Shopping in remote French Polynesian islands

Avatoru, Rangiroa, Tuamotu, French Polynesia

So the supplies that make it off the ship, into the boat, onto the pier and survive the on dock feeding frenzy go to one of three places:

– One of the local hotels / bars like the one beside the entrance pass

– One of the three stores in town.

The largest of these stores is Magazin (French for “store”) Daniel, which is so important as to be noted in our guidebooks as “the best supermarket on the island”.  So this, according to our printed guidebooks mind you, is the best supermarket in the main city of the largest, most developed, most populous island of the 78 atolls of the Tuamotu chain.  Here’s the tour:

And as a special treat for all of Greg’s fellow sci-fi nerd friends out there, look what he found!

If you don’t get it, it’s ok, he forgives you.  If you do get it, you know why he put it up here… so awesome!

Oh the third place stuff from the boats go?  Like we mentioned before, some stuff is custom ordered.  Which is why this video is so amazing:

Greg getting his butt handed to him by an island kid in a game of ping pong is not remarkable.  It’s the cultural significance of the thing! (no, not of me getting power slammed by a 10 year old, why are you fixated on that!?)  It was the ping pong table, focus on his table!  (I might note I scored some points.)  What is remarkable is that the table was there in the first place.  This most assuredly overshadows any *cough* – minor – *cough* point spread difference there may have been.