Tahiti

What passes for bustle on the central island of Bora Bora. opposite: The permanently cloudringed Mount Otemanu casts its gaze over Bora Bora’s lagoon.

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augus t 2016 / tr av el andleisure asia .com

Return to Tahiti

Despite its glittering growth, French Polynesia still holds transfixing myths, rustic wonders and youthful innocence with the power to inspire awe in even the most jaded of travelers. story and photos by ian lloyd neubauer

was only five years old the first time I went to Tahiti, though I still recall the trip as though it took place yesterday. I remember splashing around in a gin-clear creek with my baby sister and going mad with fright when a crab waved its claws at us from the creek bed. I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor of the palm-thatch bungalow we called home for two weeks as my mother served chunks of steamed fish. And I remember sitting on my father’s lap in the

back of a pick-up truck, speeding along a palmfringed coast.

Over the years I’ve traveled extensively but few destinations have left as lasting an impression as Tahiti. Like the Polynesian beauties in Paul Gauguin’s paintings, the islands woo me to return, tempting me with images of a sun-kissed Eden. The atoll nation has come to define, of course, the über-luxe honeymoon aspiration, but I’m seeking out the simple life beyond those overwater bungalows and private submarines. So it’s with just a little trepidation that I revisit the South Pacific archipelago, wondering if I can recapture that innocent idyll of my childhood.

from left: It’s

impossible not to spot sea turtles in the gin-clear waters; at home at The St. Regis Bora Bora; Papeete’s Notre Dame Cathedral dates to 1875.

Most visitors to French Polynesia overlook the main island of Tahiti Nui (“Big Tahiti”) and its capital Papeete in favor of the more glamorous, less-populated Bora Bora and Moorea. But Papeete’s beauty is more than skin-deep. A Penang-meets-Paris hybrid bursting with color and charm, it’s a paradisiacal metropolis.

I spend the day roaming around the waterfront district, visiting the Cathédrale Notre Dame and the multilevel central marketplace where hawkers sell everything from seafood to sarongs. I also check out a few of Papeete’s ubiquitous tattoo parlors. I have no intention of getting inked—I’d already

entertained that folly in my youth—but I’m interested in seeing if local artists employ special techniques befitting a culture that popularized the art form to the West via mariners during the age of exploration. (The first written reference of the word tattoo is found in the journal of Joseph Banks, the famous British naturalist who accompanied his compatriot explorer Captain Cook on his first visit to Tahiti in the late 18th century.)

While traditional glyphs, such as turtle shells to symbolize longevity and the Marquesan cross to signify harmony among the elements, are still employed, I learn the old method of inking warriors using a chisel called an uhi tr av el andleisure asia .com / augus t 2016

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