Final Post

"Something to drink before we take off?" Drinks? now? but we are still on the ground... I guess this is one of the perks. My boarding pass reads 2A -- first class. My sister Mitra took care of our flights to and from Los Angeles, and was able to get us upgrades to first class. The perfect way to end our honeymoon. Thanks Mitra.

Private bungalow on the beach at the Four Seasons.

In a sense we were lucky that the weather wasn't great for our last day and a half in Bora Bora. It made it a bit easier to leave, but only a bit. In fact, despite the clouds we had an excellent end to our trip. We watched movies and swam in our private pool when it rained, went sailing when the wind was strong, and finally managed to make it to the tennis court (6-0 then 3-1 before Amanda called it a night). Don't let the score fool you though, I still don't know how to serve.

Swimming in the rain.

Sailing on the Hobie Cat.

With our final post we want to thank a few people. First Katie from Ever After Honeymoons put together a great package for us. Thanks again to Mitra for the flights and all the upgrades. Lastly, to my parents, for this amazing wedding gift. We were spoiled rotten for two weeks and will never forget our honeymoon, and, had it not been a gift, we probably would not have been able to enjoy ourselves so much.

Dining in Bora Bora

The post should really be titled "Dining at the St. Regis" because we ended up having every meal at the St. Regis. A full breakfast buffet was included each morning. The spread here was a bit better than at the Hilton Moorea, as was the service. Amanda also discovered her new breakfast of choice. She calls it a vegetable medley, but I call it a plate of trash cause that is what it looks like. She gets a vegetable omelet, then proceeds to chop up and mix in hash browns, prosciutto, cucumbers, tomatoes, chopped cabbage and really anything else she can find until her plate looks like a giant pile of trash. She insists it is delicious.

 Now picture all of this mixed up on the same plate.

Perhaps I should give it a go though, as my daily helping of waffles with nutella, pineapple and Tahitian vanilla whipped cream haven't been the best for keeping regular.

Some fresh fruit at the breakfast buffet.

As I mentioned in the post about Dining in Moorea, we didn't have our hopes up about the food. But once again, I think all the reviews on TripAdvisor are way off. We had some very delicious meals at the St. Regis, easily the best we had on this trip, and a few dishes were better than a lot of the food we've had at top restaurants elsewhere. I guess it helped that Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened a restaurant at the St. Regis.

Pineapple-glazed char-grilled chicken at Lagoon.

One of the things that made dining at the St. Regis special was that with every meal we received an amuse-bouche, and sometimes an entire additional dish, as a gift from the chef. From duck dumplings to scallop something-or-others and even an entire plate of salmon sashimi, they were all delicious -- and they helped soften the blow when the bill came. We probably paid about twice what we paid on Moorea, but honestly, for the quality and complexity of the food, it's on par with what I would expect to pay at nice restaurant in Montreal or New York.

Scallop amuse-bouche at Lagoon.

Another delight was that our honeymoon package included one free dinner at the restaurant of our choice at the St. Regis. Amanda and I have a rule that free food is also calorie-free, which is very good for us, because the giant pieces of foie gras on the steak tasted very rich.

Wagyu beef (imho, even better than Alberta beef).

Calorie-free dessert.

Most dishes had coconut, pineapple or passion fruit highlights. One of my favorites was the above-pictured passion fruit sorbet. Have you ever seen a passion fruit though? I remember the first time I saw it in Australia, I thought to myself, who in their right mind could eat this fruit -- it looks like snot! Runny, booger-laden snot!

Delicious snot passion fruit.

I hate cooked fish, so some mild-flavored sushi is really all the seafood I eat. After a few amuse-bouches and some delicious hamachi (yellow tail) sushi though, I realized that if there was ever a place to try some fish, this would be the place. I had their mildest fish, the Mahi Mahi, and it was good. It was swimming in a lake of garlic and butter though, so I'm guessing that had something to do with it. Still, a momentous occasion for me.

Mahi Mahi at Lagoon.

Tuna, salmon and yellow tail.

Lastly, we went into Vaitape one day to stock up on snacks and see the city. There really wasn't much to see. The saving grace was their only grocery store's selection of Tim Tams! My love affair with the delicious biscuit from New Zealand began when I visited Australia in 2004 and was introduced to the Tim Tam Slam (sucking tea/coffee through the biscuit before popping the whole thing in your mouth). Before they started importing them into Canada, I would have my sister import me boxes whenever she visited Australia. We now have the chocolate and caramel flavors at the Loblaw's in Montreal, but nowhere near the selection on this remote paradise.

From left to right: double chocolate, honeycomb, double caramel, turkish delight, dark, white and original flavored family-sized pack in my hand.

Upgraded!

After breakfast on Sunday morning we had a nice surprise, we were being upgraded to a "Royal" overwater villa for the remainder of our stay. The two bedroom villa is as over the top as you can imagine and we felt warranted this video.

Photo Blog

Dear St. Regis, you should buy this photo from us.

Mt. Otemanu, Bora Bora.

Riding around in the club car at night.

Fresh baguette -- only 55 XPF at the supermarket.

The local talent.

I was supposed to photoshop out the cruise ship.

Stand up paddling. Harder than it looks.

Trying not to fall.

Finally got to use the underwater camera underwater.

Swim-up bar in the pool.

Scarlett Johansson underwater.

Shark.

Mishkin managed to take a nice artistic shot.

Ready for our 5 star dinner.

Panoramic view from Lagoon.

Amanda's artistic shot.

Sunset dinner at Jean Georges' restaurant. 5 star.

Bora Bora!

Bora Bora is amazing, and by Bora Bora I mean the St. Regis, Bora Bora. We took a 45 minute flight from Moorea and the attitude and ease of these inter-island flights has restored my faith in air travel, even airport security. Get this, we took liquids on the plane... IN OUR CARRY ON!

Aerial view of the St. Regis extending from the motu into the lagoon.

As you get off the plane and enter the airport in Bora Bora you instantly feel the difference from Moorea. Whereas Moorea was a bit more laidback (think Maui), Bora Bora was luxury. We didn't get two steps into the airport when the bellboy from the St. Regis called us by name. It is as if he had a picture of us or something. Amanda says it is because we were the last two off the plane and he must have just called everyone else Mr. and Mrs. Derakhshan, but I like to think they just knew somehow. Anyway, the dude whisks us away to a private speedboat while someone else collected our bags. It was about a 10 minute boat ride from the airport to our motu (one of a series of closely spaced coral islets separated by narrow channels). All the nice resorts are on motus and not on the main island of Bora Bora.

Arrival at Bora Bora.

On our private speedboat.

Let me tell you how ridiculous this place is. As the speedboat pulls into the resort, next to the giant St. Regis yacht I might add, we are greeted with a refreshing cold towel and some delicious homemade ice tea, I guess to help us ease into the resort after our arduous journey by private speedboat.

Our home for the next 5 nights.

Our butler, Emmanuel escorts us to the lobby where they collect our passports. He returns in a minute saying our room is being prepared and that he will take us on a tour. A quick lap of the tour and we hop on our golf cart, or club car as they are called here, and we see the rest of the property. It is a 44 acre resort with a tennis court, spa, lounge, gym, pool, beach, three restaurants including Lagoon by Jean Georges, and a man made lagoonarium stocked with fish for snorkeling. We are in room 207, a deluxe overwater bungalow.



First we enjoyed the fresh, ice cold, mango juice provided in our room, one of the many amenities at the St. Regis. Then tanning on our deck, then jumping into the ocean. The water here is much deeper than at Moorea so we got a bit more adventurous.

!!!

Fresh mango juice on the sundeck.

Pool toys in the ocean? Yes.

Picture perfect swan dive! (slight belly-flop in reality)

Emmanuel appears again with a box of truffles and explains the butler service. Yeah, we have our own butler, rather a team of them. They drive you around, get you ice, iron your clothes (i'm serious), and if you want, you can call them and they will come make you coffee or tea in your room. It's so overboard.

The beach at the St. Regis.

Because the resort is so big, there are bicycles everywhere that you can use to get around, though they aren't all in the best of condition. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring on our beach cruisers.

Dining in Moorea

Our final post from Moorea is our camera's fault. We normally don't take pictures of our food (so tacky!), but our camera had a special "Gourmet" setting so we HAD to try it.

Magret du canard at Te Honu Iti (2500 XPF).

A note about our camera. We are using the sony cybershot DSC-TX10. It is a 16.2 Megapixel, 1080p/60i HD video point-and-shoot but has the advantage of being waterproof to 5.0 meters. Amanda got it right before the trip. We contemplated bringing an SLR with some lenses but in the end we were more interested in a vacation where we weren't carrying a 15 lb bag over our shoulder at all times. We've seen these mini SLR cameras with small detachable lenses, but we didn't have enough time to research them before we left. Amanda picked this one because it was the best of all the waterproof point and shoots on the market. That being said, we have yet to use it in the water because Amanda is afraid that if for some reason it leaks and breaks, then we won't be able to take any pictures. Good thing we got the waterproof camera huh.

Back to the food. Amanda and I are quasi-foodies; we like to eat (who doesn't?) but our concern for our growing bellies, inability to pace ourselves during a meal, and disinterest in fancy-shamncy pretentious dining doesn't fit with the foodie credo.

Tuna tartar at Le Mahagony. 2100 XPF.

Chow mein at Le Mahagony. 1800 XPF.

Despite a wide range of reviews for hotels on TripAdvisor, everyone seemed to agree that the food in French Polynesia is subpar, to the point where we were actually worried. Either we had our expectations sufficiently lowered, or the hoity-toity critics on TripAdvisor were expecting 12 star dinning. We had a fresh tuna dish of some sort with every meal and were never disappointed. We also tried a pizza, a steak, a salad, magret du canard, some chinese food and few desserts. None of them were bad, but I will say that none of them were that memorable. Very few meals are in my mind, and sadly the most memorable meal was the time Amanda and I got food poisoning from Basha's (lebanese food in Montreal). Some close seconds though would be the tasting menu we did with Mitra at Toque, the homemade pumpkin and sage tortellini I had with my dad in Rome, the feasts at Dominic's place when he'd invite me over for copious quantities of persian food, and I guess anything my mom cooked for me as a child because to this day I still love me some mushroom soup on toast, no matter how ghetto it might sound.

Primavera pizza and homemade chocolate mouse delivered from Allo Pizza. 3000 XPF.

Aside from breakfast, which we ate everyday at the Hilton we ate three meals at the hilton, and three at places outside the hotel. Expect to pay ~2500 XPF per entree in Moorea, no matter where you eat.

Risotto (top) and a giant piece of ahi tuna (bottom) at the Hilton. 5000 XPF.

Meringue bowl with raspberry sorbet and white chocolate at the Hilton. 1300 XPF.

Moorea Scooter Tour

After two days of rest, our burns have turned into a nice first coat (soon to be the envy of all those that took the time to call us lobsters after the last post!). What does two days of rest entail you might ask, well for starters, we rented a scooter.

Helmets courtesy of George Lucas.

Amanda and I have a red Vespa LX50 that we use to its fullest during the summer months back in Montreal, so we didn't hesitate at the thought of touring the island by scooter. The 60 kilometer circle  takes no more than 1.5 hours for those wanting to just lay down some miles, but since we had the bike for 24 hours we took the scenic route. First stop was Belvedere lookout where you can see the two Bays defining Moorea's silhouette.

Panoramic view from the Belvedere lookout. Cook's bay (right) and Opunohu bay (left).

To be honest the view itself wasn't spectacular. To be even more honest, I find going to lookouts to be such an odd human activity. Consider yourself an alien observer, people build roads up mountains, or these giant towers, and then travel in droves to spend 5 minutes at the top taking pictures?? Yes they are beautiful, and perhaps the added height gives you an otherwise unseen perspective on the land, but I still find it one of the stranger human pastimes. After the compulsory 5 minutes we head on back down the switchbacks, fearing for our lives in the event there was a tour bus wandering wide in the upcoming blinded curve in the road.

As with any of our trips we spent a lot of time researching what hotel to stay at. Moorea has quite a few resorts, and even a few budget accommodations (called pensions). We knew that we wanted to stay in an over-water bungalow (well at least I did), and after a few recommendations from travel agents, and reading like a thousand reviews on TripAdvisor we came to the conclusion that the Hilton would be the best place to stay. That being said, we decided that on our tour of the island we would stop in at the other hotels, if anything just to check out their pools for a quick minute and cool off from the sun. Did I mention it was 31 degrees! The Intercontinental had the nicest lobby and probably the nicest pool, but the layout and look of the over-water bungalows at the Hilton were hands down the best on the island. Also, the Hilton looked to be the only place were the Lagoon waters were as clear as the swimming pool.

Amanda's amazing floating head (Hilton pool).

Mishkin?

Poolside at the Hilton.

The bungalows at the Legends resort are also worth noting as they were the only ones not on the beach, but rather nestled up high in the mountains. Not sure I would want to climb that hill though.

Legends Resort bungalows up in the hills.

Poolside decor at the Sofitel.

The rest of the island tour, while without destination, was contently picturesque and memorable.

Keep your eyes on the road.

Best. Treehouse. Ever. 

I heart panoramas.