007 and hs sidekick Miss PhoebePenny on arrival at the Radisson Tahiti

Rosie and Marcel Tai, grandson of Paul Gauguin

It was with some horror that I read today about President Nicolas Sarkozy collapsing in Paris after jogging alongside his amour, Carla Bruni. I’m fast becoming a Sarko groupie, frankly.  Travelling around his vast overseas domains has made me something of a haplessly smitten fan. Not only do I fancy him, but I feel rather sorry for him – I mean, who would want to have a country as terrifying and sad as French Guyana on your in-tray of a morning? And as expensive?

You see, half of the people in these Departements and Territories Outre-Mer want to be rid of le Petit Nicolas anyway.  That is, until they realise how cold it would be in the outside world without his comforting blanket of funding which is a constant presence, paying for salaries, pensions, child care, roads, health, education,defense and, er, helping keep the price of wine down.

Apart from wine in Tahiti, that is, which is ruinously expensive.  I can see why they call French Polynesia a ‘luxury destination’. Its because only millionaires can afford to come here. The place is like a James Bond set with infinity pools, personal jacuzzis, crystal clear seas and million-dollar prices to boot. A litre of milk in a supermarket? £ 8! A bottle of champagne in the same? £400! As Mr Millard observed with his usual amusingly caustic nature, walking around the shops of Papeete is not dissimilar to how visiting London in 20 years’ time might be,  when a snack lunch for six will cost £60 and a cup of char will set you back  a fiver.  The children of course while loving the 007/Cubby Broccoli sets are pretty slow at grasping how poor we are rapidly becoming in this world of the £100 breakfast.

“Eat your food!!!” I yell at them as they poke a pretty greasy (but £10) leg of chicken and some chips around a plate in some hideous downtown Papeete snackbar. “This meal will cost us Eighty Pounds!” You can tell they are all thinking, “yeah well you brought us here, live with it. Or if you don’t like it, take us back to London.”

I bet it wasn’t like this in Gauguin’s day, when all the seas were blue (and untainted by atomic fallout), and all the maidens beauteous. They still are beauteous, but there Tahiti has not one of Gauguin’s pictures of their antecedents.  There are lots of copies in a rather charming studio owned by his grandson Marcel Tai, but no originals. Monsieur Tai is very charming but somewhat disillusioned by the way that Tahiti has latched onto his grandfather without, as he sees it, actually comitting to the art.  There’s  there’s a Rue Paul Gauguin in Papeete, and a Salle Paul Gauguin in the Sofitel Hotel, and an ecole Paul Gauguin.

And for those homesick French residents who keep a portrait of Sarko below their personal Tricoleur, way above the city on a mountainside perch,  there is The Belvedere, a proper French restaurant selling raclette, fondue and snails imported from Burgundy (at £30 a shot) so at least you can eat proper French fare and think about France’s thwarted genius, if not see his actual work.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I, Mr Millard, the team and our 13 bags are taking a 3-hour flight to the Marquesas Islands, there to pay homage to Gauguin’s grave. In terms of distance, it’s rather like flying to Moscow from London, but Gauguin (apparently) didn’t like people much and wanted to get away from things.  He was also impoverished and found Papeete rather pricey, even in 1900. At least he chose a fabulously gorgeous place to go to. Apparently he got to the Marquesas where he was told he had to go to church in order to have a piece of land. He went to church every week, was given the land on which he promptly built La Maison de Jouir. He never went to church again. 

Never mind the street signs give us a painting!

And so when it came to it, I couldn’t face it. Sleeping all night in a former prison cell of France’s infamous ‘bagne’, the prison of the penal colony for which French Guiana was renowned. Our room was a) windowless, b)airless and c) very haunted. There was a huge pit outside in which various caimen and iguana lurked. Alright, there was also a toucan there but even its bright blue feet couldn’t dispel the sure knowledge that all human rights had ended, for sure, right here in the Isles de Salut. Alfred Dreyfus spent five years on the next door island – every time a boat was sighted on the horizon, a prison guard held a gun to his head. What a dreadful place. Imagine checking into a hotel on Robben Island and you sort of get the picture. In fact we actually did a runner. But not before we had LOST Gabriel. I thought he had fallen into the pit along with the toucan, iguana, etc. Actually he just had popped into the museum which had lovely things like iron leg braces on display. Then when we were at last reunited and waiting for our catamaran to rescue us (well, we have standards), a giant palm branch came crashing down and nearly decapitated us all. Perhaps reminding us that there was even a guillotine here, in former times. Even Gabriel sighting a wonderful leatherback turtle popping its head out of the ocean didn’t dispel the gloom and doom. We leapt aboard the boat and charged back to the mainland amid one of the most terrifying and enormous tropical storms I have ever encountered. Fork lightening, sheet rain, peals of thunder and we had to all get on a tiny dinghy. Its a wonder Lucien wasn’t swept overboard. Yes, another adventure he will be “telling Nursery about”, you see. Hot showers all round and a bad mark on France’s copy book of human rights, I’m afraid. Next stop – Polynesia and Gaugin’s grandson.

Oh, God. We wanted the jungle. And we got the jungle. Courtesy of the crazy Paul Griffin, a former Hell’s Angel and now practising chiropractor in Guyane. Who actually lives in the jungle. Yes, in a hammock. Cooks on an open fire. Bathes in the creek. Shoots ocelot. Eats snake. Has done for four years. And when we bumped into him in St Laurent, home of the infamous ‘bagne’ which locked up thousands of French convicts – and indeed guillotined them – he invited us to come and see his pad.

Well, it was amazing. He cooks fantastic roast potatoes (see evidence from picture), and delicious Surinamese casseroled water-buffalo. After lunch, we all went on a jungle walk around some of his own jungle. “Don’t stop, touch any trees, or go near any ants” were his words as we set off. He was also taking his rifle with him, just in case. Left the kids mighty impressed. Sadly, while leaping over a fallen log in the rain forest we came across about 40,000 giant black ants.  They were not happy about the advent of family Millard-Clothier on their terrain, and promptly climbed up my trousers, Honey’s trousers and Gabriel’s trousers, where they then bit us. A lot.  Have you ever felt an ant bite? Its sort of like being pierced by a red-hot needle. In my case, it was on my arse.

Every0ne started YELLING. “I hate this jungle,” said Honey, who ended up with about 15 bites on her.  ”Get me back to Islington NOW!”

Meanwhile Lucien was quietly contemplating the entire panic-stricken occasion, which included interesting sights such as his mother ripping off her trousers, everyone else hopping up and down while his father calmly filmed the lot.  “I am CERTAINLY going to tell Nursery about this,” he commented drily while fording the local creek back to Paul’s jungle hut. Unforgettable.

Paul Griffin, who comes from Worcestershire but lives in the jungle, serving his speciality, roast potatoes

Chopped, raw iguana. Told you it was yummy

Alright, so it goes like this. “Do come over for dinner tonight, Rosie. We are cooking a Guyanese delicacy.” Pregnant iguana, no less. A speciality for July and August, apparently, because the female iguana is full of eggs, slow and easy to nobble with a gun. Isn’t that a bit unfair,I suggest? Cue general laughter. You know what the French are like. Eat anything, no matter how vulnerable, cute or furry. Or wierd. And French Guyana is officiallly part of Europe, of course. The sign on the door of our motel reads Bienvenue a France, even though we are also in the terrrain of soppingly humid 100 degree heat, spiders the size of dinner plates, flying cockroaches and big splashy palm trees.

Anyway, so we all troop round to Jules’ house. Jules is the local Chief of Police. The last time we were there, he had a break-in which was only thwarted when Honey who is 6 went to the loo and stumbled upon him.

Tonight, though, while we drink rum by the pool, as before, all the doors are locked. Jules’s friend Richard, who is chief of the gendarmes, has shot the iguana. Two iguanas, actually. As you will see on the video clip they are pretty spectacular. Spiny, huge, grey striped and beaded with blood. Terrifying claws. A giant reptilian head. And we have to eat these?

“Oh yes”, says Richard, “I do them fricaseed with herbs and spices. He also does anaconda, he tells me. Hangs them up from a hook 6 feet up, and skins them. This man is clearly a crack shot. He was taught to cook by his mother, who had an English father. Richard tells me that all English men know how to cook, sew and iron. Yes, well.

Anyway, Richard gets out his iguana and slaps them on a chopping board. At this juncture I go off and play Boxes with the kids, who are looking a bit pale. At our feet is a terrapin in a washing up bowl. It is trapped and so am I, facing a certain meal of iguana for supper.

Two hours later, and after quite a lot of rum has been downed, the iguana arrives. Ready for supper. Chopped, marianaded, spiced and indeed, fricaseed. The skin is still sitting on large chunks of flesh, which is a bit terrifying. There are loads of rib-bones, and some frilly bits of spine. The head, mercifully, has gone. But iguana eggs, yolk-yellow and as big as gobstoppers, float around in the casserole. Eggs. I’ll cope with the meat, I decide but there is no way I am dealing with one of those globes in my mouth. I’d feel too much like someone on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, eating something vile from a slug.

“You must try it, Rosie,” everyone choruses, laughing uproariously. To my horror I see Mr Millard tucking into spine, frilly bits of fin, and god knows what. I know, its the first lesson of going abroad, dont be rude and eat whatever you are offered, and I dont want to be rude, so I have a go. I pick some of the tender meat from the bones and try to avoid looking at the pieces of striped skin on my plate. Now I know how my children feel when I force them to eat something which I think is delicious and they think highly suspicious.

The iguana tastes strongly of cloves and, er, lizard. The meat is lean, and red, and probably very healthy. But do I like it? It’s a struggle, I have to say. Then I explain to the assembled company what is involved in the eating and preparation of a haggis. They all fall under the table with horror. Bon appetit.

This picture shows Lucien ready for bed after our brush with crime – showing how he will see off future invaders of the insect variety in wild Guyane

This trip is getting stranger and stranger – a bit like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. Take the familiar French DIY chain Mr Bricolage. Totally ordinary, everyday, suburban. The Gallic version of Homebase. It has transformed itself in my view. First, it was on the front of a giant shed selling barbeques and paintbrushes. Then, it was festooned on the sail of a Martiniquais ‘yole’, or crazy sail boat with no steering other than six or so logs onto which the sailors have to perch, dangling several feet above the water. The boat is sponsored by Mr Bricolage, you see. Now we are in Guyane, South America, what do you know but our friend Mr. Bricolage pops up again – this time within the context of a deep Amazonian forest, with giant butterflies, vultures and mosquitos the size of helicopters.

It is hot, and wet here, and anything further from France I cannot imagine – although thanks to the local TV output I know it’s busy on the roads down to Cannes this weekend in the ‘mainland’ (Bastille Day celebrations, you see) – but we don’t feel too estranged since we have friends here - the parents of our researcher Noemie, who welcomed us tonight with a wonderful drinks party around the pool at the home of the Chief of Police in Cayenne. 

Everyone is swigging back the 50% proof local rum, or in my case, champagne. As well as the chief of police, there is another policeman at the do, and two gendarmes, one of which is Noemie’s dad. It’s all going brilliantly until Honey (6) ventures into the house for the loo, and surprises a local who appears to have popped round uninvited. Cue huge amounts of teasing about how a six year old from Islington in a Hello Kitty shirt can outwit a local thief while the cream of Cayenne police are chatting by the pool.

Well, they were discussing  about how they kill, skin and eat iguana. That’s Tuesday’s supper treat, by the way.

The head of tourism for St Pierre, Martinique, pauses in his tour of the fomer capital city, largely levelled thanks to the eruption of Mt Pele, a nearby volcano, in 1902. We are going up the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ – or Rue de Ciel, so-called because there was a religious seminary at the top of the flight of stone steps. “And a lot of prostitutes too,” he jokes, “for a different type of heaven.” We continue past a ruined psychiatric hospital and a ruined architectural school.St-Pierre was, by all accounts, a pretty sophisticated place. “Le Petit Paris” it was called.  Clearly, Martinique spends a lot of its time looking 4000 km across the Atlantic for its influences. Take its recent spate of unrest, caused largely by untenable price rises and expressed largely in strikes across the island.  “Why did you decide to sort everything out by striking this February?” I ask my guide.

A genial Martinique-born West Indian, he shrugs, while considering the 5-week strike which paralysed the country and allegedly caused the cancellation of 100,000 holidays. “Because we are French,” he eventually offers. “It’s how we French deal with things.”

It is a pretty extraordinary place, Martinique. Palm trees, kilometer after kilometer of banana plantations and emerald-green fields of sugar cane swaying in the Caribbean breeze…and then… you have gendarmes, boulangeries and Mr Bricolage. Yes, they are French here, and this is part of Europe, as the continuous signs “Funded by the European Community” on brand new buildings attest.

Everyone drives a Renault, Citroen or Peugot, and shops at Carrefour or Galeries Lafayette. Well, those who can afford it, do. Prices here are 40% higher than in France, because – as with the other French overseas departements, – everything is imported, from the Liebherr diggers carving up the (immaculate) roads, to the Citroen Berlingos and the stuff in the Conforama furniture shop.

Driving along the dual carriageway which rings the island, and observing all the shopping opportunities which pop up on the roadside amid the bougainvillea, it is as if France has franchised herself out – simply earmarked the things she wants to export, and popped them, along with industrial quantities of Danone yoghurt,  onto the next freight ship to Fort de France.

Except the trouble is that France isn’t franchisable. Not really. Not in the sense that Macdonald’s, or Body Shop, or Les Mis is. The whole point about France, and why it is the most popular tourist destination on the globe, is because of its uncomplicated and uncompromising singularity.

Those unrepeatable petit grocery stores,  the divine boulangeries, the bistro that no-one else has discovered….and so on and so forth. I mean, where else can you find the Eiffel Tower, I ask the kids? “Las Vegas”, they solemnly reply. God, they are spoilt. Anyway, this is why I am not particularly moved to find an outlet of a Paul boulangerie here, as if Martinique was just another platform of the Gare du Nord.

The things which are fantastic about Martinique are the things particular to this island – giant moths, French Caribbean rock concerts by the water’s edge, Gospel choirs in the foyer of our hotel, hot showers of rain, the rum degustation at the Clement Distillery, coconut milk, the giant memorial statue to the slaves at Anse Caffard and the fried fish at the open-air market. Alright, boules (as seen in this pic) are a pretty good import, I’ll accept. Particularly when they are played just yards from a beach which is yet another dead-ringer for a Bounty ad….

The nightly game of boules in Diamant, Martinique

The view from the boules park. Sort of shows Paris a thing or two.

No, I love our children. And OF COURSE I’m delighted that they are here with us. As I said to Mr Millard “just think – we have three months unlimited time with our children, how lovely, no nannies, no aupairs”…and then REALITY hit.

How are we going to make six documentaries and no end of written pieces with three, and then (after a month) four children aged 4, 6, 9 and 11. In the French overseas territories.

To explain what I mean, take a look at this picture. Looks pretty tame. It’s Lucien (4) sitting in a Rum Distillery in Martinique. All well and good. What the picture doesnt show is that behind him there is a giant map, in French, of the history of this distillery and the entire history of sugar cane. I have to read this history, translate it and then interview the director of said distillery, on camera, in about 2 minutes time. And Lucien doesn’t want me to do this. No,  no, He wants me to play Restaurants. And then he wants to be taken to the loo “for a poo”. When we arrive at the loo, via a tropical rainstorm (bang goes the coiffed hair), he announces the poo has gone away, and he wants a pee. Or doesnt want the loo at all. No, what he really wants is a glass of milk. Hand-milked by me, with a local cow. And on and on.

It’s driving Pip and I to mild insanity. Our guide, a very learned chap called Laurent, has  had to get used to playing a game called Find, and then Catch the Mango. Instead of telling us about the history of Martinique and pointing out the ruined cathedral.

Furthermore, putting them in front of a TV when their mother is performing is no sop either. You would have thought they would be delighted to see their mother (moi) speaking French, but no. Take a look at the video, one post ahead, loyally shot by Mr Millard on my Flip camera, and utterly sabotaged by our delightful offspring. Why didn’t we leave them behind?

Have to go now, I need to play Restaurants again….

Examine the two photos below. The first is us leaving St Pierre et Miquelon in the freezing, wet and thick fog. The second is taken some 40 hours later (after a stop over in Halifax, Nova Scotia) and shows us arriving in Martinique, also a French overseas territory (actually a Department) in the sweltering heat.

After precisely 20 minutes, the children start demanding to go straight back to freezing cold St-Pierre. When will they be satisfied? When they are served with intravenous Cokes, chewing gum on tap and x no of gifts from Hudson News, a violently expensive outlet at seemingly every airport in the Western World where a small array of toys in shrink wrapped plastic will set you back £35. It goes without saying therefore that our small entourage is facing 12 weeks of continual disappointment when it is denied the above list of exotica. Actually, only 10 weeks left. We are already onto Destination No 2. Am I counting the days? Well, sort of. I’m enjoying it but washing all our clothes every single day is trying, and attempting to LIVE without breaking the bank is also a quotidien challenge. Stealing all the food from the breakfast buffet and then slowly dividing it up during the day is our latest ruse. It’s OK but eating Danone yogurts at 9pm is somewhat grim.

Anyway, after precisely 21 minutes at Aime Cesaire Airport,  it was clear my trolley containing all my clothes was not going to materialise, even though it has a pink Baby Boden belt jauntily wrapped around it. For easy identification, naturally. Ah, well. Life with one pair of knickers is not all that bad. Especially in the Caribbean heat. Wash ‘em, hang them out on the balcony – you’re laughing. A bit better than the situation in SPM where wet clothes take about 2 weeks to dry. And there are shop windows here! And jaunty market places, and Mr Bricolage, and Credit Agricole and all the rest of the French paraphernalia we all know and love…Century 21 estate agents, Renault cars, crap music, gorgeous men. Yes, SPM was terribly French, what with its beret-toting citizens and refusal to show anything other than French cinema, but in many ways it was a foggy and expensive museum piece living off subsidies. Here in the sweltering Caribbean things are a bit more – well, real. “Why are we ALWAYS  speaking French, Mummy?” whined Lucien when it was clear to him that yes, we were in another outlying part of the French Empire. Yet when the groundstaff at Aime Cesaire bade me a friendly “Bon soir” it felt so good to be back where the Tricolour continues to fly, that I almost cried. Or was that because of the trolley, which eventually arrived on the next day’s plane?

Check out this fog!

40 hours later, it's boiling hot in Martinique and we are still officially on French soil! Zut alors!

Rosie celebrating the eventual return of her trolley 24 hours later

Shipwreck of the Transpacific

Well, they said it would come, and it has. No sooner had we checked into the wonderful Hotel Iris in tiny St Pierre (loads of room, little kitchen, tres comfy beds) than the fog rolled in off the coast and even the lighthouse at the bottom of the street was obscured. It’s no wonder they call this the graveyard of the North Atlantic – over 600 shipwrecks are dotted around the treacherous coastline of around this island. We went on a trip to the Isle aux Marins this afternoon and saw nearby St Pierre blotted out in fog the density of cotton wool. Along with a whipping wind and pelting rain, we investigated the iron hull of the Transpacific, wrecked here in 1971. The crew survived but the cargo including several jukeboxes, mysteriously made its way into various St Pierre households by the time the week was out. Weatherwise, our entire experience was severe and called for intravenous hot chocolates afterwards. “Will the airplanes be able to get out of here?” asked Mr Millard querelously, perhaps afraid that our global journey will come to a juddering halt thanks to the brouillard. Oh, no. Feisty Air St Pierre, which takes off from a glittering airport has no truck with fog. Phew. So we will make Martinique after all