Honeymoon at Tahiti and Bora Bora

chillibreeze writer — Neelanjana Ghosh

After a seven-year courtship I tied the knot with Niel in the latter half of 2001. It was a dream come true for both of us and we were looking forward to an exotic honeymoon on a heavenly island. Tahiti, in French Polynesia, was a unanimous decision and I was thrilled. Plans for the honeymoon started almost a month before the wedding and therefore we had no problem in making all the arrangements in advance to avoid the last minute hassles.

We arrived in Papeete, Tahiti at 5 AM. We zipped through customs and were greeted by representatives from Holiday Makers, the Tahitian company that our travel agent dealt with. We both received beautiful flower leis and were told where to go to catch our flight to Rangiroa. The twin-prop plane ride to Rangiroa took about 50 minutes and wasn't too bad as we slept most of the way.

Upon landing at the Rangiroa airport, we were greeted by a representative of the Kia Ora Village, who adorned us both with our second flower lei of the day. After getting settled we grabbed a quick buffet breakfast of bread, pastries, fruit, yogurt and so on.

With our stomachs content, we decided to take a nap; after all, we were slightly tired. Later, we walked the few steps down to the beach and relaxed in the sun. We then went to lunch, which consisted of salad and a cheese plate for Niel, and fried coconut shrimps with a spicy cognac sauce for me. Both were excellent. After lunch it was back to the beach where we lay around and snorkeled all afternoon. The shutterbug in me was delighted at the beautiful sunset, which I photographed for a while.

For dinner we both had cream of tomato soup. Niel had lemon sturgeon and I had jack fish with basil in tomato sauce. Each meal was accompanied by broccoli, rice, and ratatouille. Dessert consisted of pastries, cakes, and chocolate mousse, all of which were good. After dinner, both of us were exhausted and we decided to call it a night around 9:30 PM. We slept well, without any mosquitoes, though Niel got a bite or two, but I was spared! The temperature and humidity were comfortable and the first phase of our honeymoon went off really well.

The next morning we awoke at about 7:00AM to the sound of pouring rain against the thatched roof of our hut. I ran outside to gather the towels and clothes that we thought were drying on our porch. Despite the rain I proceeded to get ready for scuba diving and a quick breakfast with Niel. While, the weather ruined his morning jog, I knew our dive would happen, rain or shine. Shortly after finishing breakfast, we met a couple who had already visited the other three islands we would be going to. It also turned out that the guy was going to dive at the same time as us. At this point, the sun had come out and it looked liked a beautiful day lay ahead.

We jumped into a small rubber zodiac boat and we were off. I was a little nervous diving with more experienced divers, buy I just went with the flow. By the time my gear was set up, we had entered the ocean (Kia Ora Village, as is the case with most hotels on Rangiroa was on the lagoon side) and were ready to go. Within seconds of flipping off the boat, I was swimming inches from two gray reef sharks. It was awesome. The dive proceeded toward the reef where we saw schools of jack fish, barracuda, etc. Towards the end of the dive we saw a Manta Ray with a span of about 5-6 feet. It was amazing! After forty minutes and eighty feet, the dive was over. I have to say in my short diving experience, this was the best I had seen. We zipped back to the resort where Niel and I spent the rest of the day sunning ourselves, snorkeling, and napping. There were a few intermittent showers through the day, but it didn’t ruin the mood.

For dinner there were various salads, pasta, rice, cabbage, and potato, all with some sort of seafood in them. There was also hot zucchini and rice. The barbecue had baked potato, Tahitian banana, fish, chicken, steak and sausage. Everything was good and wholesome. After dinner, we again turned in early at about 9:00PM, since our flight out to Moorea via Papeete left at 9:40AM. Our night’s sleep was not too great as the mosquitoes ate us alive and the humidity was not unbearable, but still uncomfortable.

Next morning we received shell leis as good-byes and were off to the airport. We had a 10-minute flight to Tikehau and then left on a 50-minute flight to Papeete. In Papeete we needed to get to Terminal 2, or the Air Moorea terminal, for our flight to Moorea. It was an 8-seater prop-plane for our flight and we sat right behind the pilot for an exciting 10-minute ride to Moorea.

In Moorea we checked into our overwater bungalow and were pleasantly surprised. Our room was far from the front desk and more private than some others. It consisted of a bedroom, a living area with a desk and a couch and chairs, a large bathroom with tub and separate shower, and a good size balcony over the water with a ladder leading into the lagoon. Each balcony had a patio table surrounded by four chairs. We loved it. Our room also had a fridge and safe. After getting settled, we had lunch in the hotel restaurant. Niel and I both had a green salad with bleu cheese and walnuts and shared French fries.

With lunch completed, we took a walk around the grounds and then headed back to the fare (hut) to get into bathing suits and lie out on our own little beach with steps into the lagoon. We were pleasantly surprised by a fresh tropical fruit basket sent by our travel agent. We ate the succulent fruits on our balcony and then went back outside. We spent the rest of the day relaxing until we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

After showering we headed over to dinner in the hotel restaurant, which on this night turned out to be a Polynesian barbecue with entertainment. There were salads of all kinds with seafood and barbecued steak, lamb, chicken kebobs, mahi-mahi, and tuna. Desserts were a plenty, with pies, cakes, fruit and flan. With dinner complete, we slept like babies. A cool breeze, no bugs and a comfortable bed granted us our best night’s sleep since we had been here.

We awoke to the cool breeze of tropical winds at about 7AM. We hopped into our Mega Ranch, a two-seater, with no doors, an open roof and a small truck bed in the rear, by about 9AM and were off. We decided to circle the island counter-clockwise. We drove along stopping at one spot after another to take videos and photographs. On the way we spotted several animals. We stopped at Moorea's two bays: Cook's Bay and Opanahu Bay. We loved the view of Bali Hai from Opanahu Bay. Both are very beautiful. After about a 2 hour relaxing ride, we returned to the hotel and ate cheese, pineapple, bread, crackers, and potato chips for lunch after a quick swim from of our balcony. This was also a good time to spot the dolphins from our hotel.

We were now ready to go back to the more adventurous and scenic spots on the island. We headed for Belvedere Lookout, a spot in the mountains between Cook’s and Opanahu Bay that has a spectacular view. The drive up was twisty with many potholes, but it was fun. We, of course, took pictures and videos at the top. After driving back down the mountain, we were destined to find a waterfall or cascade that I read about. We were off to our most exciting adventure yet.

We finally headed down a small bumpy road, where at one point the road was blocked. We drove about a mile and then got out and took a slightly treacherous 20-minute hike to the waterfall. The waterfall was spectacular, about 100-200 feet high.

Since we had the car, we decided to go out to "Les Tipaniers", an Italian restaurant about 1 mile away. We could have walked, but it was dark. The walk is about 18-20 minutes and we knew people who had done it. At that time we did get a table and the food was very good. We had salads with Roquefort cheese and walnuts. I had tagiatelle in tomato cream sauce with shrimp, and Niel had a pizza with several different vegetables on it. For dessert we shared profiterolles. After dinner we returned and fell into a comfortable slumber.

Next morning after breakfast we stopped at a spot called Opanahu Ocean. Niel dived with three Americans and a dive master. After getting to about 15 feet, one of the divers in my group had to go back up due to a bad ear pressure problem. The rest of us continued towards the other groups of divers, where a feeding was occurring. We settled down on the bottom at 80’ and watched as a dive master held out a 4’ fish which was serving as lunch to about 20 black tip sharks and many smaller fish. The sharks circled within a few feet of our heads. It was incredible!

After lunch, we lay around and swam a little more. In the evening we decided to take a walk to "Le Petit Village", a small shopping center down the road from the hotel. We saw many beautiful flowers in yellow, red, and white as we walked. There were some black pearl shops, bazaars, a newsstand and a good ice cream/sorbet shop. We got banana and lemon sorbets for the walk back, which were delicious.

In the afternoon on the next day, we boarded our next plane for Huahine and arrived at 3:00. At the airport, we were greeted by an Asian/Tahitian looking man in a Land Rover and taken to our wooden bungalow along a dirt road, which was totally amid nature. After showering and getting settled, we decided to be adventurous and walk down to the lagoon where the beach, activities, restaurant and bar are. The walk was 10-15 minutes downhill and was not too bad; we rarely called for the truck to take us down to the lagoon. The restaurant is beautiful. It is a long, narrow; crescent shaped building looking out over a large lily pond to a show stage with a waterfall and the lagoon in the distance. The beach was the nicest that we have seen, probably because they imported sand and constructed it to their specifications. To the right of the restaurant was the waterfall described above, which actually fed into a swimming pool. It was beautiful.

Next day after slapping lotion on ourselves and walking down to the beach, we hopped into an outrigger canoe and paddled out to a floating sun pontoon and lay out for a bit. While swimming around the pontoon, I noticed a sunken boat about 30-40 ft. down. We paddled back to the shore to get masks, snorkels and fins, all provided by the hotel, to check out the ship. Once we returned to the pontoon, I began snorkeling. The ship was called "Erika," a 100 year old Baltic schooner. I checked it out and the fish around it. Then we had our second adventure of the trip. While trying to get Neil’s attention, my wedding ring slipped from my hand and I watched it tumble to the bottom. I looked down, praying the ring was visible and saw it resting about 30-35 ft. down on one of two 2'x3' raised platforms on the middle of the boat. With one deep breath, Niel began to descend. It was a happy ending with Neil retrieving my ring safely, but I would have been very unhappy if he had got hurt as it was risky.

It was a very touching and memorable incident in my life and after sunset we headed to the bar for a game of scrabble.

Early next day we caught an 8:45 ferry to the main island of Bora Bora, where our rental car was waiting for us. We backtracked about 1/4 of a mile in order to stop at Chin Lee, the biggest and cheapest supermarket on the island. Here, we bought some breakfast of yogurt, fruit, bread, juice and water. They have a good selection of food, toiletries, souvenirs, and films.

Our first stop was to take a picture of the Bamboo House, where we had eaten the previous evening. We proceeded to drive around the island, stopping at various scenic spots to take pictures and videos. When we had completed a trip around the island, we decided to go around again and make stops at the various shops and spots that we liked. The entire circle around the island took less than one hour, including stops. The island is absolutely beautiful!

On our last full day we woke up around 7:45 and got ready for the Jeep Safari which began at 8:45. We caught the 8:30 boat over to the Main Island and were picked up in a green Land Rover jeep right on time.

As we drove along the main road around the island, the guide and the driver pointed out many interesting facts about the landscape and the people of the island. After about fifteen minutes of driving, we turned off the main road and ventured up what I must call the bumpiest and rockiest road I have ever been on. After traveling a little further on the main road, we made several other climbs up mountains and hills around the islands. All the views at the top were absolutely magnificent including the view of our hotel.

One stop which we loved was at a pineapple plantation. We were treated to the sweetest pineapple and papaya that we had ever tasted. The rest of the trip was thoroughly enjoyable. We highly recommend taking the Jeep Safari tour while on Bora Bora. It is a perfect change from basking on the beach and enjoying water activities.

After lunch we spent the rest of the day relaxing on the balcony, beach and in the water. For our last half-day, we wanted nothing more than to relax and enjoy the weather and scenery. The day gradually came to an end and it was time for our last dinner at the hotel restaurant.

Although we knew we wouldn't want to wake up and face our trip away from here, we slept rather soundly that night. We left the next day with fantastic memories of this tropical paradise.

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Neelanjana writes for chillibreeze.

Honeymoon at Tahiti and Bora Bora

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