French Polynesia

Oh my, Oh my, truly a paradise....

MOOREA- Days 1-4

We departed Salt Lake City on Saturday morning, August 23, 2008 at 6 o'clock. We were bound for LAX (Los Angeles) for our international flight to Papeete, Tahiti at 1PM. Brady and I decided to upgrade our tickets to business class, since it was an excellent deal at the time when we arrived to LAX. We entered into the business class lounge while we waited for our plane. The lounge had yummy refreshments, television, magazines, and free computer use for us to browse the Internet... it sure does beats the airport chairs by the gates. We waited for six hours before getting on the plane and the flight took totalling 12 hours from SLC to Moorea (not including the wait times). A bit long but it wasn't too bad because we got great seats. :) When we arrived Tahiti, we got on a smaller plane from Tahiti to Moorea, the pilots on the plane were lunatics! We took off in a rush and experienced lots of bouncin' and bumpin', then they landed and parked the plane in a haste. My hands clutched real tight on the seat the whole time during the craziest 10 minute flight of our lives. Brady was like "Wahoo!". It was nighttime when we arrived Moorea and it was still too dark for us to see the island. We went to Sofitel Moorea Beach Resort where we would be staying for few nights, the staff liked us so much (maybe because we were deaf), gave us an upgrade for a beach bungalow instead of the garden bungalow we reserved. We did not get an over water room at this time because they cost averaging $1,000 a night. Preferably, we want to use the over waters on other islands. The reason we came to Moorea was the plentiness of its excursions and its lush mountains. The next morning, I was ecstatic to see what outside looked like for the first time...whoa, it was gorgeous! We left for the dolphin excursion that morning and swam with the dolphins. The trainer presented us on how to use commands for the dolphin to do various tricks for us. It was sweet, and we got to drink our first coconut milk out of a real coconut after being with the dolphins. After the excursion, we went snorkeling at our resort beach. There were tons of corals at our resort compared to other islands we stayed at. The more you see the corals, then the more you will able to see divergent sea life even if it's only 2-3 feet deep. We tried taking pictures from our underwater digital camera for the first time, but it didn't turn out great. They turned out all red because Brady didn't realize that we were supposed to set the camera to a different mode. Then we went out to eat at Te Honu Iti for our Sunday night dinner, it was a restaurant where we could feed stingrays right next from the table while we ate dinner. Stingrays liked to eat meat and fishes left over from our dinner or from the cook. The food there was appetizing and we loved it. We met a LDS member who was working at that restaurant and he seemed to be a very nice guy. He was informing us about the wards around Moorea. We chatted for about an hour until he realized he had to go back to work. Very cute! Next day, we scuba dived with Top Dive and went on two dives. We saw tons of sharks! I did hesitate at first when I saw them, but these sharks didn't even bother us and they just swam past. We saw turtles, eels, various of fishes, stingrays, clown fishes, barracuda, and sea urchins. I believe that dive was one of the best dives we had in our lives. Grand Cayman was also on the list, because we got to see and play with the dolphin, but not as many sharks as we saw in French Polynesia. After the dives, we decided to rent out a buggy (go-kart) to explore around the island. We went shopping, saw a pineapple factory, went up to the Belevedre Point, and saw two bays that surrounded the mountain. It was raining at that time when we reached the Belevedre Point, but, oh my, it was still beautiful out there. I would bet it would be much more stunning when the sun comes out. We went out to eat at the "K" for our Monday night dinner. The resturant was enchanting, and we watched these two exotic (not exactly exotic I mean, but kind of) dancers at the restaurant. Brady was drooling all over the table and I had to clean him up a bit. The restaurant surprised us with a sparkling candle on a cake that read "Happy Anniversary!". We didn't order the cake and I assumed the restaurant must had found out from the front desk about why we were here. It was a nice way to put the surprise out for us. It makes things much more romantic! Next day, we drove up to see the waterfall, but there was no waterfall at this time because of the dry season. We hiked the difficult, mistaken path to see the waterfall, but we were grateful that we found the waterfall or otherwise we would have gotten lost. It was tiring and strenuous hike up, but on the way back from another trail we found...we were like, it was no big deal and got down to the bottom like in 10 minutes after when it took us an hour to get to our destination. Getting a guide would have been better, but oh well. We were blessed to be back in time for our flight to Tikehau.

We left Moorea at noon and had a stopover in Tahiti for several hours. We decided to go into the town for lunch. The town was much similar to Mexico... dirty streets, filthy buildings, and the like. But the background of the city was still beautiful. We had lunch downtown and then we had to take the le truck (bus) back to the airport. We had a difficult time getting back to the airport because we did not know which le truck to take because of its unusual system, but we made it back anyway. Whew!


TIKEHAU-Days 4-7

We left Tahiti at 3PM and arrived Tikehau at 4PM, about an hour flight. The staff from the resort were at the airport to greet us. It was a charming little resort and there were only 200 inhabitants living on Tikehau. Tikehau was an atoll, shaped like a ring with no land in the middle and both sides of the ring were oceans. There were thousands and thousands of palm trees on Tikehau much more than the other islands we been to and the land itself was very flat, no mountains. It was quite the opposite compared to Bora Bora, Moorea, and Le Tahaa. Each of these islands were all different and ravishing in their own way. Our resort was the only resort on the island. There were no restaurants and stores around the island except at our resort. I felt like we were isolated away from the world, real dreamy! The next day, our captain took us on a private motu picnic, and then the captain left us all alone on the island. We did not see one human being miles and miles away. The island itself was very secluded and that gave me the perfect chance for me to wear a "bikini" for Brady. Brady loved it and wished I could wear them more often, but too bad Brady...Tikehau would be the only place that Brady can see me in them. ;) I would not say too much on what we did on the island, but we had a lot of solitary time. Too mushy beyond words for me to describe, I am serious! It was a once in a lifetime experience for us and decided that we wanted to come back again on the other day after tomorrow. Next day, we went scuba diving and we didn't grasp as many sea animals as we did in Moorea, but tons of fishes! Many more than any other islands we been to, due to the fact that Tikehau was named as the land of many fishes. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get pictures from the dive because our multimedia card was damaged and we would have to wait til we get to Bora Bora to get a new card. After scubaing, we went snorkeling by our bungalow and it was a jest to feed the fishes on how they fight for the food. I loved every moment of it! On our last day on Tikehau, we went back to the private motu for half a day before we had to leave for our flight to Bora Bora at 2PM. We were sad to leave because the staff at our resort were extremely friendly to us.


BORA BORA-Days 7-10

We arrived Bora Bora nighttime and the hotel staff took us to our resort from the airport. We stayed at Intercontinental Thalasso Bora Bora Resort, very luxurious hotel! When light came on that following morning, I felt like I was in heaven. It was truly a paradise like you see in the pictures everywhere. Bora Bora reminded me a bit like Disney World with the way the hotels surrounded Magic Kingdom, the same as with Bora Bora's mountain, Mt. Otemanu placed right in the middle with hotels around it. Brady and I went on a shark and ray feeding excursion that morning. The excursion was a blast and very adventurous. We got up close to the sharks and rays, plus we got to feed and touch the them. I would recommend this excursion to anyone who want adventure. We went into the town to do some shopping and bought a new multimedia card for our camera. We were very glad because we just ran out of pictures at the moment when we got the new card. We went to Bloody Mary's for dinner, that place was very touristy like Hard Rock Cafe in a similar way. The food there was good. Next day, Brady and I went scubaing with Nemo World and we had a great time. We were able to encounter with many sea animals during the dives, and the best part was seeing the eagle rays. We found several sand dollars while on the dives. It was like going on a treasure hunt like the movie, Fool's Gold. After the dives, we went swimming in the lagoon next to our bungalow. It felt like it was the biggest swimming pool in the world. The water was so calm and clear, and you could still taste the salt. After swimming, we decided to stay in our room to relax and we ordered room service to eat our lunch. During the evening, we got ready to go out to eat at Villa Mahana for dinner, it was voted as the best restaurant of all French Polynesia. We were excited about eating there because we made the reservations like 2 months in advance before our trip. We knew it was going to be expensive to eat because there were like only 5 tables on the first floor and two tables on the upper floor. Our price tag for two was 500 bucks, yup, 500 bucks for two. Very romantic and the food we ate melted into our mouths. I would say that Villa Mahana was one of my favorite places to eat, but very pricey, $$$$$$! Brady and I thought Bora Bora was one of our favorite islands because it had beautiful views and the hotels there were very exquisite.

LE TAHAA/RAIATEA-Days 10-12

I was missing Bora Bora very much when Brady and I arrived Raiatea, about a 10 minute flight from Bora Bora. You could still see the Bora Bora's well-known mountain in sight, but the mountain itself was a bit blurry and unclear. The hotel staff ferried us to Le Tahaa Private Island Resort and Spa, the lagoon we saw around the island was at its very best, very blue! It wasn't until hours later, the weather would soon change, and that spoiled the view quite a bit. The resort we saw looked magnificent on the exterior, the color of the bungalows that were yellow in color that makes the view of the bungalows look really exquisite, instead of the brown color like we saw from other resorts on the other islands we went to. Le Tahaa Private Island Resort was a Regis & Chateaux property like Ritz Carlton, but the interior of the rooms was not as luxurious as Thalasso Bora Bora Resort we stayed, but it was still very nice and private. Our resort was the very resort where Tom Cruise and his newly wedded wife, Katie Holmes went for their honeymoon. We didn't swim during our stay at Le Tahaa because we had a rainy weather that rained for two days and the ocean was bit too rough for us to swim. We went Le Tahaa (across from the island we were staying) to eat dinner at Chez Louise. It was an interesting place to eat because a chef would go out on the ocean during the day and catches whatever he caught from the ocean, and thus we eat from the chef's catch of the day. There were no menus, but it was a unique place to eat. The next day, we went on a circle tour on Le Tahaa (the big island) across from our private island. Brady and I learned so many things from our guide when we circled around the island. We went to a pearl farm and they taught us on how pearl farms run, then we went to a vanilla plantation where they produce vanilla beans to sell them around the world. You know the vanilla that we use for making cookies, sweet breads, and sauces, all came from that place. The greenery on Le Tahaa was very lush and green. Le Tahaa was very beautiful because of the greenery.

TAHITI-Days 12-13

It was our last day of our trip. At 11AM, we took an hour flight from Raiatea to Tahiti for our international flight back home, but our plane would not depart Tahiti until 10PM. Brady and I rented a car to drive around the city. We stopped by to see several sights, saw a LDS temple, blowhole, the waterfall, and visit black sand beaches. They were all neat places to see. We had our last dinner at the Intercontinental Resort three hours prior to our flight back home. We had to wait in the line for 2 hours to get our bags checked out, but we got on the plane on time to return home and we were already missing our boys. But as soon as we arrived home, we were already missing French Polynesia and we would like to go back. Someday!