Tiffany and Greg Around the World
With Greg’s mom’s departure came the next phase of our adventure. And, like every other part of this journey, it was not what we expected.
This time was different though because the surprise was not a good one. What this entry should have been about were the chronicles of us finding and holding a job in New Zealand for a few months, meeting Kiwis and basically enjoying ourselves.
Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Well, now that we got the whole troublesome sailing bit out of the way, let’s get to the partying…
…by getting in an even smaller boat, but this time with no means of automated propulsion and in the rain!
(We don’t get it either dude…)
The first thing we did was participate in the national sport of French Polynesia by competing in 4-man Polynesian canoe races. As we had actually sailed to Tahiti with our friends Allan and Alison, they cross-recruited us into their canoe and coconut shucking team.
Difficult to paddle and almost impossible to steer; how the heck did these people colonize the South Pacific in these things!? Continue reading “The Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous”
The Tahiti Rendezvous
There is something you need to understand about sailors: they really need very little excuse to do two things:
1) Sail
2) Party
So any occasion where an actual legitimate reason exists to do both at the same time is guaranteed to draw a crowd. Enter the Tahiti Rendezvous, an annual celebration put on by the Tahitian government to celebrate those insane people who are both crazy enough to think that traveling thousands of miles by sail is a good idea and ingenious enough to actually pull it off.
The short of it is that basically everyone who sailed to Tahiti gets together to have a race to Moorea (her neighboring island) and celebrate the fact that we have actually made it to Tahiti. Which if you’ve ever spent 3 months traveling to a place, trust us, arriving is something worth celebrating.
And what better way to start off celebrating arriving at your destination, after sailing for weeks with no land in sight, than to immediately leave land and have a sailing race?
…It’s not like we said, or even really implied, that sailors made any logical sense.
Being as our current ride was unable to participate in the sailing race because, you know, due to the lack of the sails and all, we were nominated to be the committee boat and carry the band that would provide the soundtrack to our adventure. Continue reading “Any excuse for a party!”
Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Most of the guidebooks about Moorea will at least mention feeding the sting rays.
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”
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”
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?!”
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”
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”
Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Bungalow’s cool but what else do they have to do around here at the hotel?
Actually, quite a lot.
We went over to check out the dolphins responsible for our free lunchtime entertainment.
The part where you get the dolphin to leap at your beck and call? Yeah that’s extra. Continue reading “Outside the bungalow – Dolphins and Sea Turtles!”
Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia
We’ve all heard of beach bungalows before and until now, we really had no idea what to expect from this iconic South Pacific icon of the good life. We had no preconceived notions here except waterside and a bed. Which leaves a lot of variables shrouded in mystery when you stop to think about it. Is it like a normal hotel room? is there a kitchen? Outhouse or running water bathroom? Does it come with one of those dancing hula-girl statues you see on people’s car dashboards? What’s it really like to live in a classy hotel’s overwater bungalow in French Polynesia? Well, it’s like this: Continue reading “Bungalow living”
