It is July 1992.  Take That have just had their first Top Ten hit with It Only Takes a Minute and Andre Agassi has just won the Men’s Singles Championship at Wimbledon.  In contrast, I was emerging, bleary-eyed at Faa’a International Airport, Tahiti after a long, overnight flight from LAX.  It was 3 o’clock in the morning.  Outside the airport terminal, everything was dark.  And unfamiliar.  And I had no bed for the night.  Or the next night.

“Need a bed?”

It is both a welcoming and a scary offer at the same time.

He was a big man, unshaven, dressed in a scruffy t-shirt and shorts, revealing athletic, sun-tanned limbs.  European, but I couldn’t have guessed his nationality.  Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have begun to entertain his offer, but 3 o’clock in Faa’a Airport was scarcely normal circumstances.  I was further encouraged by the fact that he had two other slightly-nervous-looking newbie arrivals already standing beside him.  If this was going to be a kidnapping, I would at least have company.  The two other backpackers introduced themselves:

“I’m Stefan.”

“And I’m Courtney.”

A German and an American.

The big man, who I discovered answered to the name of Jan, appeared satisfied that there were to be no more latecomers from the flight, and he beckoned for our ill-assorted trio to follow him:

“Come.  Come.”

We were led to an open pick-up truck and instructed to climb in the back along with our luggage.  Stefan and Courtney both had sensible rucksacks.  I had a small, green suitcase.

“English?” Jan queried.

The question scarcely needed asking.

With no more ado, we found ourselves racing through the dark streets of Papeete, the comforting lights of first the airport and then the harbourfront quickly disappearing as we sped along a long straight road lined with run-down shacks roofed with corrugated iron sheets and, then, when even these modest signs of habitation began to vanish, a dark roadway of banana trees, breadfruit and palms.  The drive seemed interminable.  Civilisation seemed a long way away; the prospect of a bed even further.

Suddenly, the truck made a sharp left turn, pulling up to an abrupt halt.

“Out,” said Jan, and then, guiding us towards the external staircase of an ill-lit villa, reinforced his man-of-few-words image with the blunt instruction: “Up.”

I was still not sure if I was being kidnapped, but I was too tired to care.

On a dark, outside balcony of the villa, I could feel, rather than see, a mattress at my feet.  I slumped down, using some clothes from my suitcase to stuff a pillow-case to use as a pillow, and fell instantly asleep.

In the morning, the scene was transformed.  Where in the night, the surrounding snores had made me aware that I was sharing my captivity, daylight found me all on my own.  There were several empty mattresses strewn along an open-air first-floor verandah and, from the surrounding trees the evocative sounds of insects and birdsong.  And another sound, too.  The sea.

Looking over the balcony, waves were crashing onto a long black-sand beach.

Immediately below, sat in a raffia chair at an outside table, Stefan appeared to be tucking into a big plate of breakfast.

Hiti Mahana Backpackers’ Hostel was to prove to be my base for the next fortnight.

It felt good to be free.

© E. C. Glendenny

E. C. Glendenny takes a little walk down memory lane.

For anyone interested in reading a novel set in Tahiti and French Polynesia, you might like to check out Edmond Rawson’s Death in Bora Bora.