Travels of Note: An Evening in Papeete

Well finally last night I was able to get off the ship. Ive been aboard here for 10 days and most of them I was unable to get off the ship. Three stops in Hawaii, and 5 gruesome sea days relocating to the French Polynesian Islands. Our first stop was the other day in Bora Bora… where it was pissing rain. And I don’t mean the little Los Angeles drizzle I’ve grown so fond of either; I mean hardcore, monsoon style rain. Other, more experienced crew told me that even though this is the summer season, its also their rainy season... yippie…

Next stop was in Moorea, which is smaller island close to Papette and the weather looked promising from the ship. I got onto a tender and it cruised over to the small, local dock. As soon as I stepped off the tender, like a flip of a switch, as if someone was watching me and was waiting to unleash the cruelest practical joke they could possibly think of, it dropped rain the likes no one has ever seen. After learning that the town was a one-mile walk from the dock, I turned right back around and headed back on the ship.

Later that day we relocated to Papeete. After finishing 2 production shows, the buzz going around with the crew was everyone was going out to this club called Paradise after hours. The band and I pregamed at the crew bar for a few hours and waited for some of the dancers and other crew to arrive so we could potentially all go over there together. A few Jim Beam shots later we were ready to head out. Our drummer François suggested that we go to a bar before hand, that is right next to Paradise and shoot a game of pool and head next door after. One last round of shots and we were on the gangway getting off the ship.

Stepping into Papeete was pretty awesome. Lots of exotic flowers everywhere, coconut trees overhead. It reminds me of what Hawaii had probably looked like once upon a time before Europeans came over and literally raped everything. The town was built up a bit but nothing as bad as say… Honolulu. Some night clubs, a few restaurants, some places to buy pearls riddled the damp streets of this small city. The local people seemed mostly friendly and saying hello in French to us as we stumble by. Luckily for us, our drummer François, hailing from Montreal, and being totally French Canadian as shit, spoke fluent French, which goes a long way here. He drops a few French words here and there and he gets a huge response from the locals as we pass by. I can tell already that this will be our ace in the sleeve for the evening.

Tahiti also has a lot of beautiful women as well. Once again, reminding me of the women from Hawaii in their over all look and color of skin. The three of us, Francois, the band’s pianist A.J. and myself find our selves walking behind a most luscious posterior and it beaming in all three of our attentions. A.J. jokes “bet you a hundred bucks its guy”. We all laugh and I quickly respond “I think I know a female body when I see one”. After a few blocks walking behind her, she stops and looks back to reveal that OMFG THAT’S TOTALLY A DUDE! I couldn’t believe it. My marine like scoping of women from behind had completely failed me. We all laughed and Francois tells us that Tahiti, especially Papeete, has a TON of transvestites. I recalibrate myself and start to notice that indeed, a third of these so-called women around me are actually full-blown dudes.

We finally roll up to the bar and walk inside. It ends up being a quaint little dive bar with a pool table off to the side where some local people are playing a game. The bartender, also a transvestite, remembers Francois from earlier ship contracts. They share a lively exchange of French greetings and magically, a pitcher appears in front of us. We sit down and take in our surroundings. A mix of young, 20 something year olds and shady looking 45 plus year olds occupy the bar stools and make for an interesting collage of visual stimulus. We start talking music (as most musicians do when you get a few drinks into them) and also checking out passing beauties out of the corners of our eyes. Francois is a bit older than A.J. and I, and also much more bold. I notice as beautiful, young woman pass by him, he gives their asses a nice squeeze. Now I have always heard of some people try this technique but always figured it ended with them getting their faces dented in by a furious, feminine fist in return. However, this seemed to work fairly well for him and one of the girls later came back (who was for sure a woman by the way) and Francois said MAYBE two or three words in French and she takes him in her arms and gives him a kiss. Sitting there shocked, A.J. and I look at each other in amazement and are speechless. All I can think of is “my god, I gotta get a French Rosetta Stone”.

They shut the pool table down before we could game in. We finished our drinks and headed next door. The place was packed. 500 people or so and a mix of people from locals to cruise ship passengers and crew. Classic nightclub set up. Dance floor, trendy looking bar, music too loud and a light show to put weaker man into a seizer. One bonus is the stripper poles around the place for some drunken women (or men), to try to get their sexy on. Tonight however, we had one drunken guy with a gnarly handle bar mustache in street cloths bobbing and weaving somewhat to the music. I get to the bar and try to order Jager bombs for the band. The bar tender looks at me with a puzzled look as I tried to order and I try to order a second time. She says she has no idea what this is. I tell her politely that it’s jagermeister and red bull. She comes back with “I don’t know what Jagermeister is”. I don’t know what Jagermeister is? Are you kidding me? What kind of bartender has never heard of Jagermeister? Taking into consideration that im not in the states anymore and that might be something they might not get in the far corners of the world, I quickly change my order to 3 shots of Jack Daniels. She takes a few moments and returns with 3 glasses of Jack and a bill that has the number 58 at the top. I drop 3 American 20s down and give it back to her. A.J. looks at me looking sort of mystified and asked “ Did 3 shots really just cost $60?” I think about it and return with “maybe it was 60 francs?”. Either way something didn’t add up. She returns with a single, 500 Franc note. Looking at it with one eyebrow raised I have no idea where to begin. I couldn’t recall the current exchange rate from Francs to US dollars and I had not the Internet access to look it up. It was way to crowded and loud to try to start a discussion with bar tender about exchange rates so I let it slide. I told the band that I am NOT buying the next round.

We find some of the dancers from the ship and find the couch where the crew is hanging out. I see a few familiar faces but not nearly as many as was promised hours ago aboard the ship. I’m trying find a few ladies that work on the ship that I had taking a liking to in the last 10 days, one of them who promised me she would be coming out tonight, but none of them were in attendance. I hangout for a little bit and watch the dancers on the dance floor. The locals women have an unusual, yet sexy style of dancing that I can only describe as a mix of hip hop and hula dancing that kept me intrigued. I can assure you, this looks way better than it sounds. The men looked something more like dying mosquitos fluttering than some artful display of physical expression. After a few moments meditating on this, I get bored and decide to get A.J. and Francois and get out of here. I find them and A.J. is telling me Francois is working on this girl and he’s also really trashed. A.J. and I agree that we want to leave, and say good-bye to Francois and leave him to his work.

I mention to A.J. that im kind of hungry and we should find some food. We remember passing a bunch of food caravans on the way to the club and we decide to try our luck with that. We roll up to the aroma of mouth watering Chinese food. I get excited and pick a caravan and grab their menu. Skimming through the menu, I find a spicy chicken dish that sounded appetizing and A.J. gets steak and fries. We sit down and watch the magic of the chef, who cooks almost everything on this giant wok that is placed over an open fire in the street, prepare feast after feast of this amazing smelling food. I look around and almost everyone who has food has some kind of meat over a mountain of French fries. The fries looked pretty appetizing but I was almost sure that my meal did not include them. We get our food and we dig in. The food came scalding hot but I was so hungry I just didn’t care. Eating away as it burns my toungue, it tastes fine. Nothing to extravagant but does the trick. I look over at A.J.s plate and his comically large mount of fries that fills his plate. I con him into sharing some of those fries so I take a few.

Now I like to think that I’ve had some good fries in my day. I’ve had In-N-Out, 5 Guys, Mc Donalds, Four Burger in Boston, and they were all excellent fries. The fries off of A.J.’s plate easily trumped them all. These may have been the best fries I’ve ever had. First off, from what I can tell, they don’t deep-fry them in a deep fryer. They put them in the wok and cook till brown and serve them that way. Second off they use, from what I can tell, zero salt. Its not that they need it either, they’re freaking amazing with out it! Who would of thought fries would taste better WITHOUT salt!? Third, and most of all I think, They use some special oil in the wok that gives the fries their taste that you don’t get anywhere else. Perhaps it’s a local oil extract that only gets grown in the deep crevices of the green, misty mountains and is harvested only by moonlight on the crescent moon cycle by beautiful, nude Polynesian woman. My imagination runs wild as I try to come up with a reason why these fries are this freakin’ good.

We finish up our meal, say thank you to the chef and the waitress and make our way back to the ship. Reminiscing on the highlights of the evening and laughing at the humorous events, we agree that the evening was in general a success. Papeete is one pretty cool town. A mix of paradise and city, it gives you both tropical surroundings as well as night life options to keep you busy for at least a few years. We’ll be back here a few more times before we relocate to Hawaii again in March. I look forward to it.