Exploring
Just as the boat bumps against the side of the hotel pier, we see a guy in a sarong blow into one of those shell-horns (like the kind you see in "Walk in the Clouds" with Keanu Reeves...ha-ha!). Then he gets out his ukulele and starts jangling a song to welcome us. A Japanese girl is on the pier with two umbrellas - fortunately the rain has slowed to a drizzle by now, so we didn't need them! We get walked up from the pier to a small hut/shed - it's where to go to get kayaks, snorkel equipment, life jackets, etc. She shows us a hanging basket and reached in but it's empty - she said that it's usually full of bread to feed the fish, and then tells us where there's good snorkelling around the island.
This is our outside of our OWB, photo taken in the evening...
After checking in and being shown the room, we thought we'd snorkel off the OWB. I send Rod in to check the depth of the water - it's too deep for me, so I just stand at the side to watch...sigh, I should learn to swim one of these days. It's quite chilly with no sun and a sea breeze blowing. After about half an hour checking out the fish, we decide to go into 'town' - the hotel provides a shuttle, which the manager neglected to say costs 600 French Polynesian Francs (I think the abbreviation is CPFs), which is about US$6 for the return trip. We were told by the driver once we got dropped off - obviously when it's too late for us to do anything else other than dig into our wallets for the money! It's not much of a town really...there's only ONE road that runs round the entire island, so it's impossible to get lost - as we were told numerous times.
'Town' is actually called Vaitape - it's got a cluster of low, small shop-houses that sells tourist arts & crafts, tourist t-shirts and tourist souvenirs. Hmm, is it me or does there seem to be a theme here...Driving into Vaitape is kind of like driving through to the East Coast kampungs...it's kind of strange.
But to be fair, it really is Bora Bora's town centre after all, so there's also a small rental shop for videos, DVDs, PS2/XBox/PSP games, etc. The film titles were pretty up-to-date on the American films, although I can't comment on the French film titles! We also drove by what looked like an open-air arena - we had just missed the annual French Polynesian festival in July, called the Heiva, so maybe the arena/stalls were still set up.
What we really wanted though was a local supermarket called Chin Lee! Yes...apparently 5% of the French Polynesian population is made up of Chinese! It was quite strange for me to see Chinese-looking people speaking fluent French and Tahitian. I had also mistakenly brought a pair of shoes with me that had small heels - which is fine for walking on concrete floors, pavements, etc. BUT! Our room to the reception = walkway made of planks; Reception to pier = walkway made of planks; Marara pier to Marara reception = walkway made of planks...so there was a really urgent need to buy a pair of flat slippers!!!
Anyway, we have a quick wander through the supermarket to get the essentials for the next few days, i.e. cereal, milk, drinks, crisps...plus a pair of slippers. All of that cost us about US$45!!! How do people live here??!! We also wanted to buy a plugpoint converter, as we'd forgotten to pack one (although if you ask Rod, he'll say that I'm the one that forgot!). We track through mud and rain - fortunately the duty manager had gotten us a large double umbrella - and wandered into every tourist shop but NO converter to be found. Each shop directed us to yet another shop, but there were none to be found in Vaitape. Our only hope lied with the manager, who had already been sent on the mission to find one for us.
I did buy a box of Vanilla Tea though...since vanilla is supposed to be a Bora Bora specialty. Was tempted to buy vanilla beans (although they looked nothing like beans - more like dried stalks!), but since I didn't know what I'd do with vanilla beans, I thought better of it. The other Bora Bora specialty is soap - but there's only so much soap we could use. And when you've used ONE soap, you've used them all...Plus, Rod and I have amassed so many toiletries from various hotels over the past few years that it was unlikely that we'd ever run out in the house!
Having given up, we then went to a small, very Malaysian-style 'coffee shop' called "La Appetiserie" - I think. Well, as long as no one who reads this is fluent in French, it's probably spelled right! It was on a list I found in another forum, so it's at least 'on the radar'. We had a 'jambon et frommage croissant' (a high class ham & cheese sandwich), a vanilla cream tart and two milk shakes. Won't even mention prices of food from now on...gulp!
Rod decided that it was time to show him linguistic skills and says that he reckons that he knows about 50 Malay words...no, make that 100 Malay words! I challenge him to list them all...including telling me what they mean, and numbers don't count either. He starts off quite well with the usual makan, minum, tak faham, boleh, diam...by about 20, he was starting to struggle and I had to feed him some clues. He tries a few phrases but didn't really know what they meant...so they weren't counted. By the time we got onto the van, he was at about 90 words - which he was extremely smug about. I'm mildly impressed...
Anyway, it's time for dinner...
Just as the boat bumps against the side of the hotel pier, we see a guy in a sarong blow into one of those shell-horns (like the kind you see in "Walk in the Clouds" with Keanu Reeves...ha-ha!). Then he gets out his ukulele and starts jangling a song to welcome us. A Japanese girl is on the pier with two umbrellas - fortunately the rain has slowed to a drizzle by now, so we didn't need them! We get walked up from the pier to a small hut/shed - it's where to go to get kayaks, snorkel equipment, life jackets, etc. She shows us a hanging basket and reached in but it's empty - she said that it's usually full of bread to feed the fish, and then tells us where there's good snorkelling around the island.
This is our outside of our OWB, photo taken in the evening...After checking in and being shown the room, we thought we'd snorkel off the OWB. I send Rod in to check the depth of the water - it's too deep for me, so I just stand at the side to watch...sigh, I should learn to swim one of these days. It's quite chilly with no sun and a sea breeze blowing. After about half an hour checking out the fish, we decide to go into 'town' - the hotel provides a shuttle, which the manager neglected to say costs 600 French Polynesian Francs (I think the abbreviation is CPFs), which is about US$6 for the return trip. We were told by the driver once we got dropped off - obviously when it's too late for us to do anything else other than dig into our wallets for the money! It's not much of a town really...there's only ONE road that runs round the entire island, so it's impossible to get lost - as we were told numerous times.
'Town' is actually called Vaitape - it's got a cluster of low, small shop-houses that sells tourist arts & crafts, tourist t-shirts and tourist souvenirs. Hmm, is it me or does there seem to be a theme here...Driving into Vaitape is kind of like driving through to the East Coast kampungs...it's kind of strange.
But to be fair, it really is Bora Bora's town centre after all, so there's also a small rental shop for videos, DVDs, PS2/XBox/PSP games, etc. The film titles were pretty up-to-date on the American films, although I can't comment on the French film titles! We also drove by what looked like an open-air arena - we had just missed the annual French Polynesian festival in July, called the Heiva, so maybe the arena/stalls were still set up.
What we really wanted though was a local supermarket called Chin Lee! Yes...apparently 5% of the French Polynesian population is made up of Chinese! It was quite strange for me to see Chinese-looking people speaking fluent French and Tahitian. I had also mistakenly brought a pair of shoes with me that had small heels - which is fine for walking on concrete floors, pavements, etc. BUT! Our room to the reception = walkway made of planks; Reception to pier = walkway made of planks; Marara pier to Marara reception = walkway made of planks...so there was a really urgent need to buy a pair of flat slippers!!!
Anyway, we have a quick wander through the supermarket to get the essentials for the next few days, i.e. cereal, milk, drinks, crisps...plus a pair of slippers. All of that cost us about US$45!!! How do people live here??!! We also wanted to buy a plugpoint converter, as we'd forgotten to pack one (although if you ask Rod, he'll say that I'm the one that forgot!). We track through mud and rain - fortunately the duty manager had gotten us a large double umbrella - and wandered into every tourist shop but NO converter to be found. Each shop directed us to yet another shop, but there were none to be found in Vaitape. Our only hope lied with the manager, who had already been sent on the mission to find one for us.
I did buy a box of Vanilla Tea though...since vanilla is supposed to be a Bora Bora specialty. Was tempted to buy vanilla beans (although they looked nothing like beans - more like dried stalks!), but since I didn't know what I'd do with vanilla beans, I thought better of it. The other Bora Bora specialty is soap - but there's only so much soap we could use. And when you've used ONE soap, you've used them all...Plus, Rod and I have amassed so many toiletries from various hotels over the past few years that it was unlikely that we'd ever run out in the house!
Having given up, we then went to a small, very Malaysian-style 'coffee shop' called "La Appetiserie" - I think. Well, as long as no one who reads this is fluent in French, it's probably spelled right! It was on a list I found in another forum, so it's at least 'on the radar'. We had a 'jambon et frommage croissant' (a high class ham & cheese sandwich), a vanilla cream tart and two milk shakes. Won't even mention prices of food from now on...gulp!
Rod decided that it was time to show him linguistic skills and says that he reckons that he knows about 50 Malay words...no, make that 100 Malay words! I challenge him to list them all...including telling me what they mean, and numbers don't count either. He starts off quite well with the usual makan, minum, tak faham, boleh, diam...by about 20, he was starting to struggle and I had to feed him some clues. He tries a few phrases but didn't really know what they meant...so they weren't counted. By the time we got onto the van, he was at about 90 words - which he was extremely smug about. I'm mildly impressed...
Anyway, it's time for dinner...
posted by feddupfish @ 6:15 pm
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