City AM Magazine // March 30th, 2019

Dixons in Heathrow Terminal 5 has most of the latest MacBooks for sale. They’re all synchronised to play the latest iOS screensaver demo on repeat. You know the routine: wafer-thin slices of aluminium lined up with OCD precision, beaming Hubble-definition colours that are unnaturally beautiful. My five minutes in store was a glowing, near-flight-missing, paean to screen addiction.

Is it any wonder? Preternatural displays like this are irresistibly attractive. Nature, all still and sun-dependent, simply does not stand a chance anymore. Aldous Huxley’s acid-fuelled descriptions in The Doors of Perception couldn’t match the dazzle I saw in Dixons. If Turner were alive today, he’d draw inspiration from Westfield Stratford City, not coastal Thanet.

It wasn’t until a full week later, having island hopped round French Polynesia, that I thought of this moment again. I was bobbing around in the sea as the sun set over Rangiroa, the largest atoll in the Tuamotu archipelago. The way the light hit the water gave it a metallic varnish, like an electrical current passing through mercury. Between chrome and shadow, amorphous blobs of purple and orange made me doubt depth and form. Above, a young crescent moon pierced the darkening sky, as if the tip of a French manicure had compromised new navy tights. A ragged purfle of palm trees ran halfway to the horizon.

The kaleidoscopic beauty of it all was enough to make me laugh. Or perhaps it was a sense of relief? In a hue-ty contest to end them all, nature had got its shit together and given Silicon Valley both barrels. I was delighted and humbled. Travelling for more than 30 hours in four planes suddenly felt worth it. To boot, this intimate moment with the heavens and earth somehow helped to salve my monster jet lag. Back ashore, at the family-run guesthouse I was staying in, owner Jean- Frédéric called me in for dinner.

Definitively exotic, Tahiti and its surrounding islands are thought of back home as the preserve of moneyed honeymooners and heads of state. The price of flights reflects the air miles you must commit to from Europe, while a water bungalow (a Tahitian invention by theway, don’t believe The Maldives) will set you back a pre-2008 bonus. Speaking to friends about the trip, ultra-luxe resort The Brando invariably came up in conversation. Cited as one of the best hotels in the world, it’s known for its eco-credentials and guarantee of privacy, being the sole resort on Tetiaroa island. A three-bedroom villa costs nearly £11,000 a night.

But there is another way. Mere mortals, or indeed those looking for a more ‘authentic Polynesian experience’, can stay at one of many pensions de famille; ‘guesthouses’ in English. Such accommodation packages, found on the Tahiti tourist board’s website, come in at around £1,500 for 10 days: Airbnb prices. To make visiting the end of the earth even more attainable, French Bee, which describes itself as ‘the first long-haul, lowcost airline’, launched flights from Paris this summer that have near-halved the price of getting to Papetee, the capital. One-way tickets, via San Francisco, start at £455pp.

On Rangiroa, there are two guesthouses of note. The simple but well-appointed Raira Lagon – minutes from the airstrip – is where I had my harlequin vision. Down the road at Relais de Joséphine, a grand dame proprietor holds court every evening, her Cartier watch jangling as she projects savoir faire around a terrace filled with guests enjoying aperitifs. The food here is a happy coupling of Polynesian ingredients and nostalgic Parisian know how. Accompanying it, we drank a bottle of Vin de Tahiti, a tropically nosed white made on this very atoll. It’s the only vineyard in French Polynesia.

Besides the ‘charme et raffinement’ advertised at the entrance, I found this a convivial place: long-tabled and solotraveller friendly. No Blairs or billionaires.

It’s from one of these guesthouses that you can embark on a lagoon tour. Paati Excursions – comprised of a team of jaunty local lads, all related – took us from the nearby port to their collection of family owned atolls, an hour’s boat ride away. Then I laughed again. Nerves, I think. If the Flat Earth theorists are right, this string of sandy commas are the powdery edge of the precipice. I felt giddy being so far from civilisation, in a way that only Gulliver would understand.

We alighted in shallow water and made our way to shore for some freshly macheted coconut. Something to energise us for the upcoming hour of fun we spent snorkelling down a strait with a theme-park current. Baby blacktip sharks and their Pride-coloured prey joined me for the ride.

The lunch served afterwards was the Paati boys’ cooked coconut bread on a barbecue fuelled by coconut husks. This was served with a salad of carrot, cucumber and raw mahi-mahi, gently blanched in a citric coconut-milk sauce, with spicy rice on the side. The boys got guitars out and sang a few folksy numbers while their lilting audience supped Hinano, the ubiquitous local beer.

Before big-brand hotels arrived in French Polynesia, guesthouses were the only option. Initially serving a local market, they then accommodated the first wave of tourists from France in the early 1960s. The influx, created by the opening of Faa’a airport in 1961, prompted more families to commodify their homes. Today there are 400 or so open for business, with a significant proportion owned by French expats.

One such is the superlative Vanira Lodge, found in Teahupoo village at the south of Tahiti. While its owner – another chic madame de Paris – might be stretching the guesthouse definition, her utopian plot has a homely feel. A collection of nine ecobungalows sit with a yoga studio amid tropical gardens cut into the mountainside. The view from my terrace framed the lagoon and reef, assets that make Vanira the billet of choice for pro surfers who come to ride the world-famous Teahupoo break.

I liked Michael the moment I met him. He picked us up from the lodge for our ‘surf safari’ in a rusted wreck of a Renault, speedometer smashed, side mirror swinging. Once a pro surfer, he now captain’s Teahupoo Excursion Taxi Boat. It takes tourists out to watch boarders brave the vast glassy barrels on this notorious break. I got in the car, he high-fived me, cranked the volume on the radio, then pootled downhill.

Onboard, Micheal was in his element: a man with scruffy bleached hair in a trucker’s cap and Oakley’s, choosing to pump the Red Hot Chili Peppers from his portable hi-fi. Clichés are permissible, even pleasing, when the context is new – and this was fresh to me. Between nonchalantly navigating boat-busting waves, his time was spent jokingly lifting scorecards for each attempt. Strictly Come Surfing.

At the south-eastern end of Tahiti there are no roads. Intrepid ramblers can tackle mountain passes that lead them through precipitous rainforests. For soft adventurers, there are sandal-worn walkways along the littoral. Part two of Michael’s safari took us down one such track, eventually leading to an atmospheric lagoon and a rope swing. After some graceless aquabatics on my part, Michael served his homemade ginger and passionfruit rum punch, while telling us about moonlighting as an actor. His chef d’oeuvre was playing impressionist painter Gauguin in a biopic on his controversial years in Tahiti.

Nothing about my motor skills suggests I’d be good at surfing, and yet I gave it a go. After a remarkably good lunch at naff-but fab Beach Burger we were picked up by Pascal Luciani. He’s the man in charge of the annual Billabong Pro competition, but does private lessons. For ease, we went to nearby Taharuu Beach (complete beginners should travel north to Papenoo).

Sure enough, I was to surfing what Michael is to car care, and found myself unable to even kneel atop the board. I left the more nimble to it and relished the view instead: black sand, mist, and a backdrop of emerald mountains covered in metamorphic ridges that cast shadows in all the right places. Silicon Valley’s got some work to do. DG

Tahiti Tourisme UK tahititourisme.uk // Air Tahiti Nui is the national carrier to French Polynesia with departures from Paris 4-7 times weekly, with connecting flights available from London. Rates start from £1,885pp return for Economy Class seats, London-Papeete via LAX. airtahitinui.co.uk