Today we hired bikes from the hotel and have just returned from cycling the road that circles the entire island – 63km and boy, was it tough. Not the cycling, the road is fairly flat with just a couple of hills. But the heat. We once did 42km in similar heat in Tuscany but until Vietnam, we’d rarely tackled distances of more than 50km (that’s around 30 miles and today’s was about 38miles). We set off at about 9am and it’s 3.30pm now. We stopped many times along the way to swim,
to drink (litres of water and lots of pineapple juice) and just enjoy the views. The lagoon encircles the whole island and is so picturesque, I’m afraid it’s another place where the pictures don’t tell the whole story or pick up the amazing turquoise colours. Perhaps a better explanation of the lagoon than I gave the other day is that there is coral reef making a barrier out to sea all the way around. Surf forms on the sea side of the reef. At certain places there is what they call a ‘pass’ where there is a gap in the coral where rivers would have run yonks ago.
The water that then comes inside the reef (ie towards the island) forms lagoons all the way along – which are crystal clear and flat. It really was a beautiful ride. When we were in the Caribbean we noticed how wealthy the French territorial islands seem compared to those that were once British colonies and now have independence – they also had much better infrastructure. That is true here also. The islands feel wealthy – for the locals, not just the tourists and they are well cared for because France pumps loads of money in. On one of our stops a guy started talking to us because he heard us speaking English and said you don’t hear that here often. He was a Scot, who’d grown up in Greenock, did an electrician’s apprenticeship in the shipyards, then worked in Jersey, Mexico and has now lived here for about eight years. He was in his 30s and we learned a lot from him about the place. Although my French gets us by, these aren’t conversations you have with hotel staff. Apparently about three years ago there were riots in Tahiti and an election in which French Polynesia voted to go independent. They elected a Governor to replace the one that France had put in around 25 years previously (and who had introduced legislation increasing his term of office, every time it should have expired!). As a result, France and French companies started to pull the plug and so the new Governor only lasted a year, and the islanders were happy to return to French rule. In other words, they knew when they were well off. He says that France really protects its territories (yes, we always knew how Chauvinistic the French are) and purposely makes it incredibly expensive to get here and to stay, to avoid overdevelopment and overpopulation. We asked him about un/employment and he said there is plenty of work but a lot of locals don’t work. When I asked why? He said: ‘Look at it this way. If you’re living in paradise it doesn’t make any difference if you have money or not. You do just the same things. People have land that their families have had forever. You have fruit falling off the trees, fish jumping out of the lagoons, water running out of the springs, so you’re never hungry. Education is good and free. Why work? He has a point!Right, I’ve recovered from my cycle now, cooled in the air-con room, had a cup of tea, and want to stay out of the sun for the rest of the day. So I’ll go to the bar/lobby area to use the wifi and post this now. Tonight we are just going to the barbeque on the beach at the hotel. More on that tomorrow.
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