7th February, Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Second attempt, having been completely washed out on our first visit, to take in reputedly the world's most beautiful island, a volcanic peak surrounded by a fringing reef of coral with many motu housing an array of luxury resort hotels and an airport.
The island was amongst the smaller ones we have visited and takes less than a couple of hours to go round - with stops. The coast road is, for the most part flat or flattish with gradients only at a couple of peninsular cut throughs. On our arrival at 9.00am we decided to take a group taxi around the island for $30 apiece with a guide, Pascal, a local born in Paris where he spent his early years. M & D sat at the front of the vehicle so had excellent views of the island. The fist stop after leaving Vaitape was at Faanui, a small settlement with a smart protestant church and a good view, cloud covered of course, of Mt Otemanu. We continued clockwise to our next stop at Marae Fare Opu - pleasant enough but not on the scale of the Ra'iatea marae. We were stopped 15 minutes for the insertion of a water main across the unmade main road - time is of no consequence to these folk - before continuing on our way around the largely rural island with a few small villages. Along the whole route we had excellent views of Marlon Brando's pad - now owned by his wife - the lagoon and the motu with the posh hotels.
About three quarters of the way around, we reached the village of Matira which, on the main island, is where the remainder of the luxury resort hotels are located - for the singular reason that the lagoon is sufficiently deep here to facilitate excellent swimming. We stopped at and were shown the only public beach on the island of which more later. Our final stop was at Bloody Mary's which, we understand from those intrepid folk who went round the island in the rain on our last visit, was then closed. What a pity; it was a very fine eatery and bar - at a price - with an extremely rude handle on the flush in the gents toilets. Needless to say, it was impossible for the guys to get in as all the women on our and other taxi tours were all in there to take photographs. We took the usual photo's at the stopover. We finally returned to Vaitape about 11.30 after the various stops and determined to take a lagoon trip in the afternoon.
This started at $70 for a 4 hour trip on M's first asking but eventually came down to $60 (each of course) subsequently. D could not lower this price and, in fact, was told the trip would be $60 for a 3 hour trip around a single motu - starting at 1.30 or as soon as they could get 6 persons. At about 12.50 M went to finalise the negotiations during the middle of our picnic lunch to be told the lady had left for the day. She hadn't; we found her, but she told M they were not running the trip in the afternoon - we were their only punters. Anywhere else would run a small boat for $120 for three hours, but not in French Polynesia. (We were later told by a fellow passenger that Pacal had advised on our earlier trip that the locals will not drop their prices - they'll simply do without business. I think you'll all have the drift of this by now).
Not to be thwarted, we finished our picnic lunch and found a place to rent bicycles at about 2pm. We figured we had plenty of time for a nice ride given we weren't leaving until 7pm - but we didn't. The lady told us she was closing for the day at 4pm. Also, Mr Europcar was also closing at 4pm. Still, we took the bikes for 2 hours for $12 each and cycled back to the public beach. It was even better than we remembered from the morning - in fact the best beach in Polynesia - and fairly uncrowded. The sand was clean, the sea was clean, the weather completely cleared - even from the mountain top - and it was hot. We chatted to a couple from LA who were on a second cruise ship from whom we learned that they had to get their rental car back for 4pm! We swam for 45 glorious minutes and set back on our half hour ride back to Vaitape, stopping off at Bloody Mary's on the way where M did her videoing to complement the mornings more tasteful photos - attached. You will notice that with typical artistic flair and licence M has added M & D to the list of famous people who have visited the establishment - but you will only see this pic on the blog; it's not for real (Ed please note).
On returning the bikes with a couple of minutes to spare giving D time to photo the velo propensities of M, we decided to have a last beer - another Polynesian bargain at $5 for half a pint (just under a fiver a pint) - before returning to the MSVG. This did have the saving grace of spending as opposed to wasting our remaining Pacific Francs.
We should add that on both visits we thoroughly enjoyed French Polynesia. We cannot say for sure that we feel the same about the locals; some were very friendly but and equal number were indifferent or churlish. We can say for sure that it is far too expensive for an independent re-visit.
