This blog on New Caledonia is for those of you who ever wondered what life on a tiny island in the South Pacific might be like. Tired of bracing winter winds, the stress of an inner city or simply dreaming of a life change? This is a blog about what happens when, in the words of Yogi Berra, "you come to a fork in the road, [and] take it".

30 July 2007

New Caledonia's Online Phonebook

A resource we use all the time here in New Caledonia is its phonebook. It contains helpful maps that show all of Noumea's one-way streets (no other maps seem to do so!), restaurant advertisements (it is hard to know about them otherwise, strangely enough) and of course professional addresses, like doctors and dentists.

I had never been much of a phonebook user (I seem to look everything up on line), but moving to New Caledonia changed things. New Caledonians are from the old offline world - and living here one realises how much faster a simple phonebook is (find it, open it up, figure out the French for "doctor" - medecin- and away you go).

As our phonebooks are packed up and on a slow boat to China (they make great souvenirs - and serve as proof that we were here!), I am now using the online version of the phonebook. Though helpful, it is somehow not as good.

With a paper version, you can see tangential and yet relevant companies and services. Online, you have to know the name of the company or the category -- and the categories are bizarre here. I can never seem to get my category right. Plus, you cannot type in an address to find a company (which is very useful as you may know the street but not the company name).

Maybe the online version just isn't user-friendly enough yet - or maybe I expect too much.

In any case, if any of you are looking for friends, family or companies in New Caledonia, go to www.opt.nc, right-hand side.
  • If you are looking for a person, type in the last name under "nom", the first name under "prenom", select the city and click on "rechercher".
  • If you are looking for a company, click on "pages professionelles" and you will be taken to a page where you can type in the name of the company, or a category and the city.
Have fun - and let us know if you find the online version easy or not.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if i need to find the address of Guiader, Julie et Laurent, i know just how to do it.
:-)

Anonymous said...

Hi everyone,
I see what you mean Julie about about the online phone book.
Bur however, I have managed to find some of my mates in the whites pages.
And this after 29 years.
Maybe, it's time I went back for a visit...
I am glad you like the E-card.
The mobile phone works all the same.
I verified this fact with Margouillette a while back. After she had requested it on her site. http://www.margouillette.com/ And sending a message to a mobile phone registered in New Caledonia using the OPT service from your computer is free too.
Thank you Julie.
Have a good day everybody. Marc