The end of Polynesia

Unfortunately, time flew by in Polynesia, and with it the internet connection disappeared.... after Raiatea and the short visit to Taha, we headed off to Bora Bora. Oh, Bora Bora, Bora as they call it there..... It might be the island with the most famous lagoon, and thus has becomed into the most turistical one. Its where people head for their honeymoods, and yes the water was beautiful. However... the amount of tourism has made it become into a "fake place". To be honest, the island was not turistic in the sense of bumping into tourists everymoment, but there was less coral and less beautiful fishes as in the other islands, it was full of resorts with bungalows of the water. Yes, the bungalows where nice, but one starts to wonder. Is it really worth the night to pay more than 600 euros for a bungalow over the water? We were staying at some "pension" by the sea, first row (everything is on the first row anyways...) and got to swim under the bungalows of the Interncontiental.... They had a glass on the floor, and there was a rock under the bungalow so that fishes would come. Is this why the price was so high? I found it ridicolous! The good part of Bora Bora was that we swam with Sharks!! Once again these came because we threw them food....it felt fake, but it was amazing to swim with sharks and huge rays!

Unbelivably the greek girls that so annoyed us at Raiatea showed up again at Bora Bora, in the same hotel!! But something good came out of our meeting, they recommend us to go to Maupiti, and so we did. Took a boat for 2 hours to do 50km to the island "infront" of us.... Maupiti! The boat - The Maupiti Express- only goes there twice a week, so when we arrived there was the entire population of the island waiting for us. With bike to rent, cars to do an island tour (tour took 15minutes!). It was like being in Paradise, we ate at the only restaurant of the island. Maupiti is definatively the island to visit, and relax while away from the world. While we were swiming but right by the beach we saw a moray eel and the parents of the kids "shouted" " faut pass toucher"" (do not touch!).

New Years was spend seeing the home fireworks that the house next to our hotel did... I though the resorts around our little hotel such as ClubMed,InterContiental or Sofitel would do big things... However no fireworks were seen but the never ending ones of the house next to us. It was nice, we watched as we had our 12 spanish grapes, and then headed to bed!

And the days passed by, rainy days, sunny days,snorkling,insulations, island tours, water, photography....and soon back to Paris through LA...

Everything being imported from either USA,Canada, NZ, Aussie or Chile the prices were expensive in the supermarket. Leading to the question ...how do people survive there? There are great subsidies from France, they have tourism, fish, and coconuts, vanilla and pearl plantations but not much more.... A question to be answered.