Author: Tiff and Greg

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Bora Bora Bungalow Life

Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia

You know those “beach success pictures” that you see on marketing materials?  Come on, you know what we’re talking about: the person in their swimsuit,

(obviously a very young attractive person because we all know only really hot people go to the beach…)

sitting on the beach with their laptop,

(like it’s normal to use your computer at the beach…)

Looking very excited because, as the picture implies, they have spent their day playing on the sand

(we’re sure it’s not in the water because their hair is always perfect)

and, “oh I’ll just hop on the internet real quick and check my investments…”

(Come on, how many beaches have internet access?  And wouldn’t you be worried about sand getting in the laptop? Or oh I dunno, water?  And by the way, how are you even able to see your screen in the blazing bright sunlight?  Really, who brings their computer to the beach!?)

“…and oh my goodness I’m a millionaire and I didn’t do anything!  You should be like me!”

Yes, that picture.  Being as Greg has a history working in the training industry and has strived to actually help people, he has always had a certain amused infatuation for this type of picture.  He loves the simple ridiculousness of it.  There we were in Bora Bora and we just had to get our “beachside laptop millionaire” photo:

As you can see in the background of the picture, we stayed at yet another overwater bungalow during our time as “normal tourists.”  We did want to have an authentic tourist experience, after all.  There were a few interesting differences from our other bungalow experience: Continue reading “Bora Bora Bungalow Life”

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Bora Bora by Bicycle

Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia

First off, seriously, why is this not a post card?

And the best part is you know the only reason someone went through all the trouble to create that sign was because someone else gave them excellent reason to…and no, before you ask, it wasn’t Greg.

Bora Bora is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world and conveniently, thanks again to the American war effort, there is this really nice road around the entire main island that you can ride a bike on. About 4 hours round trip. It isn’t exactly a large island, being as it’s sinking and all.

We were off to see if the island could deliver on all the hype… Continue reading “Bora Bora by Bicycle”

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Technical difficulties

We’re experiencing some internet uploading challenges, so today’s post will be going live later this afternoon.  Stay tuned!

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Battle Fortress: South Pacific

Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia

Well, welcome to the only other island out here that you’ve probably ever actually heard of!  Just because, again, we know that you’re wondering, Bora Bora is right here:

Did you know that long before Bora Bora was known as the honeymoon capital of the world its first role in the international community was to serve as Battle Fortress: South Pacific?!? Totally serious here! Due to Bora Bora’s strategic position half way between the Americas and Australia and its uniquely defensible geography, the island was chosen by the United States to be a resupply base during WW II. What do we mean by “uniquely defensible geography”? Simple, look:
Continue reading “Battle Fortress: South Pacific”

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Bora Bora here we come!

Onward to Bora Bora, the island you’ve all heard of and dreamed about – we’re actually going there!!!  For our first visit with Tiffany’s Mom, we’re going by plane.  And as we already knew, Tahitians don’t have the same dress code as the rest of the world!  Here’s business casual as defined by the airport attendants:

Yeah, not your typical power suit!

Oh, the Air Tahiti Nui planes have a great symbol on them.  It’s the Tahitian tiaré flower, one of their native flowers that has seven petals.  It smells wonderfully like a gardenia, and can be found growing all over Tahiti.  Tahitians are really into their flowers and “flower language”– The tradition shows that if a flower is worn on behind the left ear means Continue reading “Bora Bora here we come!”

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Feeding the Wildlife

Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

Most of the guidebooks about Moorea will at least mention feeding the sting rays.

petting a stingray

Typically, you would need to rent a boat or hire a tour guide to go do this but since our old friends on FLY AWEIGH pulled into port a few days ago they offered to give us all a lift out to the reef.

We expected to see some rays at a distance and toss them a few fish.  The rays had other plans and were happy to educate us on how this whole thing actually worked. Continue reading “Feeding the Wildlife”

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Fine line between cute and slutty

Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

(cont’d from previous post)

Finally, the Polynesian dance school also had a group of little girls, which were there either because they were in fact learning or just because they were ridiculously adorable.

How the heck do they get their hips to do that?  It like they dislocate their spines from their pelvic bones or something.  It boggles the mind!

One of the things we found interesting was just how young some of the kids who were learning the Tahitian dance were.  One little girl was only five!  It was something of a culture shock to see such young kids learning a dance with such sexual overtones to it! Interestingly enough, we did not find ourselves completely repulsed like we are when we seen pre-teens in the States wearing push up bras or hip hugging skin tight jeans.  So what was the basis for the difference? Continue reading “Fine line between cute and slutty”

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How do they get their hips to do that?!

Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

So uh…what else do normal tourists do?  Dance shows!  Yes, tourists go to Tahitian dance shows!

We ended up at the Bali Hai hotel in Moorea for our obligatory Tahitian dance show which ended up being quite wonderful!  Every Monday night this hotel puts on a free beachside show at dinner time.  Figured we’d fall for the ploy, buy dinner and have a good time.  As we’ve come to expect, the food was not cheap but at a show alongside it made it easier to rationalize.  Also, this show was cool because it was put on by a local Tahitian dance school.

Instead of seeing paid professional performers, the idea was that we were supporting a group of locals and immigrants who were learning Tahitian dance in order to rebuild and preserve their dwindling cultural heritage.  This is totally something we can get behind.  Also, we thought watching students instead of tourism professionals would lead to us seeing more authentic dances than just the gussied up shows for the gringos…not that they call them “gringos” here but we are unfamiliar with the Tahitian translation.  (Mostly due to the fact that we don’t think the islanders we’ve encountered so far think of tourists in this way.)

It was a great show.  So you kind of expect the ladies right?  Because basically what the average person thinks of when they hear the words “Tahitian dancer” is a young Polynesian woman. Continue reading “How do they get their hips to do that?!”

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Further experiments in tourism

Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

(cont’d from previous post)

Continuing our exploration of the heritage site we found the ruins of a marae (altar/temple) and evidence that perhaps Mr. Morse was a bit premature in taking credit for his code…also perhaps Greg is better at “tourist-ing” than he first let on…

Our final stop on the tour was a series of scenic viewpoints in the mountains.  The roads were very, very steep.  While this was something we had previously experienced, the truck added a new twist.  Namely, the road was too narrow to allow us to turn around at the top.  So the driver had to decide: was he going backwards on the way up or the way down?  Continue reading “Further experiments in tourism”

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Experiments in Tourism

Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

Like we said, we’re moonlighting as “normal tourists” in the Society islands.  So what do normal tourists do?  No, that isn’t rhetorical or a clever way to intro this blog entry.  Really, what do they do?

While we are, at this point, arguably at least relatively well traveled, we really haven’t done a lot of “tourist-ing.” (is that a word?)  Packaged tours aren’t really our forte and why pay for a walking tour of Venice when you can wander around it all by your dang self to find the local’s dance club?  Our method of exploring a place is best compared, in Greg’s twisted gamer mind at least, to a random encounter roll.  A hold over from his Dungeons and Dragons days…

Tiffany: “Oh, look Greg, there went half the freaking audience in three words or less!”

Greg: “No, no wait, it’s cool!” Continue reading “Experiments in Tourism”

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