Christmas eve morning, we woke up with a downpour of heavy rain. The
weather looked pretty miserable, definitely not a good day for the
beach. We decided to rent a car to tour around the island. There was
only one road in Moorea that circled the island for 37 miles. It was
funny that they gave you "unlimited mileage" on the car rental deal
since you can circle the island within an hour. We were a bit
disappointed that the "must visit" juice factory was closed because of
the holiday and the visibility of the famous Belvedere lookout was not
all that great either because of the weather. The rainfall was on and
off throughout the day. We prayed that the weather would get
better for the rest of our trip. However, it was still fun to visit the
island, saw the locals, sat in the cafe, and walked from shop to shop
in Maharepa village. Fortunately, we never again had such a heavy rainfall lasting that long throughout the rest of our honeymoon.
Sheraton required a mandatory
buffet dinner/entertainment for all the resort guests on Christmas eve.
(Of course the fortune that we paid for the dinner would not cover the
beverages... those blood suckers!) It was a strange Christmas for H.
Instead of white snow, we had inches of rain on a tropical island. The
Hawaiian shirt replaced the sweater. Polynesian island music was
playing in the background rather than the usual Christmas Carols.
There was tons of seafood. It is probably all we ate on this trip. The
night ended with a Polynesian dance performance which was rather
provocative. In fact, it was banned in the early 1820s by the missionaries. What we saw was a washed down version of what it once was. By 10 PM, we were ready for bed again.
Before we returned the car on
the morning of Christmas day, we were hoping that the sky would clear
up and we could drive to the Belvedere lookout again to watch the
sunrise and head to the village for breakfast. No such luck. It was
windy, gray, and cloudy when we woke up. Nonetheless, with the
"unlimited mileage", we decided to drive up to the lookout. The heavy
rain and wind tore down some trees, and both bays turned dirty brown
because of the mud that was washed down from the mountains. We drove back
to the village, and all stores were closed except a few restaurants. It
was very quiet. We went to an outdoor restaurant "Snack L'Anana Bleu to
get some eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast. H saw a few crabs
slowly crawling on the ground and tried to take pictures of them. As
soon as he got closer, the crabs suddenly ran away and disappeared into
the holes on the ground. Ah-ha! I was already wondering why there were
so many holes in the ground. The roosters and chickens were wondering
around from table to table. The roosters were everywhere on this
island, like wild dogs. They practically woke us up every morning,
except some days, Andrew's 6 a.m. phone calls beat them to it.
After
we returned the car, we stayed on the resort beach the whole day.
Fortunately, the weather cleared up and sun finally peaked through a
few layers of clouds. We went snorkeling and took the canoe out around
noon for 20 minutes.
Before
the trip, all the guide books I read stressed the strength of the sun
near the equator and the importance of a lot of sunblock. I brought
expensive sunblocks with high SPF & PPA (European UVA blockage
rating) and even SPF clothings recommended by skin cancer foundation.
(Okay, it might sound like an overkill, but who knew, they turned out to be quite useful actually!)
The first few days of our trip has been cloudy and we were
barely exposed to much of the sun rays, although I did get some
decent color. H and I always stayed in the shade when we lay out on the
beach. When we went canoeing, the sun was pretty strong. H and I
applied sunblock, except that I purposely left out the part of my legs
below the knee and above the feet. (My theory was that tan on hands,
feet, and knees made them look dirty, dried up, and aged. And tan on the rest part of your legs actually made you look
slimmer.)
So
getting back to the day. It was warm and windy. We applied sunblocks regularly, even though H was reluctant to do so. When we felt the
heat, we went snorkeling or swimming in the pool. That afternoon,
H picked a coconut from the beach in an attempt to open it. Watch
the video, it was quite hilarious. I was reading under the shade most
of the time. When we returned to our villa after sundown and took our
daily bath, H already looked like a lobster and the part of my legs
that were sunblock free turned red and sensitive. Not a good sign, this
was only our 4th day on the island. For the remaining of our trip, H applied the sunblocks religiously, and my brilliant suntan theory left me a pair of multi-color legs. (Yap, very smart....)
The
next day on 12. 26, it was the best weather since we got there. Sunny,
blue sky, bright and hot. H had a headache and an upset stomach. It
was minor discomfort, but enough for him to stay in the dark A/C room
sleeping through the whole day. The symptoms lasted for a few days. We
weren't sure if it was the food, the sun, or the combination of the
both. I ended spending the whole day on the beach by myself, reading
books, napping, swimming in the pool, and snorkeling around the lagoon.
Around sunset, there was a couple having a Polynesian wedding on the
beach with Polynesian musicians playing the music and dancers dressed
in bright colored costumes. The sun shined on the happy
couple's faces and casted a radiand glow. It was a rather beautiful
ceremony. After sunset, H was able to come out and spend some time
in the pool with me. We saw a beautiful rainbow across the sky.
We
decided to go out for dinner that night and picked Le Sud, a southern
French restaurant. The restaurant was airy and charming. It had this
Long Island New Hampton chic feel to it. We ordered a grapefruit salad
to share. I had Almond cod and H had grill king prawns for the main
course. The Almond cod was such an excellent dish that my mouth started
to water just thinking about it. By then, the geckos on the ceilings
are the norm in the restaurants. At Le Sud, we saw another interesting
sight: a crab walked across the dinning room and caused quite a stir.
We finished the meal with this French pastry dessert that our waitress
recommended. It turned out to be cream puffs with Vanilla ice cream
filling and chocolate sauce, which was good, but ordinary.
We
had quickly settled into this comfortable routine by then. Waking up
around 6 or 7am by either Andrew or roosters, having breakfast at the
garden balcony with birds sitting on the fence staring at us and
waiting for bread crumbs. Our days were involved around the water. We
swam in the swimming pool, snorkeled around the lagoon, napped on the
beach chairs under the umbrellas and took bubble baths after the sun
went down. The contrast between my tanned legs and my pale butt became more and more obvious as the days went by. There
was rain here and there after the miserable Christmas eve, but nothing
that hindered us from any of our activities. Besides watching the
only English TV channel (International CNN), which we probably could
memorize by heart towards end of the trip, we
made a few attempts to watch some DVDs (thanks to Andrew) that we
brought with us should we have the energy to stay up past 9:30 PM.
I
loved how the locals made flowers their main accessories for both men
and women. And every night when we went out, I started to remember to
pick a Tiare and put it behind my left ear. (It meant that I was
married. There were many different ways to wear your flowers, which
also meant many different things.) I loved the subtle fragrance of the
flower, how accessible they were, and when wearing them behind your
ears how it was both innocent and flirty at the same time. I imagined
what it would be like if I would wear flowers walking on the streets
of New York, shopping on the Madison Avenue, or dinning out at some
trendy restaurants? H and I both burst out laughing picturing it.
It was our last night in Moorea, and we had seen enough. We were ready and curious to discover the famous Bora Bora.
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