Raiatea - French Polynesia

During our 2 weeks in Bora Bora, we decided to take a day trip to the opposite island of Raiatea, also known as the sacred island; it's only a 10min plane ride away and well worth a visit!

We had the chance to meet the owners of the Hotu Vanilla plantation, Guy & Odette Tauatiti, who took us around their plantation and told us all about how their award winning vanilla is made, what an amazing experience!! You will be seeing quite a few vanilla recipes on the blog as I seem to have developed an obsession for it ;)

*Young vanilla pods - 9 more months to go until they ripen and can be collected*  

*Vanilla pods are left a couple of hours per day in the sunshine and then wrapped in dense cloth so that they can go through the process of "sweating", thus getting rid of all the water to release the vanilla bean flavor*

*The vanilla pod on the right is not yet ready for consumption as its thickness indicates that it is still full of water and must be dried out to resemble the pod on the left*

*Taputapuatea Marae - one of the most sacred places on Raiatea, believed to the very first Marae dating back to 1000AD*

*Tahiti's famous local dish "Poisson Cru a la Tahitienne" - will be trying this one at home sometime soon!*

Check out more pictures of French Polynesia on my new instagram profile - click here