Vous êtes toute seule?

Though there are good things about solo travel, it can be a little lonely occasionally - and that is never more the case than at dinner time. Discomfort eating, is what it is. Especially when the waiter rubs it in by asking this particularly wounding question - it's the 'toute' that really stings. ("For one?" feels much less painful.) You see? There are downsides to being in Tahiti.

Another is the crappy internet that is so rarely free - I have no confidence that this will actually upload, so I'm not investing a lot of time here. I've just been to Moorea for the first time (see above for odd sunset effect tonight above the island now I'm back in Tahiti). It was lovely there, and there was fun with sharks and rays and quad bikes, and a charming local hostess who made me feel part of the family at her waterside beach house where I had an elevated villa. Taoahere Beach House, if you're tempted.

It's also been also meltingly hot and sweaty, the traffic's horrendous here in Papeete, and everything is expensive. There you go: feeling better about not being here? That's good, because now I can  tell you about the clear, clear, luminous turquoise sea that's so amazingly warm and full of colourful fish; and the gorgeous people, especially the girls; and how friendly they are; and the cute wild chickens and the strange birds that make pterodactyl noises in the palm trees at night; and that peculiarly Pacific lassitude that infuses everything and is so different from the wound-up lives we live back home. Ah, c'est si belle ici!