Mark Frauenfelder returns from vacation with a substantially-enlarged collection of tiki photographs.

Carla and I just got back from 10 days in French Polynesia. What a beautifully stunning country (or "overseas collectivity of the French Republic" for our beloved pedant commenters). We spent a few hours in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia on the island of Tahiti, then took a 30-minute ferry to Moorea, where we stayed 4 nights. Then we flew in a large prop plane for 45 minutes to Bora Bora and stayed on a motu (an islet) a short boat ride from the island, where we stayed for five nights.

I plan to post several sets of photos from the trip, and to start things off, here are some tikis I photographed. It's likely many, if not most, of these tikis were made in the US or other countries, and not in French Polynesia, but it doesn't matter to me. I loved all of them, even the ones that were holding up ashtrays!

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