Kon-Tiki expedition dockyard facilities provided by the Peruvian authorities, they constructed the raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores. The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6,900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely. Thor Heyerdahl's book about his experience became a bestseller. It was published in Norwegian in 1948 as "The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By
Kon-Tiki (2012 film) One significant inaccuracy is absence of indigenous Polynesians from the cast. The scenes depicting Heyerdahl's experiences on Fatu Hiva were shot in Thailand with Thai extras who do not resemble native Polynesians, and who are shown holding compound spears not typical of the Marquesas Islands, and weaving rattan baskets, of which neither the technique nor the plant material are native to French Polynesia. The film focuses on Heyerdahl's theory that Polynesia was first populated with humans from Peru, but it ignores the Norwegian's more ethnocentric speculations that the original Kon-Tiki voyage was undertaken by a race of tall white bearded