We landed on the out-of-scale long and wide
runway built out from a reef motu by the Americans during the war. From there - best arrivals hall in the world! - everyone has to transfer to their hotels by boat since the main island is in
the middle. Our hotel, though, Le Méridien Bora Bora, is on one of the reef motus – the
first to be built here and with the most photogenic view of Otemanu.
It’s a lovely, lovely place: traditional
but sophisticated, neat and well-maintained, and most of its guests are smugly
housed in over-water bungalows – including me, I’m glad to say, for the first
time ever. Ours is at the end of a pontoon, much more private than I expected,
and has two big glass floor panels, the better to appreciate the sea-life in
the lagoon below. We have our own spiral staircase down into the water, and an
outside shower for afterwards, as well as all the usual amenities inside.
The sun set behind Otemanu, which became
even more impressive as a silhouette, reflected in the eternity pool. I watched
the staff put dining tables out on the beach with high-backed cane chairs and
lit torches next to each one – very nice; though, when we went past them after
dinner, they also each had their own musician perched on a stool nearby which
would have been not only quite distracting for the presumably honeymoon
couples, but also a bit rowdy since they were all so close together.
We ate in Le Tipanié restaurant, under a high
thatched roof beside the water where little black and yellow-finned mullet swirled
constantly and beside which the staff teetered unnervingly as they served us.
Our sommelier/hostess was Vanessa, a young French woman with a slightly intimidatingly
authoritarian air, but she certainly knew her stuff, and we were glad she
overruled our first choices of wine. The food was good, too.
And after, walking back through the warm dark
along the pontoon above lapping water to our cool and comfortable bungalow?
Priceless.
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