Post #597984 by harro on Sun, Jul 17, 2011 2:10 PM

France is an amazing country to travel through - its got everything: history, nature, mountains, beaches, cities... But not much tiki. Here's what I found during my travels.

The Kon Tiki camping site in southern france:

from the beach:

On closer inspection the tiki huts on the beach didn't look too appealing...

Virani had already posted a thread about tiki campsites in France here -
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=28593&forum=16&hilite=france I presume this is one of them?

Near Antibes there was a day beach resort with a tahitian theme, and some nice carved tikis:

and even some island style crooners entertaining the beautiful people, but I passed on the 20 euros for a lounge:

In the beautiful little old town of Antibes you have to visit the Absinthe museum/bar.

But the most interesting place in Juan Les Pins (near Antibes) is an ice cream/cocktail bar named Pam Pam. It was just like the ideal exotic paradise that we imagine every tiki bar should be, but replace the south seas imagery with that of an exotic african island like Zanzibar or something. The lighting was dim, the decor over the top, the drinks interesting and the entertainment outrageous - but not one tiki in sight, just over the top exotic africa-ness everywhere you look.

By day:

By night, the place was heaving:

Drinks were served in varying unique vessels:

Enjoying my little pigmy hut cocktail with the band in the background:

Its a shame i didn't have my proper camera with me to get better shots of the interior, but there was plenty of foliage, masks, congos and drums made into lights etc. Here's some of the live entertainment:

After analysing that "souvenir-ing" a mug or menu was out of the question, I got talking to one of the waiters and asked if there was any old menus I could have - he got my hopes up by running to the bar but only brought back a coaster and a coconut monkey style drink decoration which was pretty cool nevertheless.

Of course in Spain we had plenty of tiki bars to visit (I'll try to add some pics to their respective threads), but I thought I might mention a traditional after-dinner drink we shared in the Costa Brava region called cramat, or something like that. It was a mix of the dregs from the barrels of brandy, cognac and other local spirits that they make in the region, served warm in a shallow bowl, then set alight (see pic!). Then you pour hot coffee over the top and serve into coffee cups. It was a spectacle that reminded me a lot of the mystery bowl ritual.

Hope you enjoyed these pics as much as I loved travelling through France. Of course the best part was meeting the locals, especially Virani on our last night in France - thanks again amigo!