Tag: Travel

December 6, 2019 – December 11, 2019

Ia Orana means hello in Tahitian, while French is the other language spoken there we felt like leaning in more towards the Tahitian aspect of it.

I think at this point in 2019 we thought to change up our yearly Hawaii trip finally, and went big and went for an over-water-bungalow package to Bora Bora. We decided to get an end of pier/walkway bungalow for no obstructed view. After we booked everything all we had to do was wait 6 months to actually go.

So several days prior to our departure, I of course, contract strep throat somehow. The whole white spots in the throat, coughing, uncomfortableness of it all. I had fevers and called in sick to work for a few days prior to the actual trip, and even still had it while on the way to Tahiti, and into the first few days of the trip too.

This was all pre-COVID, so wearing a mask was so alien for me, seems like a no brainer to do so looking back, but I had already been on antibiotics for a couple days at that point. Should have just masked up anyways.

The Plane Ride LAX-PPT-BOB

We booked through Hotels.com for everything, flight and hotel, no rental car needed, as all of our trip was spent on Bora Bora. For those of you that don’t know, Tahiti is in a group of islands within French Polynesia, which in itself is made up of 5 archipelagos, that’s all the geography I will go into but here’s a map.

It’s an 8 hour flight from LAX to Papeete (PPT), which is the main island of Tahiti, then a 2 hour layover before our connection to Bora Bora (BOB) which is only an hour long.

Looking at a map on Bora Bora it’s hard to imagine they can fit a landing strip on that thing, but there is a functional airport in the northwest lagoon. After arriving into BOB, either your hotel is bougie enough to send a boat to get you to take you to any one of dozens of resorts in the lagoon, or you get on a ferry to take you to the main middle island of Bora Bora and taxi to your hotel on that island, which the latter applied to us.

After taking the ferry to the main island we exchanged some money then took a taxi to InterContinental Le Moana, which is located on the south side of the middle main island. We chose that resort for a couple reasons, to be able to walk around the island and also the price was right.

We check in with a great host, I forget her name, but always greeted us Ia Orana and hello Mr. and Mrs. Balanza whenever we saw her around the resort. We were greeted with a couple cocktails as we checked in and then were brought out to our overwater (END OF PONTOON) bungalow.

The Crib

Words could not do the bungalow, and view from the bungalow justice, so here:

WOW. WOWOWOWWOOW. WOW.

An unobstructed view of Mt. Otemanu, the blue lagoon fading into turquoise just below us, back deck with table chairs and lounge chairs, and a lower deck to descend into the warm water straight from the room. Back in the room the coffee table opens up to the water below. This is all speculation, but there were probably people that jumped into the water from the coffee table and got injured because each bungalow now had a large piece of coral underneath, but maybe it was just to attract fish to see underneath too.

The unequivocal beauty of the place probably was the final thing to cure my strep throat because it was gone shortly thereafter, but would not be the last medical calamity to befall us on this trip, which you will hear about later.

This is also the first trip I got to use my new drone on and flew it straight out from the lower deck into high winds and over water. Luckily I was able to get a quick video shot before I got an email from the hotel saying no drones allowed on the property.

The package included, free rentals of paddle boards, kayaks, snorkel gear, and breakfast buffet! I used to love buffets that had unlimited bacon, I would just eat plates of bacon at a time. I remember one time I was at a hotel breakfast buffet in San Diego, and a mother and son went to to the bacon station after I did and the son grabbed 4 pieces of bacon and was scolded by his mom, then he look at my plate with maybe 20 pieces on it, and probably felt like like an injustice was just committed.

In addition to the bacon there was all kinds of fruit available to eat, bunch of pastries, omelet station, yogurts, cereals.

Even though we could always just dive into the water from our bungalow, we also had a nice sandy white beach at the resort as well, from there we could just jump in a kayak, grab snorkels, rent a paddle board, beach towels, which did all the above.

Kayaking to some nearby snorkel spots was my favorite thing to do in the water, people would come on tours from other resorts to spot we could just kayak to. It was awesome.

At NIGHT the view was a different kind of beautiful.

Foods

We ate at a couple restaurants on the island Manuia was a hole in the wall place, and our first experience with Poisson Cru, which translates from French to “raw fish” not so different from Hawaiian poke except the fish is prepared usually with citrus and coconut milk, a different take but also delicious.

A different night we watched the sunset on the westside of Matira Point at Bora Bora Beach Club, and once again had more Poisson Cru, the atmosphere was much nicer, and we walked around the beach on that side and saw dog playing in the water which was cute.

Surprisingly one of our favorite things on the island was this woodfire pizza place called Lucky house which was just a few steps away from the hotel so we could bring the pizza back and eat it on our back deck and have Tahitian beers and just enjoy life. We had pizza from there maybe 2 or 3 times.

There was also a small bodega near the resort too, where we bought local snacks and floaties. There was a bag of chips that had a really long name on it, but it was in french so I bought along with chicken flavored chips, some hamburger flavored chips, and some cheese balls in an aluminum can for nostalgic reasons.

So I open the long name brand of chips and start eating them and they are just plain tortilla chips. The name translated to plain corn tortilla chips! Lol. Ngoc just sent me a picture of the bag, and it was not a long name at all. It was Gout Nature.

I think we went to a couple happy hours, and enjoyed the tropical rain mixed with 80-90 degree weather, distant storm clouds, amazing sunrises and sunsets.

The floaty that Ngoc bought was bright pink and she used it a lot and just floated all around the bungalow. One night there was strong winds and we found ourselves with a missing floaty, but easily saw it on the beach all the way across the resort.

Drown-proof snorkeling

Heading Back

Then finally came the day we were dreading, our last day in Bora Bora. The day before Ngoc already wasn’t feeling very well, and then the last day she had a fever and a really bad pain. We decided to check out early and try and find a place that sold anti biotics, we found a pharmacy but they wouldn’t give us any without a prescription so we found a taxi that took us to a clinic that wasn’t open yet, but he assured us they were good.

Being American we had no idea what to expect with international healthcare, but Ngoc was able to be seen by a physician and was given a prescription, and an invoice for… $30 dollars. We were both shocked, grateful, and a little disappointed that our own country’s healthcare system was not like this. The physician assumes that the pains were caused by kayaking for so long and sitting in the water, but could have been a few things…

She started feeling better on the way back, we went back the way we came, small plane to Tahiti, where I ran into a rude frenchman who put a bag under the seat next to him which was my seat, I was okay with that, but whenever my foot touched his bag he would say excuse me please don’t kick my bag, so I passive aggressively kicked his bag few more times during the one hour flight.

At PPT airport we ran into a tour group of rude french old people, we were in line to check in and we split their big group, so when they were being checked in they made it a point to tell the gate agents that were not a part of their group and that the people behind us should go ahead of us, the gate agents noted that and let us go in front of ALL of them. SWEET JUSTICE!

No other issues on the way back, 8 hour flight back to LAX then drove back to San Diego.

Au revoir

Every year, Google reminds me of this trip with throwback pictures, and it seems so surreal that we ever went there, we’d gladly go back again in the future, and I would book the exact trip again, but am almost positive will try either the St. Regis or Conrad next time around.

In the mean time I will just smile the biggest smile when I see my wife floating in the tranquil lagoon in her bright pink floaty with no other care in the world.