Tahitian Treat

[zyzyly]

When we got married, I wanted to go camping for our homeymoon. Arlina told this to my mom, and everyone got so upset that they took up a collection and sent us on a cruise to Tahiti instead. I'd like to say my plan worked perfectly, but I really did want to go camping, and a cruise sounded boring.

Tahiti, however, was quite interesting. We visited three of the islands--Bora Bora, Moorea, which was my favorite, and the main island of Tahiti. Moorea is the closest I have ever come to experiencing my vision of paradise. A lush island surrounded by a coral reef and warm, clear ocean. As you drive past the houses, they have little mailboxes out front for daily baguette deliveries. How cool is that? If you want to see what Moorea looks like, rent the Mel Gibson version of The Bounty.

By the time we got to Tahiti, Arlina had made friends with all the filipino crew members on board ship--she never had to pay for a drink the whole time we were on board. They told us of the almost slave labor conditions under which they worked--weeks and weeks on duty, miserable pay, no security. All so I could have a second lobster at dinner, even though I was already full. Anyway, they got a half-day off in Moorea, and we took them out to lunch at a chinese restaurant overlooking a coral reef. This really has nothing to do with this anecdote--I just feel obligated to toss it in whenever I tell about my cruise experience.

Back to the story proper. Our last day in Tahiti was on a Sunday. We were in Papeete, the big "city". We wandered around looking at things, but everything was closed except for a little sidewalk cafe near the waterfront. We sat outside munching on croissants and sipping espresso as we watched the people go by. It was a perfect moment.

This morning, on our way to Arlina's folks, we stopped at a little cafe in one of the strip malls--a place called LaBou. We sat outside and sipped coffee and munched on croissants and watched the people go by. It was warm, but there was a nice breeze, and we were shaded by a couple of big trees. It was surreal. It felt so much like we were back in Tahiti,except that there was not a single bare-breasted Tahitian woman in sight. It brought back some great memories. I'll have to dig out our pictures and write a little more about it. Oh yeah, I forgot that we lost our Tahiti pictures the last time we moved. Dang!

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I love these stories, and your love for your family and your life.

[pasticcio.livejournal.com]

I always tell people that Tahiti is a little bit like heaven on earth... my favourite islands were Moorea and Huahine.

Which ship did you sail on?

[valdelane.livejournal.com]

Moorea was also my favorite.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

We were on the something Princess--it was an old ship--the sister of the Pacific Princess--The Love Boat.

It really is paradise--especially Moorea.

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

that was a lovely reminiscing :-)

[valdelane.livejournal.com]

You tell such wonderful stories. Sorry to hear about losing the photos! Maybe I'll post some of my Tahiti pix, which would be good timing since my current queue is nearly empty anyway.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Love to see them!

I'm pretty sure i still have all my negatives in my big negative box--it's just such a hassle going through them and trying to remember which ones were good.

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

I've never been to tahiti. Nope, not Tahiti, Pitcarin, Pago pago, Kiribati, or even the Dissapointment islands. In fact, you wanna know what? I ain't never even seen the Pacific, except once. As a young boy. ANd that don't count in my book. I'll get out that way someday, and until then I can always dream about Baguette-boxes on my front yard.

And those poor filipino cruise-ship workers. They really do cling on to one of the lowest rungs in the Maritime world. Not only are they (de-facto) Indentured Servants, they are treated with almost no respect at all.

I used drink Heinekens with them at the seaman's club at the cruise docks in Miami. They usually drank the cheap, watery beer. But we drank Heinekins. I was buying.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, our ship stopped at Kiritimati on the way to Tahiti--totally un-touristed. They greeted us and gave us coconuts.

I have lived near the Pacific almost all my life. The Atlantic is a strange thing to me--too warm.

[ldygwynedd.livejournal.com]

And I am sure there are a significant number of your readers who are really disappointed that you lost those pictures because they were looking forward to seeing some bare breasted Tahitian women!

But I suppose I shouldn't say such things to a deacon, should I?

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Bare-breasted Tahitian women are God's creation!

[imgomez.livejournal.com]

I went on camping/canoing honeymoon in the Boundary Waters with my first wife. It stormed like crazy and was pretty scary. We were so exhausted there was no honey-mooning at all.

My second wife and I were given the gift of a 3 day honeymoon to Maine to go sailing on a schooner. It was relaxing and the food was good, but it was a little crowded, and so calm we mostly just floated around. The cabins were so claustrophobically small it was like sleeping on a creeper under a car. We were about 18 inches away from three other couples, with a very thin wall between us. Again - not very conducive to romance.
(My wife thought the lobsters were scary, and didn't want to mess with them, so after I dug out her tail meat, I also got to eat two lobsters - and there was no side order of slave labor stories to slow me down.) Thanks for sharing, and prompting my own memories.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you deerve a second honeymoon!