LETAHA’A ISLAND RESORT & SPA

Taha’a might be harder to get to than the ever-popular Bora Bora but therein lies its charm. Its isolation means that, aside from your fellow guests, you’ll encounter few other tourists and, as locals will tell you, it is more authentique. The island is largely undeveloped, except for vanilla farms and coconut plantations, with simple houses painted pink, yellow and green dotting the foreshore. Driving around the coast you’ll see roadside pineapple stands, rusted-out cars parked on front lawns and women walking along the road carrying baguettes and bananas.

The resort is on its own private motu (islet), a few minutes’ boat ride across the dramatically green lagoon from Taha’a proper. Built 16 years ago, it has 57 rooms, the majority of them overwater bungalows decorated in traditional style. Uniquely, each overwater room has a glass-topped cabinet at the end of the bed that opens up so you can handfeed the fifish that congregate in the water beneath your bungalow.

Book a tour of the familyowned Iaorana Pearl Farm on Taha’a and learn about the process of making the coveted black pearl. Peer inside a shed on the wharf to see the “graft men” seated at small wooden tables carefully inserting the special nucleus into palm-sized oyster shells to accelerate the growth of a pearl. Before you leave, pop into the tiny shop to buy silver-grey “black” pearl earrings or necklaces or, better still, dive and find your own oyster with a pearl inside.

Next, visit a fragrant vanilla plantation to glean an insight into the in-demand Tahitian vanilla industry. And, finally, sample some aromatic, mouthsearing Taha’a rum – made from pure sugar cane that is crushed to extract its juice – at the Pari Pari distillery.