Saying bye to Tahiti

The previous post in this series is here..

We were still thinking and talking of the SCUBA diving experience. Turns out the family did not know that Scuba was an acronym. They were impressed when I explained it to them.

Was telling them about how my brother and me would be glued to the TV screen watching Jacques Costeau and the Underwater Adventure series on Doordarshan. Never thought I would actually be wearing an oxygen tank and fins and jump into the water from a boat.

We came back early to the dinner table, ordered and while our food was being prepared, came and took more photos at golden hour. The colors were different this time given the rain clouds.. a little more ominous looking skies.

Then we went back to bed knowing the next day was going to be an all travel day.

I simply could not sleep the entire night. The wall of fishes kept popping up in my head. Wanted to go back and try diving again. So we called the diving place as soon as they opened at 7 and asked if I could go back. Our ride from hotel to boat was only at 2 PM. The lady said “no diving if you are flying same day. Come back again and you can dive with us on your next trip!”. So I decided to just go spend another hour in the water. It was nice and there was a chilly breeze but the water was warm. Dunked the iPhone in water and tried taking a few pictures. Went back to the room and as soon as I came out of the shower, it rained heavily. We couldn’t even cross the hotel area to go to the lobby to check out. (You can see it in the video). After checking out at 11, we had to spend 3 hours in the restaurant area for our ride to the boat. So we just sat there eating lunch, then fries, then drinking hot chocolate.. and walked up and down and just chatted. It was nice.

Then we went by boat to the Bora Bora airport. There was more drama. The flight to Raiatea was 1 hour late. That meant we would not make it back to Tahiti that night. Our flight to SFO was at 7AM the next morning. We panicked. The guys at the counter said “you have only one option. Cancel your ticket to Raiatea. Instead book a new ticket from Bora Bora to Papette in Tahiti that leaves in an hour”. Poor San scrambled, we shelled out a lot of money for that last minute ticket and oddly, that flight stopped at Raiatea for 20 mintues before going to Papette anyways!! This whole thing with inter island flights is a borderline scam. In any case we had no choice so we went with it.

Once we reached Papette and got out of the airport, we could see the Tahiti Airport Motel directly in front of us on the hill facing the airport. There were no taxis. We waited for 10 minutes and decided to walk to the hotel. Maps said it was s 6 min walk with a 100 ft climb. We walked up to find the gate closed. Then the hotel guy says we needed to walk all around the side street up a hill and then come down to the hotel. We were tired after all that travel and had to walk a good 20 minutes dragging our luggage up a hill. The guy at the reception said “very sorry.. we close the gate because thieves come and steal from the store below the hotel”. That was not very comforting. He was nice though and booked us a taxi to go to the food trucks nearby.

There was no vegetarian option on the food trucks except plain rice. Luckily for us there was a chain called WSK right near the trucks. The lady there spoke some English and agreed to make a veggie burger and veggie noodles. I ate plain rice and drank water which was as good as it was going to get for me.

We waited for a return taxi. We asked for the taxi from the hotel at 7:40 and waited for a long time. When he finally came and dropped us at the hotel he asked for double fare citing it was 8:06 and after 8 the fare was double. We told him all we had was the money for the return taxi. Finally he agreed and took the money. The hotel reception person was puzzled by this and was shaking his head when we told him what happened.

Clearly Pullaiyaar was on vacation again. We woke up at 4:30 the next morning and caught the taxi that had been booked to take us literally across the street to the airport. It was good we had a taxi as it was raining heavily. We got breakfast at the airport and were told the flight would be delayed by an hour.

Finally when we took off, we were two hours late again. French Bee seems to have no idea of punctuality. Two flights and both 2 hours late! Eventually we made it back home after 8PM. There was power, the garage door opened and we were greeted by the smell of wet yoga clothes and towels that had been left in the laundry room for 5 days!

Home sweet home, we said and started unpacking!

At the end of the trip, we collectively thought it was still great. We had travel delays and flight issues everywhere. (we had taken 9 flights in 10 days on the south east Asia trip during Thanksgiving and every flight was on time!. so our expectation was different). Cancelations to booked adventures.. but we had all snorkeled as a family, San and me had a life changing experience with diving and we had great pictures. Also we got to laugh and kid around with just the four of us. We had also met some nice people from the bay area all the way in Tahiti.

A video highlight of us just doing nothing on the last day..

Would definitely recommend a visit, the snorkeling, the scuba diving, the Royal Hotel in Bora Bora .. just book tickets with enough layover time, direct to the location if possible and know the flight routes. If possible book Air Tahiti as they have a larger presence there for inter island flights. If you mix and match between Air Moana and Air Tahiti you will be in trouble with late flights and bad weather.

Here is a timelapse video of the entire flight from Bora Bora to Raiatea. Glad we did not have to get down again at Raiatea.. the kids had had enough of that airport on the way in. We need to start flights like this along the California coast so the little one can come on a 20 minute flight from Santa Barbara to San Jose. Decided to hold the camera at the window for the entire flight.. have held it longer to catch sunsets and sunrises .. so why not?!

Given I was in two minds about this trip and all the things that came our way, the fact that we were all together through this experience made it all the more interesting and memorable!

A year end trip with twists and turns - Day 0 and 1

We literally came back after a 11 day break first week of December. The kids were. not a part of it. Given work and school, they were free only from 23rd evening. So San had made a plan to go “somewhere” with the kids to wrap up 2025. It was the kids choice and all I knew early on was that it was to be a “kids style vacation” which meant, sitting somewhere with a view and reading a book sipping drinks, be it mocktails or masala chai.

Even the original location was not in my radar and all I knew was to take enough yoga shorts which meant water was involved.

We were to leave on Christmas Eve and come back on 29th. Given no one was working during that time, it was good by me. I am not one for going to a new location and sitting in one place. The kids knew that and still wanted me to “let go of wanting to go places”. The original plan was apparently to fly from SFO to Faa’a airport in Tahiti, then fly from there to Raiatea island, take a boat and spend 3 days in the Taaha resort and come back.

Two days before the trip, the resort called San and said they had to close because of some issue with local government regulation, they were very sorry and will give a full refund. What about the non refundable flights for four people to the middle of nowhere? There was only one other place in that island and apparently the girls didn’t like it. So alternate arrangements were made to stay in Bora Bora in a nice hotel called The Royal. You get the idea.

Now this meant keeping the original flights and booking an extra flight from Raiatea to Bora Bora and back to keep the original flight tickets intact. Fate had other plans. Also the girls missed two things about the local island geography and the flight patterns for these islands.. All these islands are part of French Polynesia and Bora Bora is definitely one of the most amazing islands here.

Our trip started with a lot of panic. San and me went to Bikram Yoga at 4:30 PM and came out at 6PM. We were to leave for SFO airport at 8PM. When we started driving back, got a text from kids saying heavy rains and winds knocked out a transformer. There was no power, cant open garage door and electric water heater is out. We had no change of clothes and were on our way back. I took a chilled water shower in the dark while San ran to our neighbors house to shower (thankfully they had a powerwall). After this we did all the last minute packing with flashlights. The laundry was still in the rinse cycle when power went out. We decided to just turn everything off (when you have lights that have multiple switches and the kids don’t know which lights were on when power went out, it makes it interesting). I even made Maggi in the dark( we do have one stove that works even without power which we can light with a matchstick).. technology is great when there is power! When we went to the airport it was really bad. Just as we were about to leave the driveway, the power came for 2 minutes! Enough to reset the garage door and turn off all the lights! Thanks to Pillayar for small mercies. Usually Pillayar helps when we take trips. Think this time he went on vacation as well. Our travails continued.

We flew on French Bee airlines. I would avoid them if possible. The flight from SFO started 2 hours late (after we sat in the plane they were doing flight maintenance checks) and the return flight was also 2 hours late. It is one of those flights where you have to buy everything on the flight and vegetarian options end up being limited to chips, pringles and pretzels. Not okay for an 8 hour flight that is delayed by 2 hours every time.

When we landed in Tahiti, we ran and made it to the connecting flight only to be told that carry on baggage is 5 kg on the local flights. We had 7 kg bags from the US which was totally okay and is the carry on for almost all flights everywhere. The local airline said that given we had to check the 4 bags there was not enough time and we had to go on a flight 2 hours later. So we sat there for 2 hours in Tahiti and finally made it to the flight to Raiatea. We were in shock as that flight stopped in Bora Bora for 20 minutes, dropped some people off, took some people and went to Raiatea. Given we were going to spend 3 hours in that island (to see a place called Uttarua .. based on someone’s Insta recommendation.. avan mattum en kaila maatinaan. !!). We asked the air hostess if we could get down given these flights were being run like local village buses. She said nope. Get down in Raiatea. When we got down and got the bags, the entire airport closed. It was Christmas. There were only 5-6 staff at the airport for the two airlines that flew there and they all went to spend time with family. We were told that the Uttarua place is closed completely for Christmas and no shops were open. There were no taxis available on this small island either. The airline rep told us to stay at the airport and have some drinks at the restaurant (which was open) and they will all come back in 5 hours for the last 4 flights of the evening.

She did do us a favor by putting us on a flight to Bora Bora earlier.

Raiatea airport is small. It is a nice shack and the restaurant is another shack. Cute, and quiet. There was a lady selling jewelry at the airport who spoke English and helped translate. We took a 2-3 hour nap. thankfully San had packed lemon rice and idlis which we had for lunch. Then we walked around the airport and sat at the restaurant some more. Guess we got what we asked for.. a vacation where we did nothing.. it was a kind of detox. no cell phone, no signal at times.. there was nothing to do but to enjoy the sudden downpours, the sudden clearing of skies, watch the birds.. After spending 6 hours between the four of us (we have not spent this kind of quality time together in a long time) we finally made it on the 20 minute flight to Bora Bora.

It was another interesting experience. The flight ticket included a boat ride from Bora Bora airport (which is its own island with only the airport) to the main Bora Bora which has the volcano crater and hotels all around the lagoon. Once we made that boat ride to Vaitape, a car from the hotel picked us up and took us to the Royal Hotel.

It was a nice welcome and we went to our rooms, showered, changed and came out for dinner. All our meals were at the restaurant that was part of the hotel. They had vegetarian options. The sun had just set 10 minutes before we made it for dinner and the skies were lit. So we did take a few pictures before dinner. After dinner we just went and crashed.

It had taken us 26 hours to get to our final destination when it could have been 11. Still we enjoyed the day as we were all together.

Here are some pictures (some from the plane window)… the place is absolutely breathtaking!

The first photo below was my view for 3 hours in Raiatea airport. This is pretty much the sum total of the airport ceiling. We did try to take a family portrait with self timer by placing the phone on a coconut tree.. however it was already dark.. but we saw this and said “tomorrow we are going to get great photos!” . There were only 10 other guests total on Christmas night. So dinner was fast and quiet at the dinner hall in the hotel.

The first video below is our experience at the Raiatea airport on Christmas. We have traveled on red eye to a lot of places on Christmas, but never have we faced this type of a situation. This was an interesting experience.

Once we got to Bora Bora we were tired but happy, got to see a nice warm room, a nice hotel, beautiful beach and lagoon, food! Somehow looking back at the two video clips, I think we were all just smiling through both experiences anyways.

The videos do a better job for this post than the pictures.

Day 2 was going to be better than day 1 after a good nights rest.. I had not factored in the roosters of Bora Bora which have their own daylight savings time. They start crowing a good two hours before sunrise. That in the next post..

A destination wedding

The previous post in this series is here..

The main reason for this entire trip during and after Thanksgiving was our friends son’s wedding.

Most of Cupertino descended in Phuket at the JW Marriott to celebrate.

The kids (they will always be kids to all the uncles and aunties) show a level of maturity that made us think “were we like this at that age?”

There was a sense of calm with the bride and groom that was amazing to watch. There is a lot happening around them and they are actually tying to direct the groups to the right people, interact with everyone, check on people. At one point I told the groom “You should just not have to check on anything!” and he just gave his usual smile.

We have attended a few weddings in the recent years given the next generation in our extended family is all growing up. This was our first destination wedding outside of the US. So it made for an interesting experience. The other recent weddings we attended all had the boy and girl from different cultures within India.. Tamil-Telugu, Tamil-Gurarathi.. etc. but here both the kids were from the same community, but still there were subtle differences in their family traditions when it came to wedding ceremonies. Our local priest from Cupertino who also flew in to conduct the wedding did an outstanding job of juggling everything, explaining things to the audience and made the entire event memorable.

I was strictly told to keep my hands off cameras and leave it to the pros.. and there were 5 photographers running around in circles making it difficult for anyone else to get photos anyways.. Did capture this candid shot of the kids from the iPhone.. Sincerely wish they stay as happy the rest of their lives. They have all their Cupertino uncles and aunties watching them.. the next generation has a lot more challenges than us as we are definitely leaving the world in worse shape than we got it.. or so I feel.. but inspite of all our attempts to screw things up for them, they are in every way better than us. They have what it takes to navigate things. Saw it in their eyes and the way they handled things.. had happy tears watching them go around the fire… blessed them with all my heart!

There were people on boats from the sea taking pictures of the mandap as were tourists walking on the beach.. think they photobombed a lot of the pictures. They must not be used to seeing the groom show up in a decked up horse to the mandap for a baraat..

We had an amazing time.. got to sing songs during the wedding ceremony. We had practiced for a few weeks before the wedding! San got to dance with the other “aunties”.. (I will get flak for this sentence alone but it is what it is).. We got to dress differently for the different events..

There was a short gap between the wedding and reception and we finally spent some time as a group walking around the beach and taking pictures.

My friend gave a speech but sadly we had to leave mid way into the reception as our flight was late that night and it was a 90 minutes drive to the airport. We did catch the video later. He is still giving me crap for missing his epic speech. I had to get back to work Monday morning and literally dropped suitcases at home and went to work to take care of a few things. Phuket airport is not anywhere close to the other airports we visited on this trip.. It could seriously use some more disciplined people. The airport was dirty, there was no crowd management at the lines, no proper lanes, airport and restrooms were not clean.. Thankfully we had to spend only a couple of hours there. Our stop at Seoul aiport was much nicer. We enjoyed the three hour break there before flying back to SFO.

We said bye to everyone and Phuket to wrap up a fantastic 10 days in southeast Asia!

Will summarize all these stops in one blog post to share the entire trip itinerary.