must be the name, but in English it’s hermit crab. He gets really exhasperated with me and says that no- it’s not a crab- it’s a behr-nard, and his mother told him so. At any rate we went back and forth for some time about this, until finally he turns his back on me and tells me, without looking at me, that he no longer wants to talk about it. I was just in hysterics, the combination of his antics and the situation and the cutest French accent ever just making me bust up. Later his mom laughs and tells us that she hasn’t got the greatest grasp of French, and has no idea where he got the behr-nard thing, but that they’ve been through it before.
Another kid we met was James Walker. He was about tennish, and spoke this great perfect textbook English. He must have learned it in school, because he’d pipe up “My Service?” when we’re playing Ping-pong. There’s definitely two types of English being spoken here- that which was learned from an American, and that which was learned from a textbook. We run into this later when Sebastian (our tour driver up to see the big guns on the mountain) looks at a beautiful Japanese tour guide on the roadside and says to us without looking back “My ex-girlfriend there…” and then he looks back and winks “I wish!” never missing a beat. He definitely learned his English from an American, and it was constantly surprising to hear him speak when we were so used to the other kind of English, thick with the heavy Tahitian French accent. So anyhow- yeah- the French would scratch their heads at me saying so, but kids and pretty girls speaking French was just novel for me.

Saturday, November 24

We went on a 4x4 trip around the island today- a big Toyota Defender with benches in the bad and a canvas canopy top.
Tires squealed against gravity and the turn circle of our hotel, brakes chirping on the teracotta tile in the port-cochere in front of the lobby. The driver jumps out of the big truck and surveys the crowd standing around waiting, and he rattes off a string of French. He looks at us, inquisitive. “American?” I nod yes and he breezes right past us. I look down the hall after him, and he talks with all of the staff, shaking hands with some, hugs and kisses for others. He continues to call out something in French, to no response. After five minutes of this I walk down the hall to him, and I tell him that we’re waiting for a 4x trip. He scrutinizes his clipboard and asks, “Six French?”
“No- Five American.” I reply. “ Awwww-They told me six French! These foreigners always screw it up.” He smiles and shakes my hand. “If they don’t understand the accent they just write French. Oh well- I’ll just have to work in both languages today. Come on- you French in the front, Americans in the back.” And we all load up in the truck, along with a French schoolteacher and a French Tahitian family visiting from Papaette.
. The driver’s name was Sebastian, a Tahitian that looked like my good friend Camillo Ramirez and acted like David Ayau. He honked and waved to nearly everyone he saw, and everyone honked and waved back. He’d yell out as he passed some local people, some comment in French or Tahitian, and they’d laugh and yell something back in return. A lot of pretty girls waved and gave him a smile. I figure Sebastian must have been THE guy on this island.
He took us up to the big guns up on the mountain. There’s two of them, one pointing back towards the airport, the other off to the south east on a 45 degree angle. The guns were put there to stop the Japanese as they vanquished island after island down the Polynesian chain, but the Japanese never did make it here, and the Americans are long gone, and the guns just sit up here.
Sebastian seemed to like Americans okay, though most Tahitians I’ve met seem to think of Hawaii as a sort of a sister state to Tahiti, them being not quite the same as French, the Hawaiians not being exactly American. Sort of the Polynesian stepchildren of the superpowers, I suppose. At any rate, they seem to like us okay just for that alone, though we’re on our best behaviour just the same. He didn’t seem to like the Japanese all that much, though- although I can see where some bad sentiment would come into play as the Japanese didn’t treat the Polynesians so well back during the war as they conquered their way down the island chain.
On the narrow jeep trails Sebastian is an expert driver. We were a little apprehensive about him driving 45 MPH on the steep, narrow trails, and coming down he’d just take it out of gear and let it fly. When someone mentioned the speed, he just laughed and said wryly to no one in particular, “This isn’t my first day out, you know.” Then looked back at us smiling and said “Second day- yeah- but I only lost two Japanese yesterday!” He let out another heartfelt laugh and gunned the motor, taking us up the next goat trail at 50mph.
We reached a wide spot in the road and had to stop and wait for a Japanese tour group coming the other way. As they pulled abreast of us Sebastian, smiling, says to us under his breath, “Look- the Japanese invasion, only fifty years too late.” And then yells out, loud and with enthusiasm, “Kooooonichi-waaaaa!” with the youthful exhuberance of a karate master breaking a board. He doesn’t seem to bear any bad sentiment towards the Japanese- we were all really too young to be involved in that particular fracas anyhow. Even so he definitely had some opinions, though he seemed too smart to do anything more than allude to them, and so I could never venture to guess at them one way or another.
Going back down the trail was the proverbial E-ticket ride, for sure, and we had to hang on just to stay in our seats and out of each others laps.It was pretty unnerving but he seemed to have the driving under control, so I kept my mouth shut and trusted, and I’m here to tell the tail so obviously everything worked out.

Sebastian tells us that there’s a storm coming, and that it’s going to dump rain some more over the next couple days.The light’s been really marginal anyhow, and so shooting photos has been a gamble. I should have put the cameras away until the storm passes, but I probably wont be here for a long time, and so I keep trying. I did shoot some night stuff but the wind was blowing, and on the long exposures that night shooting requires even the wind messes with the clarity of the picture, so maybe I’ll shoot that stuff again. It’s just some trees with lights on them in front of the hotel, the moon through the palm trees, and an island that’s all lit up across the bay from us. I think to myself that it wont happen tonight, though- as the sky’s already clouded over and it’s just some patchy sun, and then alternately damp and gloomy and windy.

Sunday, November 25

This morning after breakfast we took a boat trip out to the Motu for a couple of hours. The Motu is the island formed where the ring of coral was around the island. These islands are like six million years old, and Hawaii is like 3 million years old, and I wonder if Hawaii will be shaped like this eventually, if we stop killing all of the coral (but that’s another issue). The boat driver is a big local guy named Bobby who has dreadlocks and wears a Pareo. I thought I got a few really good shots of him, full face- but they all turned out pretty shady and I’m kind of bummed- he was an interesting guy. He’d let all of the tourists pile up on the dock, and then when it was time to go he’d just sing-song call out something in French at the top of his lungs, and it was just like something from another time. Whatever it was he said, the last straggling customers would be jogging out to the boat, and his boat helpers would be running out to get on board. He’d help the women and kids into the boat, and speak gruffly to “Watch your step” to the men in a thick Tahitian accent. As he helps Veronica in he takes her small hand in his large paw, smiles and and says “Princess.” Then when we’re all loaded he fires up the twin outboards and off we go.
When we reach the motu Bobby noses the boat up onto the sand, barking orders at his helpers to let down a gangplank. As we leave the boat he tells us in French and then English, “First trip back at eleven thirty- last trip back at twelve thirty. You miss the last trip you sleep on the Motu!” and he laughs out loud, a big laugh and fires up the engines and heads back to pick up more tourists.
We walk around behind the motu and the girls skin dive within the safety of the outer barrier reef. Beyond the reef is miles of open ocean and it looks angry and dark. The light isn’t really very good at all, but I walk out onto the dry reef and look for anything interesting at all. As I pass a bleached out beach house several dogs come out and bark at me half heartedly, mangy looking mixed breeds wagging their tails and showing their teeth. I don’t know if they’ll bite me or not, so I venture farther out onto the reef. I stop and watch a family out on a barge anchored a hundred yards off shore. They seem to be living on the barge, and there’s some interesting and bizarre construction going on involving the boat and some blue tarp, and very little wood and lots of hammering. It reminds me of Hawaii, the blue tarp and the backwards-ness of it. The boys from this barge take small boats and some masks and snorkels and start scouring the surrounding reef, picking what I assume to be “Opihi” (Hawaiian), a small mussel that grows on the reefs, and a good source of protein. They throw their finds into the small plywood boats, and I see them out there working the entire time we’re out there. I also see a big wave out on the open ocean, and I try to get a couple shots of it really jacking up. There’s a couple people out there, one sitting on a rock, another standing on a rock across the bay a ways. The wave is big and violent, and I don’t think it’s even remotely rideable, though in the stills it looks as if it were. Lastly, on my way back, I shoot some spiny urchins just below the surface of a tidepool, and a man and his son getting ready to set a big net. They pull up in a boat with a smaller boat laying crosswise across the stern. Then they anchor the bigger boat (really only 12 or 15 feet in length) and launch the smaller boat. The man ties a rope from the stern of the smaller boat (which is filled to the gunnels with what looks like 1” mesh polyethelene net, sure to snag every piece of rock and coral it comes into contact with- a nightmare job to pull- as well as any fish that strays into it’s path) and begins diving, towing the boat behind. He comes up periodically and clears his mask, and he climbs up over the shallow spots, then continues swimming. I think he was looking at what fish were there, waiting for a higher tide to set the net. I wanted to see him set and pull the net, interested in how he does it as much as what he catches, but I waited as long as I could but had to run to catch the girls when I saw them walking down the beach toward our ride home.

posted 12-09-2001 09:51 PM            

Dawn. Don’t really know the date. I’m really surprised at this point that I even know what day it is. It’s ten to six on Monday morning, and I’m sitting on the veranda outside our room, listening to the world wake up. The ocean is relentless, beating on the coral that rings the island, birds sing and crickets chirp, and I take this as a sign that generally speaking all is well. I’ll be the first to admit that it takes at least a week even for me to convert from the day to day work mode to what the Hawaiians generally refer to as “bambai time”- where you’ve just unwound enough to really and truly take it easy, to take things as they come, to roll with it all and not get too worked up about anything.
Last night I tried again to shoot the trees lit up in front of the dining room, and the island across the way. The wind was blowing and there was a bit of lightning up on the mountains, so I don’t know how that’ll come out. This was the second roll of 800 iso, but I shot the first try in 200 and after looking at my books some I figure that even despite the slow film speed, the 200 will probably come out OK anyhow.
I get up in the morning and have my coffee on the porch. The sun rise through the palms makes it all a monochromatic sillouette, and I snap off a couple directly into the sun. For some reason I have a better success rate with low light and no flash and directly into the sun than I do with anything else- except full face portraits, I think- but that’s not fair. I attribute the success of full face portraits to the subject in the viewfinder, not the camera man. I sit on the porch and realize that I haven’t been living, up to now.
I step inside and rummage around on the bureau for another packet of coffee, some more cream and sugar. Veronica groans in protest, still half asleep when I let a little daylight in through the wood louvers. She throws a pillow at me and growls a girlish little growl, exhasperated that I make so much noise. I have to smile- she’s a lot like me.
I’ve taken probably around 150 or so shots of Veronica this trip. It may seem a bit much, but she’s so easy to photograph that it ensures me a good average. Her pictures always turn out. Plus, she’ll only be ten once (and now only for a week more, when she turns eleven) and she’s such a neat girl, and we probably wont be back here for a while, I’d say. Veronica, like myself, seems to live by the rule that you truly may only live once.

Last night I shot some Corsicans playing Pentanque (Bocci Ball). Okay- I didn’t actually shoot them, but I did take their pictures. They really did look like old country Mafiosi, straight out of the movies. There were two heavyset older guys, and then a couple younger guys- one looked a lot like Al Pacino from the first godfather, when Vito Corleone was young, and he was quiet- the other was kind of messy and disheveled and made a lot of comments in French. One older guy knew I was taking pictures, but wouldn’t look directly at me until he made a particularly good shot, and then he’d turn and give me this great smile. Some of the family were sitting on the side, and they talked quietly or not at all, pointing at the balls on the field and muttering to each other, whispering. The beautiful dark haired wife had her arms around her husbands neck, and one man said something to her, and she replied something else quietly, straight faced, and then they all laughed out loud for a second, and then the laughter subsided and it was serious Pentanque again.
There was a lot of measuring how close one ball was to the next, using hands and feet and whatever they could find around- I figure maybe there was a little money riding on the game, but perhaps they just take the game very seriously. The oldest guy made a particularly deft shot- just direct and precise, positive and powerful, picking off a single steel ball in the midst of a group of them withpout ever touching the balls surrounding it. Before the ball ever hit he turned his back to the game and walked off a few steps, not seeing but just trusting that the shot was really as great as he thought it was going to be. Then, still without looking but listening to the oohs and ahhs of the other men, he thrust his hands skyward, first open handed and then again fists clenched, the obvious victor of this round, regaling his triumph as only a great man can. Then, out of the blue, he starts doing this shuffling little dance, freezing here and striking a pose, hands before him and one leg out, eyes alight and a silly grin on his face, then continuing and striking poses here and there, shuffling his feet a bit more. He was not a small man, nor a young one, and he carried with him a certain air of authority, and it seemed that everyone congratulated him on his savvy moves and no one seemed to think his dance silly or unwarranted. But then, the shot was a really smooth one.

Jaded anti-climax. That’s the only way I can describe feeling, the United States pepper Afghanistan with bombs and me watching from the bar/lounge of the Club Med Bora Bora. Maybe it’s a little misplaced guilt, but it’s hard to not feel some responsibility, some duty- but at least I’m not hammered, tossing back another rum punch, trying too hard to humor myself and laughing too loud, ordering another round for the house. Instead I sit here quietly listening to Reggae, drinking a coffee and cleaning my lenses and cameras. The rest of the place seems to be napping, so it’s just the staff and I. They’ve gotten used to me being around, like a new fixture or piece of furniture that they’ve learned to step around after a couple false starts. The usual clientele here is newlyweds, so we’re kind of an anomaly, mom dad and the kid. They hardly knew what to do with us at first, it seemed- how to treat us, anyhow. But they soon found that we entertain ourselves and have for the most part left us alone, aside from saying hi here and there. We usually have one of the staff at our table for dinner, and have managed to meet all of them. The funny thing is- at Moorea the Male staff was hitting on Lisa. Here at Bora Bora, the male staff has been Mostly hitting on me. I laughed to Lisa and said “See? I’ve still got it, too!” But it was all in fun, and the staff here is super nice. It seems they get a lot of older couples, and are just starved for some contact with young people. So when we showed up they all at one point or another came around and said hi, and we all have chatted a bunch. The girls have all adopted Veronica, mostly because she’s ten going on 21, wants to be a fashion model and wants to go to Paris. The French girls just ate that up, and kids here look like little kids. Veronica looks like a Miniature version of the big girls. Kind of sad, in a way, but it’s what she wants.

posted 12-14-2001 09:43 PM            

We leave tomorrow- Kind of a bummer. But we’re only going to Papaette, so it’s
not like the end of the vacation quite yet. Last time we (crash) landed in papaette I had
wanted to take some photos, but my cameras were locked on the plane until they could
sort stuff out. Then when we returned to fly home it was rainy and windy, so all I got
were a few blurry handheld night shots. So hopefully it wont rain.
It’s 5:30 am and the sun’s just coming up. I’m apprehensive about the rest of my life, as the past months have left me a little uncertain. This two weeks away have let me get a little perspective, but now I really don’t know how I should proceed. I guess I just figure it out as I go along, same as always.
Last night in the bar we played an international trivia game, against two teams of French, one young and one old, and the Australians. We won, though I don’t exactly understand how, as our team was terrible and we guessed at nearly everything. It was seafood night in the dining room, and I had steak and lobster, though it all seems a little less with our impending departure. Sat at a table with Guillerme, a guy who sails as crew on racing boats. He is working here for six months to make some money, and then he wants to go back to racing. He’s from the Brittany Coast, and we’ve sat with him before. He told us that we could come sail if we like, as he runs the sailing operation here, and I tell him that we’ll be by tomorrow.
Yesterday we went to a picnic on the Motu, and we drank wine with lunch and then layed on the lawn in the shade of the coconut palms, relaxing and conscious. In the morning I shot a couple rolls of flowers and cattails, and some beach stuff, then later, on the trip home, Bobby the boat driver against a startling two tone blue backdrop of ocean. I hope it turns out. The colors were fantastic today.
I walked a ways down the beach and took a couple postcard pictures, the kind that have the ocean to infinity, the sky and a palm tree- it kind of becomes ho-hum sometimes and then once in a while I look up and say “Oh Christ- look at this gorgeous place I live in!” and so I still shoot the postcard ones. Sometimes it’s really easy to take it for granted- other times it’s nearly impossible to not be awestruck. Life’s like that, I think.
On the trip back across the bay it was Bobby and a French guy that looks like Suggs, and a guy in a loin cloth that had helped with lunch and drove boat part of the day. Then there was us and a French couple that I met at lunch. She was a pretty, petite blonde that had been abroad for ten years- he was about my age and had been abroad for four years, working for a French computer game company in the bay area. She was teasing him about trying to take her picture with this little single use (Read isposable) Box camera, and we were joking about how Lisa finally got tired of photos of her sticking her tongue out and so now she just lets me take her picture. They were a good looking couple, and she hardly looked like she could’ve been abroad for ten years, as young as she looked. They were staying a week at club med before returning home to France for the first time in years, and they said that even being around the French people in Tahiti was giving them a bit of the old culture shock, they’d been abroad for so long. It must have been strange, being strangers in their own land- but I suppose I feel like that a lot of the time anyhow, as little as I have in common with your average American. Unless maybe me and the people like me are the average American, and all these ballgame watching rednecks are just a fabrication dredged up by the beer and tobacco companies to sell more stuff. I would like to hope.
Then there was team Switzerland- the Swiss Contingent, I call them. The husband is a commercial artist, I don’t know what the wife does. But they are both Fearless. They win hands down this impromptu “Newlywed game” ala Club Med the staff put on. He was introduced to the audience and he walked to the edge of the stage, smiling and gave a little bow, then turned around and bared his ass to the audience. He then turned around again, Smiling, Bowed and returned to his seat. Anything that went on- if they needed a volunteer, he’d just go. There was this kind of corny demonstration of how to husk a coconut (but being from Hawaii, we are kinda coconut savvy, so I shouldn’t be so….) and then there was a contest and of course the Swiss took it- Gold medal in the huskind and the smashing of coconut with the hand. Yep- he did that one too (FYI you just hold the coconut a quarter inch off of the surface of the table, and then smack it with your hand. The impact of coco and table do the trick, not the palm to the coco. Just in case you get in a big coco smashing contest down at the bar.) In the couples contest he dance a nifty ballet to the tune of Swan Lake (He was fairly well soused that night, and they kept feeding him drinks I assume because he became such great entertainment.) The Swiss delegation were everywhere, and we saw them sailing and water-skiing, and just all over everywhere. We talked with them for a while one night and they were pretty normal. They said that in Switzerland you speak German, French, Italian and English- I had to ask because they spoke killer French and I always assumed that the Swiss spoke German (Or Swiss! I mean- the Canadians do occasionally speak Canadian, right? Right?!!)
But anyhow- my conclusion is that the Swiss are really cool and absolutely fearless, and I like them.
Then there were team Australia- or the Australs as they were calling t5hemselves during various bouts of drinking games. Actually there were two team Australias- the one bunch were from Australia, but they had funny accents- sounded like Brits almost- and it came about that they were actually raised part of there childhoods in Italy with their dad, and so their accent got kinda messed up. But anyhow- they were also quite fearless, and ran a close second in many of the various activities that the Swiss swept up in. Then the other Australians were this young couple that were really quiet and super nice(Mathew Lennox was his name- I never got hers, but she worked for an Australian airline and was awfully cute and nice), and they were on their honeymoon. He was a foreman for a construction company in Sydney, and he was here ostensibly for his honeymoon, but on numerous occasions I caught him on early morning forays out to the outer reefs for some surf. I envied him, as I never did get to surf Tahiti, but it really wasn’t that important to me, I suppose. One funny thing that happened was when we were in that trivia game in the bar, and the MC was the Suggs guy, and he didn’t read English aloud so well. He kept mispronouncing words and us English speakers were having a hard time following it. He spoke OK English, mind you- just didn’t read it aloud so well. Anyhow, the first Australs- the ones with the funny accents- they got kinda pissy with him about a question having to do with the worlds largest cat (FYI it was from Vienna, obviously we’re talking house cat type here, okay?) and they were thinking big cats, lions and such. Anyhow, the MC got a bit tired of them, and in true French style he didn’t get all in their face, but instead began mispronouncing “Australia” every time he’d read their answer aloud. They were getting pissed when he called them “Austria” (Of course I yelled across the room at them “Go Austria!” Earlier one of the finely educated French teams had put Australia as the worlds largest island, and one Austral just turned at me, grinning, and called over, “Shows you what I know- always thought she was a continent!”) Anyhow, Suggs nearly started a riot when he read the scores, and he got to team Australia and called them “Team Asshole.” The Australian women were out for blood, and one of the men asked another, “Y’reckon he knows what that means?” and the young MC turns to him and points at his ass and mimics the Austral “It’s me bum!” in a pretty good cockney accent. Anyhow, there was no love lost between the Frenchys and the Australs that night.

The last day we’re here on Bora Bora and it’s just gorgeous. We borrowed a sailboat from the club and the guy let me sail it around the bay once and then gave me the OK and set us loose of our own accord. I used to sail when I was 12 or 13, so it wasn’t a big deal- but I was surprised he let us have the boat just the same. It was guillerme, and he was a super nice guy, so I guess that was just that. The boat was a Hobie 15, a European model, and it was a trick little boat that I could sail without ever moving from where I lay on the tarpaulin. Veronica loved sailing, and had no idea that I even knew how, and she helped with the jib and before we got back in decided that I should sell my MG and get us a nice little Hobie Cat. I may, someday. I’ve got that money spent thricely already, though, but who knows.
It was a dark, dark day- the day my original Nikon FG finally bit the big one. The winder had gotten chipped a couple years back when I dropped it (another bleak day) and since that day it’s been stuck at 400ISO. But today the whole crank came off, so that you now have to grasp the whole knob with your fingertips and twist it in little half turns to wind up the exposed reel of film. Very sad, indeed. I’ve never been able to find a used winder for it, but now it sems I’ll have to. Of course I put it away until it gets repaired…..for like thirty seconds! And then I loaded it back up and kept shooting with it, because I love it and it’s my favorite one.

posted 12-14-2001 09:45 PM            

Papaette, Tahiti. Not much to say, really- I’ve got a terrible fucking head cold and am miserable, but trying to make the best of it. There’s little comfort in knowing that I’ve helped carry this miserable virus from island to island, and to spread it to Hawaii to, eventually. God- who knows- maybe I brought it from Hawaii? The ramifications of that are overwhelming. Anyhow, took a few shots of a Tahitian family fishing nets with little success, just doing a lot of snagging on the rocky bottom and diving to free the net, is what it looked like to me. More on that later if anything outstanding comes of it.

Friday, November 30 .
We go home tomorrow. I’ll take this miserable headcold with me, thank you very much. A little footnote, FYI- there is no such thing as cold medicine, as far as I’ve been able to find, in French Polynesia. Is there something really obvious that I’m missing here? A special Tahitian home remedy, perhaps? Ibuprofin is behind the coiunter, and you dont get it in bottles of 150 tablets- they dole the stuff out like it's priceless. I suppose it is, here.
Today we went and saw some surf spots up the coast, and saw the waterfalls, and some racing canoes. I blew my snot on the ground in many beautiful locations. Later we had lunch at the Royal Tahitian, and my head cold is making me really thick and irritated. After lunch we went into town and I shot a beauty salon from down the sidewalk a ways, and this girl saw me and struck a funny pose, kind of like a model, I think- it was cute, and I hope it comes out (it didn’t!) Shot a multi level marketplace with lots of fruit and fish and texture and natural light. This stuff will come out for sure(it did). Lots of street scenes throughout, and some cab drivers playing Uke and guitar at a cab stand. A gendarme in the open air marketplace, yelling at some local guys for having an open sewer in their market. I hope it comes out, because there’s this gorgeous blue fish being cut right then. (It came out, but it was pretty ho hum.) And one of these three beautiful women, dressed to the nines (what are nines?) walking through the fish market- I ran and took it but it was backlit terribly. (indeed was backlit terribly, you can hardly make out the women.)
There was more stuff there today than I could get, and I want to go back and wander around some tomorrow. There were tons of cars and scooters and people everywhere, and just tons of chaos. I’d like to find someplace where I could shoot more from overhead, up on balconies or whatever.
I missed a beautiful chance this morning to shoot a bunch of local men talking story while sitting next to a boat on a bunch of nets. They were just laughing and talking all animated, smoking hand rolled cigarettes before work. If they’re there again tomorrow I’ll get some black and white of them. I was too shy and missed the good shot, I think. Also I missed a really good silouette of some guys at PointVenus from across the parking lot through the trees, just because I was in a hurry. I maybe got a good one of them from across the lagoon, but I doubt it. (I did get it.) It was of some guys cutting fish next to a bunch of nets and canoes. The silouette would have been good, I think. I did get a couple of a lighthouse at point Venus. It had a quote from Robert Louise Stevenson on the front. I could shoot tons more here given time, but it’s difficult (especially in this light), to catch the right subject at the right moment in the right light. But the people here are really friendly, or at least forgiving- I only got one bad look the whole time here, and a couple from young guys on Moorea. I guess maybe I’m just shy about it. Maybe I’ll see more stuff in Hawaii now that I know better what I’m looking for.