The lyric above is from “The Honeymoon Song,” sung by The Beatles, and which I only learned because I was looking for a title for this post. I had started keeping an almost-daily journal of this trip and on day four (today), decided to post my entries here. Note that the first two days were written without this intention, and so if they seem a bit quotidian, it’s because I’m trying to keep track of details.
Honeymoon
We left New York at 5:45AM, took an 8AM flight to SFO, got in some steps, had a juice on the outdoor terrace, took a 1:35 flight to Papeete. I slept for an hour. To answer the myriad questions I was asked over the past couple of weeks, I wasn’t “excited” for my wedding or honeymoon because I didn’t know how to be; the stress took its place. And now, I am retroactively excited. Our wedding was beautiful, about which more later. Our honeymoon is beautiful, with much more to come.
We landed in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, around 6:30PM, descending with the sun and landing in the dark. Our flight staff was the friendliest and most interested in its passengers as any I’ve experienced. Annette, crew leader, learned all of our names and raisons d’etre à Tahiti, then accidentally thanked the plane via intercom for flying Continental.
As Bryan predicted, we were the only plane getting in at that time. Left the plane by way of outdoor staircase, walked across the tarmac and into the terminal where a trio of musicians greeted us and I got teary. A quick trip through immigration and we were greeted with leis so fragrant they would have been cloying in another context – his and hers, hers more ornate, the bower bird or peacock of the bunch.
A ten-minute ride with a French man who’d lived back and forth between Tahiti and Bretagne, and we arrived at the hotel where we checked in and were shown to our over-water bungalow. I changed quickly, Bryan too tired to, and we cashed in our drink voucher at the *real* tiki bar – a cocktail of white rum with passion fruit puree and tapioca pearls. Then a few feet away to dinner where Liliana, our server, guided us toward the catch of the day and the tuna sashimi. A woman at a nearby table coughed like the dog in Seinfeld. All around us was spoken English, French, and smatterings of Tahitian: la Orana (yo-rah-nah) and Maururu (mah-roo-roo).
Early to bed, early to rise, and now we TM and sip coffee on our deck, looking at Moorea in the near distance and hearing the waves all about.
Day 2 was adventure-filled and totally relaxing. A delicious Intercontinental buffet breakfast – fresh fruits, including some we’d never heard of, bacon offered extra crisp, scrambled eggs, French cheeses, cappuccino, tropical juice, “detox” water with cucumber and lime (I think, I wasn’t wearing my glasses). Followed that with a trip into Papeete where we went to the market – souvenirs, the typical fare, and fresh flowers and fruits, black pearls, fishmongers, selling the largest pieces of tuna filet (blanc et rouge) that’d we’ve ever seen – my heartily appetited spouse remarked that one piece could feed a family of six – and these brightly colored iridescent wonders that we learned were perroquet – parrot fish – and they were beautiful, jewel-toned creatures. We bought some things then went further into the centre-ville where we found an excellent t-shirt shop with ethically, ecologically, locally made wares in cool designs, so we bought some more things. There the proprietress encouraged me to speak French par tout, telling me that the locals would appreciate it. We weren’t sure on account of the whole colonization/nuclear testing thing, and the fact that Tahitians have their own language, but I followed her wisdom and have been speaking French since. With a smattering of the two Tahitian words I now sort of know.
Took a taxi back to the hotel, TM’d on the lawn, ate lunch at the casual spot on the water with the 2-starred Michelin chef – smoked monkfish specialty, catch of the day for me (a white fish whose name I didn’t catch over the best coconut rice I’ve had) and Ahi for the Mister. Après ça we went to the beach/pool, kind of one and the same as the pool is infinite and floats into the ocean. We sought the shade and took a bit of sun, watched the Tik Tokers film themselves and the families play, I read, we drank water, we floated at the edge of the pool and watched the creatures on the lava rocks, crabs and these strange tadpole/fish/eel-like things that seemed fine either in or out of the water, as though we’d caught them mid-evolution.
Sometime after 5:30 the sun began her scheduled descent and we stood on the beach with everyone else, cameras out, watching her fall within the peaks of Moorea, lighting the island from within so that it resembled a cauldron, a recipe for the birth of the planet.
Dinner was a theme night featuring cuisine and entertainment from the Marquesas Islands – a buffet of fishes and meats (including, unexpectedly, steak au poivre, which is Mr. Smith’s favorite of the red meat dishes) with local vegetables and such, and drumming, dance, and song by a troupe that included some of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen wearing traditional dress, showcasing their Polynesian tattoos, and a Google search just taught me that there are five main style of tattoo: Maori, Marquesan, Samoan, Tahitian, and Hawaiian.
Google also taught me that the raw fish dish we had the first night and have seen at meals since is Ei’a ota.
We had dessert – we never have dessert – and it was delicious. As was our wedding cake but I digress.
Two other details: 1) the straws at the hotel are made of pasta, a smart way around the biodegradable thing and one that leads to initial confusion when one requests a straw and is asked whether they have a gluten allergy, and 2) the popular music we are hearing, in the taxis, in shops, in parts of the resort, are American and English songs covered by what we assume to be local artists, eg Wish You Were Here, One More Night, Hotel California …
Day three has dawned.
Day four: it just rained for a good seven seconds and now the sun shines again.
Yesterday we left Tahiti for Mo’orea by ferry. I took a necessary phone call on the boat and said, “I’m on a ferry from Tahiti to Mo’orea” because I wanted to hear what that sounded like.
We befriended a mother, Liz, her 23-year-old daughter, Blair, and Blair’s friend Kiara. They live in San Diego. Bryan and the others, more intrepid than I, walked down to the front of the boat and saw whales off the side. He texted me, but I missed the whales. Still it was beautiful, a commuter ride like the one from Rumson, and totally not like the one from Rumson.
When we arrived in (on) Mo’orea our transfer was not there. We waited for backup with Liz, who was waiting for the girls, who’d run across the street to the gas station to procure fruit juices with which to mix the vodka they’d bought at duty free. They returned with a box and joked that they’d had an Amazon delivery. While they mixed their drinks for the road, Liz explained of her daughter, “She’s been working very hard.”
She’s also 23 and can do this sort of thing. We met them because they liked my dress, and so I gave a plug for Mahi Gold and told them of the current sale.
After we said goodbye to the Californians a van returned for us with two confused Europeans in tow – they’d been on our ferry and were headed, I suppose, to their hotel when their driver doubled back to pick us up. Fortunately the hotel is quite close to the ferry port.
We arrived and were given less fragrant but equally lovely leis, which are currently drying on the deck of our larger and more immersive bungalow. These bungalows sit atop crystal clear, shallow waters full of coral and tropical fish. Late afternoon we went into the water and were quickly swarmed by these beautiful yellow and black ones – who seemed genuinely curious and fairly welcoming, though being the New Yorkers that we are we got suspicious and climbed back up the ladder. Turns out these guys are friendly, it’s the Picasso fish you have to watch out for.
Mercury is in retrograde as of the past day or so, and that presented in our first couple of hours in Mo’orea … first the transfer snafu, and then when we got to the resort we were told that there were two concurrent reservations for Bryan Smith, one for five days and one for six. We opted for the latter. When we got to our bungalow we were instructed to turn on the television and scan the app; our television said, Room is Vacant. We called, they told us to check again, we still were, apparently, not in our room. And yet we were. Finally they sent a handyman who bore a resemblance to Schneider – really. There were a few other things missing from our room and so we called the desk again. Bryan commented on all the French I’ve been speaking and I joked, though it’s true, that yesterday I had occasion to say things in French like, “but is everything alright with our reservation?” and “Are you here to repair the television?” and “Are you bringing these pillows to our room?”
But everything is now sorted (except for the shower, but we’ll work that out) et tout va bien.
This resort is swarming with chickens and roosters and at breakfast (and lunch) there seemed to be a staff member dedicated to shooing them off the terrace. Chicken bouncers.
Last night we had dinner at the main on-site restaurant – they’d sent a bottle of champagne to our room because of the occasion for this trip, and we had a glass and then went to dine. The food was delicious but I was so tired having only gotten about four hours the night before (insomnia) that I’d have been happy with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, which sounds weirdly good right now. There was live music at dinner, and a curious older couple sat at a nearby table eating spaghetti of some sort. While she twirled her fork on her spoon, the woman there sang along in this loud, trilling, exceptionally beautiful and entirely strange (coming from a woman twirling her spaghetti) voice. I quite enjoyed it, others were confused, including the table behind us that was full of beautiful French people with very cool glasses and smokers’ coughs.
Later, or tomorrow, I shall write about today.
firstsweetpang 