...and here's her story
We have returned from our vacation to Tahiti. We spent one night on the island of Tahiti and 7 nights on Bora Bora. It was without a doubt the most beautiful place Paul and I have ever been. It pretty much blows Hawaii out of the water!
We flew from Los Angeles on Air Tahiti Nui. It's a pretty neat airline. They have individual monitors at each seat, so you can choose between 4 movies, a dozen or so games, some touristy type infomercials, and a flight tracking system. The movies and games were quite a pleasant way to make the time go by. Figuring out how to work the dang remote was a bit of a chore. I spent most of my time tracking our progress on the flight monitor. That was pretty cool. The food was actually pretty good for airline food and the drinks were free, so that's always a bonus! Although it was an 8 hour flight, the time difference between LA and Tahiti is only 2 hours, so jet lag really wasn't a problem at all for us.
Our hotel on Tahiti, the Beachcomber Intercontinental was really a beautiful hotel. Our room had the most beautiful furnishings in it. Kind of French Provincial meets the South Pacific style. After 5 minutes of not being able to get any lights to work I returned to the front desk and was told we needed to put the key in the slot on the wall to turn on the electricity. I had to laugh at myself because I remembered reading that little tidbit on information the Tahiti Forum I had been reading for the past year. Oh well, I can't be expected to remember ALL the stuff I had read about! When the sun came up in the morning we realized that for a garden view room, we had quite a good view of the ocean! The ocean was probably no more than 20-30 feet from our room. It was kinda funny because the night before Paul commented that he thought I said the hotel was on the beach, but he said it felt like we had driven uphill and inland from the airport and the shoreline. But it was indeed right on the beach. And it had the most beautiful view of the island of Moorea, about 10 miles away. The hotel had its own manmade lagoon filled with all sorts of tropical fish and rays and coral and stuff. I would have loved to have had enough time to jump in my swimsuit and snorkel with them a bit, but all the unpacking to find our snorkel gear and repacking wet stuff a half hour later didn't sound like a particularly smart idea. So we settled for just looking at them from above. It also had a beautiful infinity edge pool and water fall and stuff.....but again....time in the pool just wasn't in our schedule as we had a noontime flight to catch to Bora Bora.
When it was nearly time to board our flight to Bora Bora, we made sure we were near the front of the line so we would be able to get seats on the left side of the plane for those fabulous ariel views of Bora Bora (as I had also learned reading the Tahiti forum on the internet). As always, Murphy's Law seems to pop up at just the absolute worst possible time. I was taking pictures of all the other islands on the way to Bora Bora. We just get to the first views of Bora Bora and I take one picture and the batteries on the digital went dead! So I quickly grab my 35mm camera out of my bag and somehow the rewind button had been accidentally pushed and the film in it was all rewound!!!! Unbelievable. I almost wanted to cry! It would have taken far too long to dig out the camcorder and get it all set up. So I just sat back and enjoyed the view instead. Don't quite know what was up with the digital camera batteries. The second set we had also died within 2 days on Bora Bora. Paul swears he had them fully charged. But thank God, I am not yet a complete slave to the digital revolution and I had also brought my 35mm and 10 rolls of film. My 35mm batteries did just fine and so did the camcorder batteries. I have no idea why the digital camera ones died so quickly.
The airport on Bora Bora is out on a Motu (islet/mini-island). It was built by American soldiers back in WWII, and is still in use today. It's a really neat airport. Pretty much all open air, but lots of mosquitoes! After you collect your luggage, you board a boat to ride to the main island to get transportation to your hotel. If you're staying at one of the super expensive, super fancy hotels (which we were not!), you get picked up at the airport by a private boat and get shuttled directly to your hotel's dock! Upon reaching the dock in Vaitape (main city on Bora Bora) on the main island we ran into our first bit of problem. There was no transport there for Le MaiTai Hotel. We and 2 other couples waiting for Club Med had no transportation. One of the other hotel representatives said our transport would be along shortly. Everyone else had been picked up. It seemed like it was 20-30 minutes before they showed up. I wasn't even completely sure it was our transport, as he had no list of names or anything. It was just a van that said taxi on the window. I had this fear it was just a regular taxi and he was going to charge us $40-50 for the ride. He loaded us and the 2 Club Med couples in the van and took us to our hotel. As it turns out it really was our transport. This was really the only part of our trip that I felt unsure about. Everything else went very smoothly, although we did have a bit of trouble understanding those French accents from time to time.
When we got to the hotel, instead of standing at the counter to check in, they sit you down in these wicker chairs to fill out all the paperwork, and bring you a glass of fresh juice to drink! I knew that by going during the off season the hotel would not be full, so while checking in at the hotel I inquired about upgrading from our ocean view room to an overwater bungalow for 2 or 3 nights of our stay. The young lady at reception said they had a room for the last 2 nights of our stay and quoted me a price. We quickly tried to calculate in our brains from French Pacific Francs to USD. It was actually a very good price, but I hesitated and told her we would discuss it and let her know later. She immediately came back with an even better price, so we just grabbed it. I'm not sure if she would have gone any lower or not, but we thought the price was more than fair considering what the regular rack rates are for the rooms. So we got an over water bungalow for about $80 a night instead of the $400-500 they usually go for!
We and our luggage were loaded onto a little golf cart and were driven up the hill to our room. Oh what I would have given to be able take that cart ride up the hill every day instead of having to walk it. That hike up the hill is a major workout! I'd be huffing and puffing every time I made the hike up to our room. But.... OH! WHAT A VIEW it was! Simply breathtaking! To give you an idea how amazing the view was....Paul, who normally reads a book a day while on vacation, still hadn't even finished 1 book after 3 days, cause he just couldn't stop looking at the view! Mind you, we were stuck in the room the first couple days because it was raining. And he STILL couldn't stop looking at the view! They brought a pareo and a T-shirt to the room for Paul and I. Not sure why they were sent up to us, but we'd like to think it was because the young lady at reception, Pascaline, really liked us. Those are supposed to be honeymoon gifts for the honeymoon packages. But we were more than happy to receive the extra gifts!
Prior to leaving on vacation, I was really concerned about the weather. This is the off season for travel to that area as it is their summer, so it's warmer, more humid, and more rainy than in their winter months. Also 2 cyclones were currently in the general vicinity of French Polynesia and would probably mess with the weather a bit. The weather the first night in Tahiti wasn't too bad. Cloudy and humid, but not raining. Friday wasn't bad either, both in Tahiti and then when we arrived in Bora Bora, cloudy, but no rain. But......Saturday morning that changed. It rained, and rained, and then it rained some more. Sometimes a light rain, sometimes a torrential downpour! We had maybe an hour or so of no rain around mid afternoon. Then more rain all evening and night. When we set our for what would be our daily morning trip to the market on Saturday morning at 6:30, the weather looked okay. It started to rain pretty hard on the way back to the hotel. Just as we get to the hotel, I reach for the room key in my backpack, but my back pack wasn't there! I had accidentally left it at the market. They make you put them at the checkstand so you can't take it inside with you and shoplift. So, while Paul waited at the hotel reception area, I walked back to the market in the rain (about a 3-4 minute walk), got my backpack and walked back to the hotel.....all time time it is absolutely pouring rain! We then have to hike up the hill in the rain to our room. Needless to say we (especially me!) were totally soaked by the time we made it up the hill to our room. But it WAS a warm rain! LOL! From that point on I made it a point to keep our umbrellas in my backpack (not that it would have helped in this particular case!) whenever we went out no matter what the weather looked like. As it turned out, the umbrellas were our goodluck charm, because we never got caught in another heavy rain and never had to use them. Saturday was pretty much a washout, and Sunday wasn't much better, although it did break for a few hours in the afternoon and we were able to take a long walk in both directions to check out what was in the general area. After seeing the condition of the road and the amount of traffic and the unpredictability of the weather, we opted not to rent bikes to bike around the island like we had planned. The weather got better as the week went on. Although it did rain a least a bit every day we were there. But we also got several mornings and afternoons of wonderful sunshine. Many times the rain would pop up for less than 5 minutes and then be fine for another few hours. Sometimes it would rain off and on for an hour or two and then be fine for several hours after that. So, with the exception of most of Saturday and part of Sunday, I would say the rain really didn't dampen our vacation at all (pun intended!)
Monday evening we went to the world famous Bloody Mary's restaurant. I can't believe I totally forgot to go into the men's room to check it out. Damn! That was at the top of my list of things to do at Bloody Mary's. There is something in there that is supposed to be absolutely hysterically funny and DAMN! I missed a chance to see it!!!! The restaurant itself is pretty cool. It has a sand floor. You take you shoes off and just walk around barefoot. The chairs are tree stumps. There is no menu. When you first come in there's a big table full of fresh fish and other stuff. The person behind the table explains what everything is and how much and you pick your piece of fish or whatever and they take it to the kitchen to cook it for you. The major highlight of our evening was the cat. There is a resident white Persian cat there who makes the rounds of all the tables. When he stopped by our table looking for a treat I obliged and slipped him a piece of my fish. He dropped the second piece in the sand and promptly used both paws to pick it up like a raccoon would. He sat up on his hind legs and held it there in his paws, knocked the sand off and ate it. It was the most amazing thing to see. I have no idea how the owner trained him to eat that way, but it was just as cute as could be!
We had our total "Boy Scout Moment" down on the beach one day. Paul walked by one of the palm trees and said " Do you know how to tell which way is north by looking at this tree?" He pointed out the lichen on the tree, and then pointed out to the lagoon and proclaimed that to be north. Well, that was all fine and dandy, except I knew for a fact he was pointing south. So after analyzing it for a few minutes, I came up with the answer. We were SOUTH of the equator and so just the opposite would be true down there. Interesting, huh? I NEVER knew that. Never even thought about it before. So....this trip ended up be a fascinating learning experience for us. The things you learn in Tahiti. LOL!
Paul has been a certified diver for many many years, I on the other hand had never even been snorkeling before. So I had my first experience with it. Well.....I didn't drown or anything. But for whatever reason, I kept getting a mouthful of salt water! My first day was pretty much disastrous. Paul thinks I was just stressing too much about it and kept biting down on the snorkel and I had to learn to relax. I got better as the week went on. We had planned to go on an organized snorkeling trip, but I sucked so much my first couple days, I didn't want to waste our money to spend more time spitting salt water out of my mouth than seeing the coral gardens. So we just stuck with snorkeling at the hotel. The snorkeling there was actually pretty good. Better than I expected. There were tons of all kinds of different fish. I saw my first real live octopus. Didn't even realize what it was until it had halfway slunk back into it's hole. There were also rays and turtles that swam by.
Tuesday evening, our last evening in our ocean view room was nothing less than spectacular. The weather had finally cleared some. It was the night before the full moon, so it was quite close to a full moon. As the moon rose, shimmering down on the lagoon below, a dance/music/singing troupe was doing rehearsals (which they had been doing most evenings and some afternoons) at the house right next door to the Maitai. So here we are, sitting out on our balcony, watching this amazing (almost) full moon rise, listening to the drums and ukuleles and singing. It just sent me over the edge. I literally had tears in my eyes! It truly was paradise. It just doesn't get any better than that!
One day for lunch I had a Tahitian delicacy, Poisson Cru. It's raw fish marinated in coconut milk and lime juice and onions and stuff. While it was absolutely delicious, I think it made me sick. I had no upset stomach or signs of any problems until the next morning. I had severe, well........ shall I say.... lower intestinal distress. Nothing that some Imodium didn't fix. But it continued to be a problem for the next 4 days. Damn. Cause it tasted so good, I'd love to try it again, but now I'm too afraid to.
On Wednesday the front desk called us at 8am to tell us our over water bungalow was ready for us. I couldn't believe we got it that early in the morning! They picked us and our luggage up in the cart, we handed over the #76 key, and the porter handed us the #4 key, and drove us down to our new room. We never even had to go to the front desk. The OWB was spectacular. It was one of the best ones they had! The best ones at any of the hotels are the last one out on the deck. Unobstructed views of the lagoon. I am so glad we opted to upgrade for a couple nights. Although I really loved our ocean view room, the OWB gave us a completely different view and experience. We not only got to move in that early in the morning, but they let us have a late checkout the day we left. So we ended up with 2 nights and 3 FULL days in the OWB. The OWB's are just too cool for words. They had flowers strewn all over the room. Dozens of them! The walls are all made of woven bamboo, as are the ceilings. Besides the bedroom/sitting room and the bathroom, there is a deck to sit out on and also a lower deck with a private ladder leading down to the water, and a shower to rinse off in after getting out of the water! They have a glass table in the sitting area of the room that is open to the water below the bungalow. You can see all the fish swimming around below you. The top of the table is removable so you can drop pieces of bread into the water to feed the fish. There is a light in the table at night that shines down into the water, so you can see the fish at night too.
Wednesday night was my second night in a row of perfection! It had rained in the late afternoon and then just before sunset, the most beautiful rainbow was stretched out across the lagoon. Just an amazing sight. It must have lasted for close to a half hour. And wouldn't you know it, the musical/singing rehearsals next door were going on again. Totally magical!
The absolute funniest thing happened to me while sitting out on the deck of our OWB. These 2 local men were fishing with their outrigger canoe and a big fishing net all around the water under the over water bungalows. It looked so cool, so I took a couple pictures of them . Then when they rounded up the net with all the fish stuck in it, they held it up in the air and told me to take a photo of it. So I did. After they were done picking all their catch out of the net, one of the men gave me a plastic container with probably 8-10 of the fish. They were probably 7-8 inches long. He told me to take it up to the restaurant at the hotel and have them cook it for me. I'm looking at him...like what the hell am I going to do with these fish....so I bring them in to Paul and tell him what happened. I knew I wasn't supposed to turn it down, because the Tahitian people are very much into giving gifts and it would have been a huge insult not to accept them. But what the hell was I going to do with those fish!!!! I finally took them up to the restaurant and explained the situation to the waiter there. He was in total hysterics laughing at me, because I was in total hysterics laughing at myself because I didn't know what the hell to do with the fish. He told me they were good fish to eat but he was laughing so hard, I wasn't sure if I should believe him or not. I mean we both literally had tears running down our faces from laughing so much about my fish! I finally decided, at his suggestion, the chef cook them up for the local dog that hangs out at the hotel!
After one last wonderful day in our OWB, it was time to check out. When the young man at the reception desk handed us our bill, Paul, as usual, went over every single charge. There was a charge 10600 CFP ($115 USD) for dinner Tuesday night that was not ours. After researching all the receipts in his file he removed the charge from our bill. Not quite sure what happened. It may have been because we changed rooms. We'd like to believe it was simply an honest mistake. Pascaline, the young lady who had helped us so much during our stay was not working the afternoon we were leaving. But just as we were about to load into our van, she showed up, on her day off!!! She showed up to see us off and present us with shell leis as a goodbye gift!!! We were the only ones leaving that day that she did that for. Everyone else on our van were looking at us with that..."who are you and why did she do that for you but not for us kind if look". I had already left a gift for her at the front desk because she had been so good to us. I had always heard about how warm and wonderful the Tahitian people were, and she was a glowing example of it!
Back on Tahiti checking in at the airport to go home was almost unbearable. It was SOOOO hot and humid at the airport. Not even the slightest breeze to be found. I still wasn't feeling particularly well from my intestinal problems and I quite literally almost passed out while waiting in line after line to check in, to get searched, to get boarding passes, to get into the waiting area. God, it was just suffocating!
Our trip home on ATN wasn't quite as pleasant as our trip there. For whatever reason the seats in our row wouldn't recline. They weren't in the last row, or the row before an exit row or anything. The reclining mechanism was just broken. So sleep on the way home was impossible. The late night dinner meal was pretty good, but breakfast kinda sucked. It's possible that my ongoing stomach problems and lack of sleep made nothing on my plate seem very appetizing. I think I only ate the bread and butter and a bit of the fruit.
After several months of Paul complaining about how much this trip to Bora Bora was going to cost, we hadn't even come home yet, and he (and I) were planning our next trip to French Polynesia. We may take a trip to Moorea next year, because it's pretty reasonable to go to that island. But we are also planning a trip in the next few years to the atoll of Rangiroa. They have a hotel there called the Kia Ora Sauvage. It is on a private motu and hours boat ride across the lagoon from the next closest civilization. There are only 5 huts for a total of 10 guests. There is no electricity, no phones, no TV, no nothing. Just the host, his wife and 2 helpers. The host will take you out spear fishing with him and all sorts of other weird deserted island type activities. It is the ultimate Robinson Caruso experience. Just sounds too cool for words! We can't wait to do it!
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