Tahiti

I have always loved the sound of rain falling, especially when I am not getting wet.

So picture this, I am staying in a barn. Its quite nice, as barns go, a lot cleaner than my Dad's, but there are small creatures running around on the floor. These turned out to be ants, who subsequently decided my rucksack would make a nice home.

At either end of the barn are two big windows, wide open as its unbelievably hot. Lying in bed, I can see lush green trees with coconuts in, and a bird singing. The rain drops are falling off the big leaves. If I roll over the other side in bed, I get an uniterupted view of the ocean. Its absolutely chucking it down with rain. I realise I've had about two hours sleep, having arrived at 3am from an overnight flight, its now 6am. The rain cleared up around mid-morning, and was lovely and hot ever since.

Tahiti, and its neighbouring island Moorea are stunningly beautiful. Formed out of volcanoes rising out of the sea, they are basically a pile of green mountains with a beach and a few houses running around the moutains in a circle. Its easy to find your way around as there's only 1 road running round the islands. Just off the beaches are gorgeous lagoons, like natural swimming pools. The surf breaks a couple of 100m out. I'm using the snorkel I bought in L.A. loads. Seen loads of fish, unfortunately have no idea what they are.

We only spent two days here, I've been travelling with a lovely Irish girl, Siobhan. The first day we just went into the main town, the next we got the ferry accross to Moorea. What struck me was that apart from a few French tourists, there are no foreigners here. I didn't meet a single British person the whole time. Also, the women are all very beautiful, and all wear gorgeous dresses and flowers in their hair, even the ones who work in the bank and post offices. Everywhere I go, people smile at me. Probably because I am the only white person here (all others have nicely tanned skin). I'm starting to go very brown though.