On our third day morning, it rained pretty much the entire morning. Was craving bajjis and pakodas sitting in the room watching the roosters and hens trying to find shelter outside our sliding door. Even they shut up in the rain.
When there was a reprieve we went for breakfast and a walk to the store near our hotel and went beyond till the next hotel.
There were a lot of fruit trees in every house that we admired along the way. You know it must be a slow day when I have only 3 photos for a 6 hour period on vacation! The rains, a smiling San (just after seeing those mangoes on the tree) and the thatched roofs that pretty much covered every thing here but worked exceptionally well to keep water out!
Did take a few video clips though.. here is a video highlight reel of the morning..
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..
This is the first of a series of posts on our trip to Belize to round up 2018. . .
It all started with me getting a mail from some guided tours and such, addressed to the previous owners of our house "or current resident". Most of the time San throws those out in the garbage on her way into the house. This time by some miracle it made it to the table. There were many places on that list and one of those was Belize. I did not know much about Belize. There were two places that were touted as must see.
1. The Sacred cave or Cave of the Stone Sepulcher also called ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal)
2. The Great blue hole which is a UNESCO world heritage site
Belize has been a bucket list item for at least three years now. This year we had a shutdown between Christmas and New Years and San made the plans. The Great Blue hole was a helicopter ride off Belize City and it was ~1000$ per person. So the original plan was for me to see the hole while the family relaxed. That would have still been too hectic, so I cancelled that. Would rather go with the family.
ATM was on the plan for sure. I did not give the family details and they did not go to the Wiki pages or read other peoples account of their trips or they would have never agreed to come. Good thing they just took my word for it that it is "just a short hike to see a crystallized skeleton".
There were other things to see in Belize as well and we had to balance out the fact that the kids wanted a "relaxing vacation". Their idea of a vacation is to sit in bed and read books, or sleep, and they definitely don't want to wake up "early". Early is relative... so we stuck some kind of compromise.
We got to stay in the Belize Boutique resort and Spa. How San found this place I have no idea, but it was worth what we paid for it. It was amazing! In the middle of forest land, a small group of accomodations, maybe 30-40 people at any time staying there, food that is freshly made for every meal from stuff grown right there, a guy who puts ladders up coconut trees and cuts up cocunuts for you to drink, it was pampering..
My friend has a Wellness place close to Chennai that we visited last year. This was very similar.
It was close to most of the sites or activities we wanted to do. They had guides for everything except ATM (those guides are locals at the ATM site but the Resort made the arrangements for us ahead of time).
We had a great experience where we did things for four days, then had a day "off" to make the kids happy and flew back. There were massages on the day "off" at the Spa, which was an interesting exprience in itself.
Just watching the reefs and the shallow green waters as we landed, set the expectation high for Belize!
One thing that hit us after we got to the resort was that everything had a hibiscus on it..
The welcome drinks had it, the table in the room, the pillows, the slippers, even the restoom and toilet were decorated with a single hibiscus leaf and a flower. It was the Spa's theme or something..
We were all encouraged to eat hibiscus and were told that it improves memory. Given we have lots of hibiscus in our house but we never ate one, San was the only one brave enough to eat the flower petals. She declared them tasty and started eating one a day. Not sure if her memory has improved yet.. The kids and me were content to admire the flowers and watching her like young experimenters in a biology lab looking at a petri dish.
The place was amazing. An air conditioned stucco hut with a tatched roof (covered by a corrugated tin sheets). We did not use the air conditioning, except as air circulation. It was pleasant outside. There was non stop noise from animals, birds, frogs and lizards, but we slept peacefully.
Every little thing was well decorated, with things you would not think of as decorations.. door latches, thumb tacks etc..
The dining area was also very nicely set!
Then there was the stone and wood artwork that were all around the place..
did I mention coconut trees already?
There was this spiritual meditation chalet made of colored bottles and it did make some amazing light effects during sunrise and sunset, but I did not use that room. Just sitting outside our little Villa was calming enough with the gentle breeze!
We stayed at the Opium Villa.. there was no Opium involved.. They have interesting names for the various huts. Fertility suite, Honeymoon hotel, Viper, Mayan Loft etc.. Most of them were isolated single storied structures with the exception of two double level buildings.. It was mostly couples staying there.. there were three families at most times and we met some fun folks over the week which was an added plus! It was like an extended family!
It was just beautiful. Have stayed in lots of places over the years, but the Opium Villa is one to remember! There was a giant Chess set in a cute setting right outside our hut. The kids did not offer to play chess with me.. I sat there for a few seconds to admire the setting..
There were pretty birds outside our hut working on their own honeymoons.
Sometimes a video does justice to things pictures don't.. so here is one!
It did rain on and off the day we landed. So we just relaxed, walked around the place, got adjusted to the time difference a little.. and went to bed early.. They were going to knock on our door at 6:30 in the morning. We pre-ordered breakfast (they make everything fresh starting at 6.. so we had to preorder) and we were going to leave at 8AM sharp for our first activity on Day 2...
We did realize one thing on day 1. There were plenty of things that bit us. The Spa gave a special spray made of natural stuff that was to repel the insects, but the smell of it shut down my nose and lungs instantly. So I did not spray that on.. it was going to prove a costly mistake over the coming days.. The kids used DEET.. which also suprisingly shuts me down.. Maybe I am an insect myself?! was what I was thinking..
In any case, use the Deet if you go there, or the organic herbal spray. Don't be like me!
Will continue the blog posts over the next few days...
