18/5/2015 0 Comments A day at The Hilton Bora Bora.Bora Bora didn’t quite live up to its fame & name, mainly because we had also been to Moorea which was my favourite island paradise & Tahaa a close second. However Bora Bora was very pleasant if that’s the Island you have chosen for your resort holiday. Svend & I spent a day at the main beach by hitching a lift there & back with local people who were very obliging despite the whole Island being involved in tourism, you would expect them to be somewhat cynical. The next day was quite exciting for me a during a snorkel run on the reef I found myself along with Tina swimming with two to three huge stingrays & a few sharks all at once. I tired to photograph them whilst keeping a wary eye on them but didn’t quite capture the real essence of the moment in the pictures that eventuated. We also snorkeled over some coral but by that time a storm was brewing & the sea getting choppy so we decided very hurriedly to call it a day & I was hauled into the dingy very unceremoniously whereby I got stuck half way in & out of the dingy not being able to move & having fits of laughter that I couldn’t control. Hopefully no one caught my undignified & & immodest views on camera because it wouldn’t have been pretty.
That night we anchored fairly near to a small private Island hosting The Hilton Bora Bora, but from our view point it looked deserted & in renovation mode with cranes & new materials strewn nearby. Next day we decided to investigate so took the dingy to the Island, mooring it to a dilapidated jetty & strolled around the building site that was The Hilton, not a single person was around so it felt like a scene from an apocalyptic movie & we were wondering if something had happened in the world whilst we were at sea, & maybe we were the only survivors. We continued exploring walking further & further into the resort , passing machinery & new pavers, trenches etc, when we passed a palm tree barrier & Hey presto just like that we were in Disneyland type movie set that was the Hilton in full swing. And that’s where we spent the next few hours, lapping it up, buying lunch, using the pools & Svend & I eventually after much laughter managed to stand up on the paddle boards kindly provided for our use!!! No one asked us where we came from as I’m sure ‘through the back of the building site’ wouldn’t have been a suitable answer. Mark didn’t experience the trappings of The Hilton but the rest of us had a really good day. However on reflection it occurred to me that we could have been anywhere warm in the world with a pool & palm trees, & that when you actually buy a holiday to these cleverly marketed brochure resorts you are only actually buying a holiday at The Hilton, or Sofitel or Hyatt, & you might spent an afternoon at the most in the centre of Bora Bora where there really isn’t very much to see anyway. There are many, many more interesting places to have a romantic holiday but the name lives on. We did notice that a lot of the top resorts seemed to be abandoned & closed down or were in need of a refurbish & that maybe there was rather a surplus of accommodation on Bora Bora now, & that it isn’t quite the exclusive place to go that it once was. But all in all our trip to French Polynesia was very charming & beautiful & the people still seemed unspoilt & not at all jaded with all the tourists they get & that apart from Bora Bora the rest of the islands have kept their charm which I hope will continue.
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