Tahiti

Papeete, Tahiti. You say every last one of those vowels, so it comes out "pah-peh-EE-tay". Tattoo'd drummers with big carved wooden drums along the pier. Smiling dark-skinned young woman handing out little white flowers to everyone, men and women alike , as we step off the gangway.

Sharp-edged green-covered hills rise steeply only a few blocks back from the waterfront, but you will not mistake Papeete for a native village. The main drag parallels the waterfront, and the traffic -- cars, trucks, motorcycles, the occasional wailing ambulance -- is constant. There are painted-on crosswalks, but no traffic lights. Either Tahitians are inherently courteous, or they all know squashing tourists is bad PR, because both going and coming, there was no problem crossing six lanes of traffic with just a smile and a waved "Merci". (This is, after all, French Polynesia.)

I spent the morning with Marilyn, a Vancouver, BC, woman whose snorkeling excursion wasn't until the afternoon. She was looking for a black pearl necklace for her daughter, and I wanted some kind of trinket relating to Polynesian seafaring for Sandra, a dragon-boating friend. So we wandered the tourist traps within a few blocks of the pier.

I really should not be allowed outside with negotiable currency. Marilyn at least objected when offered an exorbitant exchange rate. I was just so charmed by the exuberant colors and loose cut of the dresses that I am lucky to have come back with only one, plus a shell necklace to go with it. And a little tiki god carved out of dark stone that I am sure must be lava. And a new set of sheets in red and blue that cried out to me from the sales table. Exchange rate be damned, I can look forward to sleeping between Tahitian flower prints when I can no longer sleep to the rocking of the ocean!

(I am coming to realize that there are actually three different and possibly mutually unrelated trips going on here. There was the one in anticipation, the image of which was me sailing around the world, one hand on the mast, the other shading my brow as I peer bravely ahead into the waves. There is the one I'm on now, the image of which is maybe me lying on a lounge chair on deck watching for flying fish or maybe me scrambling into clothing I hope is adequately "smart casual" and riding the elevator up two floors to dinner. And then there will be the one I remember and the person I will be then who does the remembering, who will not be who I am now.)

But my favorite acquisition in Papeete came as we returned. Marilyn, who had also bought a dress, wanted a flower headdress to go with it. She had rejected several we'd seen in the shops as too expensive. As we wandered through the final tourist trap before the gate to the Amsterdam, she saw one she liked on the head of the young Tahitian woman minding the till and asked if she could buy it. The young woman shook her head, but pointed over to the tourist welcome office, where a burly, tattooed Tahitian man was sitting on the ground on a tarp surrounded by hundreds of bright yellow flowers, which he was stringing into leis and headdresses.

Marilyn was soon fitted with a flower crown, and I took her picture with the young woman, getting the shot on my camera because hers needed new batteries. And when I turned around, the man crowned me as well, not only for free, but without my asking.

I know, I know, it's a gimmick to make tourists feel welcome, like the leis they used to hand out at Honolulu airport. And I don't care. I do feel welcome here. I do feel intoxicated by the colors and the beauty and the exuberance of the green-covered, cloud-wreathed hills. I don't care that the view from the other side of the ship is of an oil terminal with big white tanks and a grim military ship. If they are selling an illusion of a bygone era to ease the dollars out of my wallet, I am sold and have no complaints about the price.

On the other hand, if I go back into town later this afternoon, it might be the better part of valor to leave my wallet on the ship.