We got in early to French Polynesia to spend some time in Bora Bora. Here is a blog Michael has been writing.


Bonjour – from French Polynesia!

So we arrived in Tahiti, 10pm at night. Its all dark and the golf cart ride to the room at the Intercontinental Tahiti seemed a long long way away from the lobby. But in the morning this is what we found:







We were upgraded to an overwater bungalow after the hotel had decided that our twin bed room must have been a mistake and that we needed an upgrade to a king bed room. The front desk looked a little horrified once I explained why that upgrade was a bad idea. For some reason twin bed rooms in French Polynesia are in short supply (probably because they cater to honeymooners) so they could not give us our booked room. So they gave us an overwater bungalow with a king bed and a sofa bed. Worked out fine in the end.

The point of this hotel was to allow a day to recover from jetlag before heading off to Bora Bora. It was perfect for this. Two nice pools with nice views looking out to the island of Moorea across the water. A nice open-air restaurant. A neat lagoon filled with fish to look at and even get in and swim with. Plenty of hammocks and chairs nestled under shady palm trees looking at the water. We spent most of the time reading or dozing on the balcony of our bungalow watching the boats go by and enjoying the view.

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The sunsets were beautiful. I can see why people think they are a signature event in this part of the world.






Then it was time to head over to Bora Bora. The shock was at the airport – laptop stayed in bag, water bottles in bag were acceptable. No shoes off. Coming back from Bora Bora was even more surprising – zero checks. Just the way it used to be. The planes were twin propeller regional planes taking about 70 people. Perfect for the short 50-minute hop from Tahiti to Bora Bora. We did the recommended thing of sitting on the left to get the views of the islands and atolls on the way but the clouds partly confounded us until we saw this.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/Cruise/2013%20Tahiti/DSC00832_zpsdf389b06.jpg