Beez Neez now Chy Whella - Maharepa Bimble

Maharepa Bimble

Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Fri 30 Aug 2013 22:57

Maharepa Bimble

Each afternoon around five o’clock the clouds come down and we get the most amazing dew form. Enough to make us think it rained overnight but no, just dew.

Bear has become quite the little shopper, he takes himself off in the mornings to get a French stick. Sadly he has found the most wonderful ring doughnuts, plain chocolate outside and cream chocolate in – Oh so bad for the hips. Bear gets himself a Danish pastry and backgammon in the afternoons has taken on a whole ceremonial feel about it. This has gone some way to balance out the terrible occurrence that happened – for the first time in my life I ran out of Marmite, indeed a tragedy. Bear dug around in the spares cupboard and came out with my emergency Bovril, not the same I know. But the sell by date says April 2009, no problem for well ’ard Millard, it will be a sad second but I’ll be brave. Bear took this shot of Cook’s Bay.

Yesterday afternoon we went for a bimble, the purpose was to find an ATM, en route we wandered by an even better example of a pretend coconut tree – this one had gauze wrapped around it for more authenticity. Next into a grockle shop ran by a lady who was in charge of recycling. This French Amy Winehouse look-a-like told us she had been here for two years, in business with three others. One lady made hand painted sarongs, one painted (stunning work) on fabric in clay and one made jewelry. Our lady spends her Sunday mornings on the beach picking up tin cans to turn into purses. She showed us her array of old LP’s turned into notebooks and fruit bowls. She asked where we were going, promptly told us it was a long way and loaded us into her easy potential for the One Careful Owner, calling over her shoulder to the sarong lady that she would be back in a while as she was popping to her friends shop. She gathered an elderly man with a faded beard tattoo and told him to settle us in the back. I shuffled the mosquitos out of the perma-open windows, my new friend organised the parcel shelf under our legs and off we went. Bear asked about buses. They run half an hour before the ferries and are very busy with people who commute daily to Papeete preferring to live here away from the hustle and bustle. Our lady pointed to the bank and said we could have a lift back whenever we wanted, had she gone, hitching is always easy - never done that before. Mmmm.

Success at the bank, our new friends car was still outside her friends shop opposite, but we decided to walk back as this was supposed to be our afternoon constitutional after all. Along the way many pareos (Polynesian for sarong) are used to advertise the various touristy shops, we think they look rather happy as decoration.

One such grockle shop in a stunning location, no customers though.

I liked this posh house, Bear liked the Funeral Home and Cultural House.

A happy Gallery.

A shack with a view.

A lovely house and a modest one.

A rather impressive hedge with mixed hibiscus, a first for white ones.

It seems to us that every other house and business was now a One Careful Owner in the making. The free tour book states “The world crisis does not spare Tahiti and its islands. In spite of a tourism decline of 30%, the country continues to believe in its fate and gets ready for years to come to welcome even better their visitors.” For now we wonder how the surviving businesses make it here, the cruise ships used to come in but have swapped to the bay further along the coast. The now shabby landing dock here used to have a very smart hotel waiting for guests, now sadly boarded up. The pearl shops we walked by offer free shuttles to passengers and ‘a one time special offer of the price less a third’. Albert’s Tour Busses were all parked idle and the jet ski place was chained up. We wish Moorea bon chance, we think she needs it.

The people we have met here are ultra friendly. Flowers are everywhere and the land crabs run nervously to their burrows at the slightest whisper of the word paella..

This made us both chuckle. The fence was clearly started and beer o’clock hit. Speaking of beer, Bear had a fancy to call in at the Bali Hai Hotel, he had seen Happy Hour advertised from five until six. Off we wandered, no, Bear went to reception and asked where the bar was. “Only on a Friday with dancing”. No just a beer. “Sorry only on a Friday”. No wonder the five people sitting around on their variety of gadgets looked so glum. They have come to a hotel, paid a hundred pounds a night for bed and breakfast, had to shop in the expensive supermarket to get supplies for other meals AND no bar six days a week. There is no beach and the swimming pool measures all of twelve feet by seven............We bimbled back toward Baby Beez, seeing Dave and Jenny arriving for Happy Hour, we relayed the story and all four of us, now quite mystified went for a pizza.

We never did work out the chap playing the piano that the tour guides talk about, we scanned the rocks for ages but nadder. Suddenly, sitting by the shore – there he was, head clear, hands outstretched over his keyboard.

I took a radical decision when we got home. Bears ‘We Will Rock You’ cap has got to be retired and confined to the deep, as a One Careful Owner label is not the done thing. It never recovered from the parrot going at it. The parrot didn’t change its colour though....... Hmmm, I have chosen a replacement but I’m not sure I want to think about the end of the other one, not just yet.