Question 1

Tipping in French Polynesia

Accepted Answer

Tipping is not a local custom in French Polynesia, and in general people do not expect a tip. The currency is the CFP franc, which people here simply call the franc. Tips have started to appear in some restaurants and hotels on the larger islands. The franc is pegged to the euro at a fixed rate of 119.33 francs, so euros change at the best rate, and US and Australian dollars are also easy to change.

Question 2

Vanilla, Pearls and Tradition

Accepted Answer

Tahaʻa produces about 80 percent of French Polynesia's vanilla, which is why it is called the Vanilla Island. Black pearls from oysters in its bays and copra from its coconut groves add to an economy built mainly on fishing and tourism. The vanilla grown here is Vanilla × tahitensis, a hybrid orchid whose flowers open for a single day and must be pollinated by hand. The pods have little flavor when picked. It develops over about three months of curing, with the pods dried in the sun by day and kept in sweatboxes at night. Tahitian pearls come from the black-lip oyster. Most of the pearls sold as black are really charcoal gray, silver or dark green, and a truly black one is rare. French is the only official language, but most people on Tahaʻa speak both French and Tahitian, and about three in four use Tahitian at home. In rock fishing, or tautai taora, fishers in a line of canoes strike the water with stones on ropes to drive fish toward the shore, where others catch them by hand. Today it is done mainly during the October festival, in canoes decorated with tiare flowers. Tahaʻa is one of four islands that host the Hawaiki Nui Vaʻa, an international outrigger canoe race. Some sacred sites on the island are tapu and should not be visited without a local guide.

Question 3

A Brief History

Accepted Answer

Polynesian voyagers settled Tahaʻa between about 1000 and 1100. Because it lies so close to Raiatea, inside the same reef, the island was strongly dependent on its neighbor, and in the 18th and 19th centuries it was caught up in the rivalry between Raiatea and Bora Bora. The island's old name was Uporu, after Upolu in Samoa. In early times Tahaʻa was divided into four chiefdoms, and its principal marae, Àpu-Roa, was held to be the home of the god Tāne. Local tradition makes Tahaʻa the island of the legendary warrior Hiro, and several rocks and hills on the island carry his name. When James Cook visited in 1769 and 1773, warriors from Bora Bora held the island. Vanilla stock reached Tahiti from Madagascar in 1848, carried by a French admiral, and it is the basis of the vanilla grown here today. In 1863 a Chilean ship hunting for slaves was wrecked near Tiva, in the southwest. Some of its crew stayed and married local women, and their descendants are known as the Spanish clan. France annexed Tahaʻa as a colony in 1888, against local resistance, and it is now part of French Polynesia.

Motu Mahaea, Near Taha'a

Good to know

Arriving at Motu Mahaea

Tipping in French Polynesia

Vanilla, Pearls and Tradition

A Brief History

Port crowds

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