4WD Adventure!
Dinner last night was really good, but with no exciting crab experience, I didn't think it warranted a separate post on its own. I had made reservations via the internet for another restaurant. Their signature dish - breadfruit gnocchi - was highly recommended, so I was really looking forward to that. When we got there, our maitre d' / waiter came over and passed us the menu, and told us that something was 'missing' from the menu. I thought, well if it's missing then it's not likely that we'll order it would we? But what I then found out was that he meant that the blardy breadfruit gnocchi had been sold out!!! Argh! The substitute recommendation was terrine of mahi-mahi - what is mahi-mahi anyway?!! Still, the food in the restaurant was good, but expensive. Smaller portions than the previous night, but taste-wise...much better.
So anyway, we had booked ourselves on a 4WD tour for Sunday and the pick-up time was 8.30am! *snore* Another bright sunny day today, so it's good. We were picked up in a Land Rover Defender, seats on both sides of the truck facing each other, and our driver/tour guide's name is Frank. There's another couple in the truck already. The guy definitely needed braces...he is what Rod would call "eat an apple through a letterbox". I try not to stare at his teeth in fascination. Wonder how he kisses his girlfriend without biting off her tongue! In fact, wonder how he reaches her mouth, since his teeth would have kept her at 'teeth-length'...ha-ha...okay, that was mean...
We picked up another couple and we're off-road! Actually, just driving on their 'main road' itself already is an off-road experience, I thought. But I wasn't prepared for the real off-road experience. I'm sure they actually go out on the track and regularly carve up bits of the track to make it bumpier! Frank tells us that there are only 8,000 people on Bora Bora island. But they have 6,000 dogs - thanks to a fenceless society, their dogs regularly mate. Something like dog control (or lack of) in KL...breeding a whole of lot of GBDs (generic brown dog) 'coz they are usually brown, with short hair and pointy ears. The Bora Bora equivalent of the KL GBD is shaggier hair, with a mixture of pointy and floppy ears. Some look kind of well looked after, while others are lame and mangy. But they all seem pretty tame.
I try to take photos while on the truck but it was so bumpy that I had to concentrate on not falling face-first into Rod's lap - or worse, Mr. Teeth's lap! Eventually we come to a photo stop, so everyone piles out for photos. Another truck is just right behind us - it was the Italian tour. Oh surprise of surprises! Frank points out stuff that the American GIs had done...the GIs were here during WWII after Pearl Harbour, so panic stations, dump some GIs in another Pacific island. But the Japanese weren't interested in Tahiti, so the GIs who were chosen definitely had a good time waiting for nothing! The one and only entrance into the lagoon was dynamite-d by the GIs - they chose one part of the atoll and blew it up. They also built warehouses and a port for their regular shipments and were in the midst of building a marina when something happened - I can't remember if he said it was that a hurricane hit and the whole place was a mess, or whether it was time to go home. Whichever it is, the marina was never finished.
After a 15-minute stop, we off-roaded back down to the main road. Driving around Bora Bora is very similar to driving around the East Coast of Malaysia. Very kampung feel to the whole place. The strange thing that was pointed out to us was that there are no public cemeteries - everyone buries their dead in their front garden! Frank says that if anyone wants to buy land in Tahiti, to find out if grandpa comes along with it...
We make a stop in pareo-selling hut and get a demonstration on how they do tie-dye pareos. The big momma there does a demo while Italian contingent goes "Bello! Bello!" over and over again. Then there was a pareo-tying short course and they get two girls up to show the different ways of tying pareos. Rod and I had missed the initial 'intro' to the course and we whispered to each other, wondering if these girls had actually bought the pareo or not. Rod thought that they'd feel a real tit if they didn't buy the pareos now that they had them tied on! I actually manage to remember a few Italian words and understood that they were demonstrating one day-wear style and one evening-wear style.
What was interesting also is how the Tahitians don't anchor their boats. Instead they put them on some kind of contraption that suspends the boat within a frame. These frames are scattered all over the island's waters. We also pass by a few churches - they're mostly Protestant, I think. There's only one Catholic church in Bora Bora.
There's not much left of the old Tahitian temples, as the missionaries tore them all down. What's left is only a wall here and there. Turtles are a holy (or royal?!!) symbol for the old Tahitian beliefs. We also pass by a bunker or two, again left behind by the GIs.
Our last stop was at an old ammunitions storage and two guns - there are 8 of them scattered over the island. 2 facing each direction...now just collecting rust and dirt. They were built in 1908 and were initially used for WWI - nearly 100 year old technology! I guess it's not worth the cost and effort in dismantling and removing them from where they are. Plus, what would Frank show on his 4WD tour if they did remove them? He remembers the GIs being on the island, and said that when they left after WWII, leaving everything behind (cars and stuff), the French swooped in and took everything the GIs left behind. And when the GIs heard about that, they turned their ship around, came back into Bora Bora and took back everything that the French took! Makes them sound really heroic doesn't it? According to Frank, his dad had a Jeep left to him by a GI, and apparently this GI told his dad to 'sink his car' for 3 months - which he did - and apparently still runs today!
Frank asks me if I'm Chinese and I said that I'm Malaysian Chinese...he looks at me sceptically and I ask why. He asks me back "Why you look like Tahitian?" and I said that it's probably 'coz I'm dark! Rod then of course jumps in and tells me that it's because I have one of those 'generic' faces that can pass off as anything - Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Tahitian...bastard. Actually, I think that Malays can easily pass off as Tahitian and vice versa. Except that some Tahitian women look like really, really bad men in drag. After the first couple of "are they men or women?" incidents, I gave up as I thought it would be rude for me to think that they are all men in drag. As I think it can't be possible that so many of them are men in drag.
Our tour ends in a Black Pearl farm - typical, but expected. Very polished presentation by the guy there (complete with suit and tie!), but it was unlikely that any one of us was going to buy. The tour lasts for about 20 minutes, and after that, it was drop-off back at the hotel. It was fun, but they should pad up the seats a bit more!
Dinner last night was really good, but with no exciting crab experience, I didn't think it warranted a separate post on its own. I had made reservations via the internet for another restaurant. Their signature dish - breadfruit gnocchi - was highly recommended, so I was really looking forward to that. When we got there, our maitre d' / waiter came over and passed us the menu, and told us that something was 'missing' from the menu. I thought, well if it's missing then it's not likely that we'll order it would we? But what I then found out was that he meant that the blardy breadfruit gnocchi had been sold out!!! Argh! The substitute recommendation was terrine of mahi-mahi - what is mahi-mahi anyway?!! Still, the food in the restaurant was good, but expensive. Smaller portions than the previous night, but taste-wise...much better.
So anyway, we had booked ourselves on a 4WD tour for Sunday and the pick-up time was 8.30am! *snore* Another bright sunny day today, so it's good. We were picked up in a Land Rover Defender, seats on both sides of the truck facing each other, and our driver/tour guide's name is Frank. There's another couple in the truck already. The guy definitely needed braces...he is what Rod would call "eat an apple through a letterbox". I try not to stare at his teeth in fascination. Wonder how he kisses his girlfriend without biting off her tongue! In fact, wonder how he reaches her mouth, since his teeth would have kept her at 'teeth-length'...ha-ha...okay, that was mean...
We picked up another couple and we're off-road! Actually, just driving on their 'main road' itself already is an off-road experience, I thought. But I wasn't prepared for the real off-road experience. I'm sure they actually go out on the track and regularly carve up bits of the track to make it bumpier! Frank tells us that there are only 8,000 people on Bora Bora island. But they have 6,000 dogs - thanks to a fenceless society, their dogs regularly mate. Something like dog control (or lack of) in KL...breeding a whole of lot of GBDs (generic brown dog) 'coz they are usually brown, with short hair and pointy ears. The Bora Bora equivalent of the KL GBD is shaggier hair, with a mixture of pointy and floppy ears. Some look kind of well looked after, while others are lame and mangy. But they all seem pretty tame.
I try to take photos while on the truck but it was so bumpy that I had to concentrate on not falling face-first into Rod's lap - or worse, Mr. Teeth's lap! Eventually we come to a photo stop, so everyone piles out for photos. Another truck is just right behind us - it was the Italian tour. Oh surprise of surprises! Frank points out stuff that the American GIs had done...the GIs were here during WWII after Pearl Harbour, so panic stations, dump some GIs in another Pacific island. But the Japanese weren't interested in Tahiti, so the GIs who were chosen definitely had a good time waiting for nothing! The one and only entrance into the lagoon was dynamite-d by the GIs - they chose one part of the atoll and blew it up. They also built warehouses and a port for their regular shipments and were in the midst of building a marina when something happened - I can't remember if he said it was that a hurricane hit and the whole place was a mess, or whether it was time to go home. Whichever it is, the marina was never finished.
After a 15-minute stop, we off-roaded back down to the main road. Driving around Bora Bora is very similar to driving around the East Coast of Malaysia. Very kampung feel to the whole place. The strange thing that was pointed out to us was that there are no public cemeteries - everyone buries their dead in their front garden! Frank says that if anyone wants to buy land in Tahiti, to find out if grandpa comes along with it...We make a stop in pareo-selling hut and get a demonstration on how they do tie-dye pareos. The big momma there does a demo while Italian contingent goes "Bello! Bello!" over and over again. Then there was a pareo-tying short course and they get two girls up to show the different ways of tying pareos. Rod and I had missed the initial 'intro' to the course and we whispered to each other, wondering if these girls had actually bought the pareo or not. Rod thought that they'd feel a real tit if they didn't buy the pareos now that they had them tied on! I actually manage to remember a few Italian words and understood that they were demonstrating one day-wear style and one evening-wear style.
What was interesting also is how the Tahitians don't anchor their boats. Instead they put them on some kind of contraption that suspends the boat within a frame. These frames are scattered all over the island's waters. We also pass by a few churches - they're mostly Protestant, I think. There's only one Catholic church in Bora Bora.
There's not much left of the old Tahitian temples, as the missionaries tore them all down. What's left is only a wall here and there. Turtles are a holy (or royal?!!) symbol for the old Tahitian beliefs. We also pass by a bunker or two, again left behind by the GIs.
Our last stop was at an old ammunitions storage and two guns - there are 8 of them scattered over the island. 2 facing each direction...now just collecting rust and dirt. They were built in 1908 and were initially used for WWI - nearly 100 year old technology! I guess it's not worth the cost and effort in dismantling and removing them from where they are. Plus, what would Frank show on his 4WD tour if they did remove them? He remembers the GIs being on the island, and said that when they left after WWII, leaving everything behind (cars and stuff), the French swooped in and took everything the GIs left behind. And when the GIs heard about that, they turned their ship around, came back into Bora Bora and took back everything that the French took! Makes them sound really heroic doesn't it? According to Frank, his dad had a Jeep left to him by a GI, and apparently this GI told his dad to 'sink his car' for 3 months - which he did - and apparently still runs today!Frank asks me if I'm Chinese and I said that I'm Malaysian Chinese...he looks at me sceptically and I ask why. He asks me back "Why you look like Tahitian?" and I said that it's probably 'coz I'm dark! Rod then of course jumps in and tells me that it's because I have one of those 'generic' faces that can pass off as anything - Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Tahitian...bastard. Actually, I think that Malays can easily pass off as Tahitian and vice versa. Except that some Tahitian women look like really, really bad men in drag. After the first couple of "are they men or women?" incidents, I gave up as I thought it would be rude for me to think that they are all men in drag. As I think it can't be possible that so many of them are men in drag.
Our tour ends in a Black Pearl farm - typical, but expected. Very polished presentation by the guy there (complete with suit and tie!), but it was unlikely that any one of us was going to buy. The tour lasts for about 20 minutes, and after that, it was drop-off back at the hotel. It was fun, but they should pad up the seats a bit more!
posted by feddupfish @ 7:41 pm
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