Tahiti Yoga Festival founder Rani Chaves. Photo / Danee Hazama
From walking through verdant jungle to meditating on paddleboards in the ocean, Tahiti is a serenity for the soul, writes Kirstie Bedford.
Sounds of the ocean play around me. The bubbling of water. A whale’s song the low, deep continuous vibration from a singing bowl. After a while the teacher starts to sing. A trance-like sound that seems to carry the lineage of her ancestors. I fall into a deep meditative state and wonder if I’m dreaming, then she stops and tells us to take a deep breath. My body is slow to rouse and it’s only when I open my eyes I remember I am in a room with 50 others.
I’m at the inaugural annual Tahiti Yoga Festival held at Le Tahiti by Pearl Resorts, 10 minutes from Papeete on the black sand beach of Lafayette.
Sessions over the three-day event range from activating your inner warrior – thrusting your arms and making whatever noise you choose (grunt, yell, scream – it’s all welcomed) – to mindful moments staring in the eyes of a stranger, clarity breathwork, meditating on paddleboards and cultural workshops. Created by Tahitian-born yoga teacher and entrepreneur Rani Chaves, the event is designed to help people integrate mindfulness into everyday life.
“With everything happening in the world, I feel we need the space in Tahiti to reconnect people to the culture and sacredness of life,” said Chaves, who left her corporate career of 20 years to pursue a path of yoga and Ayurveda. “We wanted to create a sanctuary where you can come and drop all the layers and responsibilities”.
While people often think of yoga as something done on a mat or in a studio, Chaves says it’s much more than that.
“Culture plays a very sacred aspect that we’ve lost a bit in our modern world, so it was important to integrate these elements together because yoga is teaching us how to go back to our roots and origins and so we are better human beings, so we bring more light to the world.”
I participate in these ancient practices firsthand during one of the festival’s workshops with Tainui Malateste from Ta’ati Fenua, a Tahitian cultural tour operator. Standing before a table of bamboo nose flutes (vivo), Malateste describes the instrument’s origin and purpose before inviting us to play.
“The air that comes out of your nose cannot lie, curse and blame, so this is why we choose to play this instrument used in sacred ceremonies with the purest air of your body,” Malateste explains as we discover how tricky it is to do.
We soon move on to beating Banyan tree bark to try and make a tapa cloth (a months-long process still used for clothing in the Marquesas islands). Much like the flutes, it’s a patient, physical process that feels like a tonic to our busy, cognitive-focused lives, something as grounding and calming as any yoga class.
Feeling Zen after three days of festival, I decide to take in the natural surrounds and there’s no better way than a 40km 4WD tour with Te Mana Tahiti Tours, which drives us into the heart of Tahiti from Northern Papenoo to Mataiea in the south.
All around us are trees and plants so green they’re almost luminous, but the flora isn’t just here to look pretty.
Our guide Manua Zelyko stops to show us the Auti plant, explaining its leaves are “magical like Harry Potter,” and are waved over rocks before a hot stone ceremony to stop your feet burning. I don’t plan on testing his theory.
He stops again at a giant chestnut tree where he hits the base with a large rock. “This is how the traditional mountain clan communicated,” he says as we listen to the low vibration ring through the forest.
We call in at a crystal-clear lagoon, where some of the group clamber up the rockface and jump into the cooling waters. When we pop out on the west side of the island where waterfalls seem to cascade at every turn, signs read, “forbidden acres/life threatening” so dangerous is the off-track terrain.
The drive isn’t for the faint of heart, with cliffs that cleave into valley so deep you can’t see the base of it, but if you do go, this landscape, where clouds rise like steam off sky-high mountains, is one that won’t fade fast from memory.
Back at Papeete, I decide to call into the not-to-be-missed local markets, Le Marché. Here, stalls are manned by warm-hearted locals and there’s no shortage of things to buy, from food to jewellery, but stopping by Te Tavake Creations on floor one is a must. Owned by Hiro Ou Wen, the revered jeweller retired 25 years ago from the Museum of Tahiti and now creates the crowns worn by Miss Tahiti each year. Despite being in his 80s, he can still be found in his workshop with his daughter Orama Ou Wen.
On my last day, Chaves takes me to the Vaima Spring, a spot frequented by locals and said to have healing properties. She’s armed with a purification scrub made from coconut, basil seeds and coconut oil that you can easily make at home. It’s this philosophy Chaves hopes people take from the festival.
“We’re not saying stay in a cave and meditate, we live in the modern world... but you can retreat for 10 minutes and practise breathing, which helps your nervous system.
“It doesn’t require you to be a yogi, but we are all here to experience life in a way that’s finding the gifts in everything we do.”
And after a week here, I feel like I’ve done just that.
TAHITI
Getting there
Air Tahiti Nui and Air New Zealand fly from Auckland to Papeete three times per week.
Stay
Le Tahiti by Pearl Resorts | letahiti.com
Hilton Hotel Tahiti | hilton.com/en/hotels/ppthihh-hilton-hotel-tahiti/
Tahiti Yoga Festival
The second Tahiti Yoga Festival will be held in November 2026 | tahitiyogafest.com
The journalist travelled courtesy of Tahiti Tourism.