Heavenly Getaway

We were away for 8 days immersed ourselves in a beautiful, heavenly island last week.

This is a long planning trip since years ago. Remember when we celebrated our 1st anniversary, we promised each other we will want to go somewhere nice to celebrate our 5th anniversary. We were choosing between Maldives – the dream place for our honeymoon last time, and Bora Bora – the island we fall in love with from a documentary. We decided to go for Bora Bora as the distance from Melbourne is nearer and the price is quite reasonable.

Here’s some quick introduction of Bora Bora. Bora Bora is one of the most beautiful islands belong to French Polynesia. It is situated at South Pacific Ocean, surrounded by lagoon and barrier reef. In the centre of the island are remnants of an extinct volcano rising to two peaks – Mt Pahia & Mt Otemanu. There’s only 5000+ residences in the island.

The Tahiti Faa’a International Airport is located at Tahiti, which is the largest island of French Polynesia and also the centre of economic, culture and politic.

We have to fly to Auckland (with Emirates) then from Auckland transit to Tahiti (with Air Tahiti Nui), after that take a domestic fly to Bora Bora. The total journey is around 9 hours, which is not too bad. We really thank God that Esrene was coping very well with the flight. She sleep through most of the journey from Auckland to Tahiti. She was very excited to see the aeroplane as well.

Conquered daddy’s seat and trying to buckle herself up.

It is about 21 hours different between Melbourne and Tahiti. So when we arrived at Tahiti, it was around 10pm there (which is 7pm in Melbourne a day after). We were transferred to Sofitel Tahiti Hotel for one night stay. Esrene was quite refreshed after her nap and slept around 12am there!!

The next morning, we still have plenty of time to have our brekkie provided by the hotel and walked around before the shuttle picked us up to the airport.

Tahiti Faa’s International Airport is just the size of Terengganu Airport, without any terminal either for domestic or international flight. So we have to walk our way up to the flight. This give Esrene a close up view of the aeroplane!

It takes 45 min for us to fly to Bora Bora. Upon arriving at the airport, we were welcome with Frangipani Lei by the hotel staff (we had been receiving lots and lots of frangipani flowers and Lei since we step into Tahiti), then they lead us to the boat to transfer to our hotel, Sofitel Bora Bora Marara & Private Island. Yes, another transfer!! Bora Bora Airport is located on an outer Motu called Motu Mute, so all the hotels will have to arrange their own boat to transfer their customers to the hotel.

Due to long period of cold weather in Melbourne, we all struggled with the heat and humid weather of Tahiti/ Bora Bora. The weather was around 24-26 degree but Esrene looks like a little sweating lobster most of the time!

When we arrived at the hotel pier, we were welcome with a Tahitian guitarist singing their local welcome song and a beautiful Tahitian lady who lead us into the hotel deck for registration. Nice cold welcome fruit juice, beautiful scenery, friendly host – we just fell in love with the hotel service.

We have a garden bungalow which is just behind the beach bungalow, few steps away from the beach. It looks more like a beach bungalow to us. Really praise God for the nice location.

 

The view in front of our bungalow

Our hotel package includes daily American breakfast. However, the breakfast is never changing. After 8 days we were kinda sick of the ham, bacon, wages, bread, French bread, eggs!

However, the restaurant is facing the sea view and water bungalow. Nice and relaxing view for the breakfast. After breakfast Esrene will walk near to the bench to see fishes and feed fishes. We couldn’t believe that even the sea next to the restaurant of the hotel is so crystal clear. We can see fishes and corals through it without having to snorkel.

 

Maybe cause of the humid and hot weather, we weren’t that hungry. We normally will only have a sandwich for lunch in the hotel sharing among us. No doubt hotel foods are expensive. We had our dinner at the restaurant nearby our hotel (only limited restaurants within walking distance). We discovered a restaurant operates under a 2 star hotel (Le Maitai) within walking distance which serve quite a nice food and cheaper compare with other restaurant.  That was our regular place for dinner after that.

Seafood pasta and Mahi-mahi burger (dolphin fish) served by Le Maitai restaurant

7 days in the island we only went to the town Vaitape, Lagoonarium and went for a sunset cruise, other than that we just spend our time relax in the hotel, have a dip in the pool and enjoy the scenery, the beach and the crystal clear sea. This was the best and most refreshing holiday for us.

Have a little swim in the pool

 

Cheeky girl pretending to “sun bathing” under the umbrella like the angmo auntie in front of her did.

Spending time at the private beach of the resort. Esrene still hates to put her feet on the sand but enjoy playing with sand castle.

Our hotel water bungalows. You can just jump down from the bungalow for a swim and snorkelling anytime you like. Perhaps this will be the place to stay for our 10th anniversary trip?

 Visitation to the Bora Bora town Vaitape – a very small town with limited shops. The life of the people there are very simple.

 

Tahitian folk dance performance in the hotel. Esrene was curious initially with the dancers but when we went to take photo with them, she was scared and cried!

Visiting Bora Bora Lagoonarium to “interact” with turtles, sharks, stingrays and tropical fishes. These creators are all in the sea not the pool. Yes, the sea in Bora Bora is this crystal clear, cleaner than our swimming pool!

Esrene wasn’t scared at all with the fishes that swim around her.

The sunset cruise. It was a very relaxing cruise sailing on the sea while waiting for the sunset. Esrene loves to be at the catamaran and busy helping the captain “sailing” the ship!!  Too bad at the end the sunset was covered by a sudden big grey cloud.

                          Beautiful Mt Otemanu from the cruise

Our hotel has a private island just opposite the motu, with some bungalows and a restaurant there. The hotel provides unlimited boat transfer for the guests to travel between the motu. They even set up some nice seats and hut for the guests to enjoy the sunset view on the hill. On our last night at Bora Bora, we went to the private island for sunset view and also private dinner.

Beautiful sunset view from the hill

Romantic dinner with signature dishes and a big “lamp post” which “brighten” up our dinner :D

8 days trip end so quickly. Un-reluctantly we have to leave the island, back to Melbourne for our busy life. We left Bora Bora to take our domestic flight to Tahiti around 5pm. The hotel was so kind to extend our stay until 4pm so that we can have a siesta before leaving.

 

We were sent off by the hotel staffs with some nice handmade seashell necklace as a farewell “safe journey” gift.

Arrived at Tahiti Sofitel hotel was just nice for the dinner. Selwyn take the chance to try out a hawker food at the road side outside our hotel.

Looks like Ramli burger stall hey? Look at their stall and how they prepare the food we can imagine how simple their life is.

The sign wrote “Chicken or steak with fries or CHEO-MEN (we think is fried noodle)” for 950 Francs which is equivalent to around AUD12. The living expenses in French Polynesia is pretty high. Even a normal hawker dishes cost around AUD12. To eat in the cafe or restaurant at least need to spend AUD30 per person for a simple meal.

Boarding Air Tahiti Nui to Auckland.

The last Francs note left from the trip.

Bye Bora Bora. We enjoyed ourselves so much even though Ida and Esrene are quite tans after the trip. Will miss this beautiful island. Hope to be back one day!

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