PAPEETE

In French Polynesia this is the jumping-off point to adventure, the launching pad to hundreds of islands spread across millions of square miles of ocean, islands that conjure up mental images of coral reefs and white-sand beaches and groves of coconut palms that turn day into darkness.

By propeller airplane it takes less than an hour to reach the island of Maupiti, where the life style has changed little since English explorer Capt. James Cook dropped anchor a couple of centuries ago.

It takes a bit longer to get to Rangiroa in the Tuamotus. And there’s a freighter that does the trip to the Marquesas and the final resting place of artist Paul Gauguin in about 15 days, round trip.

Hundreds of these islands are blessed by a haunting remoteness, a detachment from everyday cares--islands without so much as an airstrip. To reach them, one must take a freighter, although there’s a slick new sailing vessel, the Wind Song, that does trips around French Polynesia and has staterooms that resemble a suite at the Savoy.

But first there’s Papeete with its fashionable hotels and restaurants, its sleazy clip joints and nightclubs, crowded streets, high-tech discos, office buildings and, down along the quay, expensive yachts, fishing boats and dozens of old rust buckets tied up alongside outriggers. It is here that freighters offload TV sets and foreign cars and hi-fi radios.

The time for a stroll along Boulevard Pomare and its side streets is in the early morning hours while the air is still fresh. Later, the traffic backs up and exhaust fumes funnel through Papeete and the heat is oppressive. Everyone complains about Papeete. They curse the cars and the trash in the streets. Yes, even the freeway that leads rush-hour motorists out of town.

Since the first jet set down in Tahiti nearly 30 years ago, this once-sleepy backwater South Seas town has become overcrowded. There are villagers who refuse to go into Papeete.

Paulette Vienot who operates tour buses, the Avis agency and Tahiti Nui Travel, senses a change in the Tahitian. Not the Tahitian on the outer islands, but those in Papeete.

The old warmth is cooling, just as the aloha spirit in Hawaii has. In the old Tahiti, she recalls, she read by kerosene lamps and lived in the country, miles from Papeete, and it took two days by horse and buggy just to make the trip into town.

Several years ago this blue-eyed French Tahitian bought property with a beach on the island of Huahine, where she planned to retire and tend a garden and study the sunsets. Only she’s too busy running her Tahiti Nui Travel Agency here and in San Francisco to smell the frangipani.

The din in Papeete during daytime is reminiscent of American cities. Trucks line up near the municipal market and radios and tape decks blare out Tahitian music. Impatient motorists blast their horns--and sidewalks swell with shoppers.

Not all is lost, though. Authorities rebuilt the municipal market without destroying its old personality. Now it’s a two-tiered affair where islanders continue to sell their fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, chickens, flowers and souvenirs. A block away a Chinese general store stocks Chanel No. 5, washtubs, canned escargots, mosquito coils, motorcycles and bras.

Here and there the old charm surfaces. A few clapboard buildings with their verandas and corrugated tin roofs still stand, and a mixture of copra and frangipani drifts through the alleys, while crowds gather at the outdoor cafes and snack bars along Boulevard Pomare.

They spoon ice cream and papaya and sip Hinano beer and study the handsome yachts moored along the quay. It is on the opposite side of Boulevard Pomare that the big change has taken place.

New apartments and stores and office buildings stand where wooden storefronts once crowded the scene. One in particular rises on the very spot where Quinn’s hosted the bold, the bad and the beautiful.

As the most notorious bar in French Polynesia, Quinn’s was where the painter Leeteg belted one too many one night, then climbed aboard his moped and spun off on a trip to eternity, colliding head-on with a tree.

When they tore down Quinn’s it was like disassembling the Eiffel Tower. Or uprooting the cable cars in San Francisco. Quinn’s was a tourist attraction, an institution, the watering hole of Tahitians and tourists, French sailors and foreign legionnaires.

Nearly every tourist who ever set foot in Papeete rushed headlong to Quinn’s to kick back and join the wicked who made Quinn’s their home base. Well, the timorous did a detour, maybe, but the adventurous were fascinated with the motley crowd that kept the cash register ringing.

Without a doubt, Quinn’s was the most shameful bar in the entire Pacific. Customers ducked flying beer bottles while Suzy No Pants danced with the legendary Bali Hai Boys.

There’s never been a bar like it. Ever. It roared day and night. It was a bamboo jungle, a grimy, stinking, crowded waterfront joint that smelled of stale beer and disinfectant. In the old days, after closing time at Quinn’s, everyone revved up their mopeds and roared off to Lafayette’s whose reputation was every bit as lurid as Quinn’s.

Even though Quinn’s and Lafayette’s are gone doesn’t mean that Papeete is tame. It’s just that Quinn’s and Lafayette’s have been replaced by other watering holes. Expensive watering holes.

The fact is, most of Papeete is expensive. It was worse before the government cut import taxes on certain food items and alcohol. Prices were outrageous. A soft drink in a deluxe hotel could cost $5. Even now, travelers find few bargains. To be safe, the better deal is to buy a package tour with hotel, meals and a built-in flight.

Gauguin Masterpieces

The three major hotels on Papeete are expensive: the Beachcomber, the Maeva and the Hyatt Regency Tahiti. The latter, which is the former Tahara’a, overlooks a stunning black sand beach with rooms terraced down the hillside. At seven stories, the Maeva is the tallest hotel in Tahiti, its walls adorned with reproductions of Gauguin’s masterpieces.

For honeymooners and other romantics, the Beachcomber does a package that features over-water bungalows, flowers, French Champagneand island tours by chauffeured limousine, with the seven-night bundle coming to $2,600.

It’s cheaper to run off to Moorea and take up housekeeping in one of Albert Hering’s cottages that overlook Cook’s Bay. Here, the rates start at a mere $30 for a double with kitchen, shower and TV. The most expensive unit, at $60, sleeps four guests. The Century Plaza it isn’t.

Indeed, modest best describes M. Hering’s bungalows, an enclave of 19 one- and two-bedroom units that he calls Chez Albert. Linens are delivered at his whim, and humble though the bungalows are, the scene is straight out of “South Pacific,” what with the peak known as Bali Hai rising on the horizon and the loveliest bay in all of French Polynesia flushing shores only a breath away. Vacationers watch spellbound as clouds envelop other peaks--Mou Roa, Tamaru Tofa and Maua Puta.

A couple of grocery stores are within biking distance, and one may dine inexpensively at three restaurants close by. Guests are told to write to M. Hering c/o Chez Albert, Pao Pao, Moorea, French Polynesia, but none of this guarantees a reply. At 77, M. Hering grows impatient.

Sailing to Tahiti

You’ll recognize the old man by his Swiss accent (he sailed to Tahiti more than 60 years ago), and should he be absent, perhaps one of his offspring--Corine, Heidi or Fritz--will be on hand. At any rate, remember that Chez Albert is one of the better bargains in French Polynesia. While not fashionable, it’s affordable--with picture post card scenery that remains indelibly stamped in the mind long after one takes leave of Tahiti.

We spoke earlier of Papeete being the jumping-off point for adventure in the South Seas: In less than an hour one may fly to Maupiti, a speck of an island that lies within sight of Bora Bora. Maupiti has no hotels. Only a coral road, deserted beaches and a handful of cars. The landing strip is on a motu nearby, and you’d best let someone know you are arriving. Otherwise, it’s possible to get stranded on the motu , which is exactly what happened recently to a government official who arrived unannounced and spent the day alone on the airstrip until someone spotted him and sent a canoe to rescue the poor fellow. By then he was sunburned, weary and more than a trifle angry.

A Thatched Bar

On Maupiti there is absolutely nothing to do but sunbathe, or perhaps go fishing. Or stroll around the island. Or else stop for a beer at a thatched bar where locals gather to strum their guitars.

Visitors seek shelter in pensions or with families, simply because on Maupiti there are no hotels. No rental cars, no taxis, no mopeds, no bikes, no banks. Not even a restaurant. Nothing. Nothing but magnificent sunsets and the peace that comes with being alone with one’s thoughts.

Back in Papeete, the ultimate adventure is a 15-day voyage aboard the German freighter Aranui that sets a course taken by Gauguin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Herman Melville to the Marquesas. It is, indeed, the dream trip of every human who’s ever toyed with the idea of stowing aboard a copra boat in the South Seas.

Only this is no ordinary rust bucket, what with 17 air-conditioned cabins, daily maid service, French and Polynesian cuisine and chaise longues for soaking rays. Besides the cabins, the Aranui accommodates 40 passengers on mattresses spread across its deck.

With darkness, crewmen from the Marquesas, the Tuamotus and the Australs sing the songs of their islands while the Milky Way lights up the night like a brush stroke by Gauguin.

Dropping Anchor

This year the Aranui will make 15 voyages between Tahiti and the Marquesas, dropping anchor at the atolls of Takapoto and Manihi with their black pearl farms.

Meanwhile, in Papeete all eyes focus on Moorea, that stunning island across the Sea of the Moon whose peaks are crowned with brooding clouds that redden with sunset. In Papeete’s harbor, along Boulevard Pomare, yachts rock in the shade of the twilight sky, so that Tahitians gliding by in their outriggers are but shadows on the peaceful surface.

While Tahiti has changed and Japanese entrepreneurs are moving in to take over major hotels (with big expansions in mind), frangipani still spreads its fragrance and waterfalls continue to spill from verdant peaks, plunging into valleys choked with breadfruit, coconut palms and papaya.

Country lanes are carpeted with blossoms, fishermen tend their nets and islanders sunbathe beside a lagoon that’s a post card dream.

The road that leads from town into the country and to the Gauguin Museum passes a series of coves. Mountains rise up, wet and green, and the din of discos in Papeete is forgotten . . . while a rainbow arches across the heavens.

Old Tahiti calls.

Note: To book passage on the freighter Aranui, see your travel agent or write to Compagnie Polinesienne de Transport Maritime, 595 Market St., San Francisco 94105. Rates for the 15-day cruise between Tahiti and the Marquesas are $1,130-$3,160. A second freighter operated by the same company is scheduled to go into service next winter.

For more information on French Polynesia, write to Islands In the Sun, P.O. Box 1398, Newport Beach 92663, toll-free (800) 854-3413; Tahiti Nui Travel, 1750 Bridgeway, Suite B-101, Sausalito, Calif. 94965, toll-free (800) 922-6851, or contact the Tahiti Tourist Board, 12233 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 110, Los Angeles 90064, (213) 207-1919.