Letters from the South Pacific • July 31, 2021 & Aug. 1, 2021
A big part of this vacation was getting away (getting really far away) and relaxing, so yesterday and today have been a real pleasure. No tours. Just pure and plain relaxation, with a few special events.
Yesterday, we enjoyed an early breakfast, followed by a morning and early afternoon in the sun on the beach (with sunscreen for me). Stephen doesn’t need it. 
Then we did a little souvenir shopping (and picked up mosquito spray!). Let me tell you. Tahiti has those little “no-see-em” mosquitoes and they ill eat you up! Our first clue was when we found an electronic mosquito repeller inside our suite and one of those incense type repellers on the lanai. Second clue came in the form of bites! Yikes!
Good News!
The hotel gift shop, far from denying the mosquitoes, had quite a selection of mosquito repellent. And it works. Between the incense and the repellant, you can enjoy the outdoors, and open the indoors up to the outside without being eaten up by mosquitoes! It’s the little things, right?
The second item of note yesterday was the Polynesian Buffet Dinner with Polynesian Dancers. Polynesian food is similar in some ways to Hawaiian food, but very different in others. Pork and fish both play a big role, but pork is not only roasted but also cooked into a stew with local vegetables. And the fish. It is served cooked, but also raw, and the raw varieties are delicious and quite diverse. They serve a variety of raw fish salads, one of which was similar to the one we had on our tour the other day
. Others were done with Octopus, shellfish and mixed fish. Still others were served like sashimi. All of them were quite delicious. Adding to the early Polynesian dishes are the ones that came in as a result of both French and Asian influence. Rice is common as are dumplings and dim sum. There are also lots of cheese dishes, both cooked and served as cheese plates. And of course there were the desserts! 
The desserts were absolutely decadent, and hard to resist (we really didn’t, although we sampled and limited our sampling so we were not completely miserable. The meal, although served buffet style, was not like a Hawaiian luau. It was simply a wonderful presentation of traditional Polynesian foods.
Let us Dance!
The “show” after dinner was something we almost passed on, having seen one too many Hawaiian versions. But because our tour director told us the dance group was hers and she danced with them we decided to stay for the show, and I have to say it was a pleasant surprise. Polynesian dance, at least to me, seemed much more about sharing their culture and less about being a shoe. It did not feel commercial, and it mixed the male and female dancers much more than anything I’d seen before. Overall we stayed longer than we planned and enjoyed the show.
I have to digress here for a moment to say that there have been multiple times when visiting Hawaii (which we love), that we have felt less than welcomed by the natives. My sense is that they have a very pronounced love/hate relationship with tourism. Here, at least to date, I have felt none of that. The Polynesians with whom we have interacted have been genuinely gracious and interested in sharing their culture with visitors. I also felt a much more successful blending of the French culture with the Polynesian culture than I have ever felt in Hawaii between Americans and native Hawaiians. It would be a fascinating study to compare the two histories, because the results, at least from my experience, are so vastly different.
Today, Sunday, has been a lazy day for us, mostly spent at the beach soaking up the sun and/or enjoying the cool waters of the lagoon.
Tomorrow, we leave for Papeete for one night before heading over to Bora Bora for our last leg of this journey. It’s been so wonderful so far, and I am definitely not ready for it to wrap up. I am anxious to get to Bora Bora, where we have one of the huts that have been built over the lagoon itself. I really cannot wait for that!