Bora Bora - Part 2

I got my plan charted out, which did include a huge bomb for my husband :D..We didn't get our Visa until a day or two earlier. At a point I was wondering, if I would be going for my honeymoon or not. The "D-Day" arrived and I was super excited. On 3rd Feb, I took off to Auckland through Cathay Pacific flight, which had a brief pit stop at Hong Kong. I did some shopping at Hong Kong airport (Forgot to take my sunglasses and ended up buying a new one)


Day 1 Auckland: Reached Auckland at 7:30 am, 4th Feb. We rented a car at the airport and had GPS installed. We just thought it would be easier for us to navigate in Auckland. We found our way to the hotel, Hyat Regency, which is renamed to Pullman Auckland. I would have to say, this hotel is an average for a 5 star. They first, checked us in a room near the lift and which was not yet clean. When we asked the front desk about it, they shifted us to another room in the same floor.  The room was an average one. We decided to go out and have our lunch. We enquired and got to know about Sky City at Victoria Street, which is a must visit place.  Here, you can either walk or jump from the tallest place in Auckland. I absolutely ducked out and didn't do it..


View from Top:

The place had very nice view and we enjoyed our lunch out there. We then got to know about a cruise dinner and wanted to go there. We were having problem finding the exact ship to get on a cruise and missed going on the cruise by reaching 5 minutes late :( I was too tired from the walking, so we ended up having yummy pizza from a local eatery, drove down to the famous Auckland bridge, got lost on our way back but ended up reaching the hotel somehow


Day 2 Auckland: We got up really late and went down for breakfast just 5 minutes before they were going to close down service. Gobbled up food and were ready to catch a ferry to see the nearby places. That's what I thought.. But my husband had other plans. He being a cricket fan, has a dream of watching cricket in every country, wanted to watch a match between Pakistan and New Zealand. Watched the match for about 3 hours. The stadium is fantastic, so clean and it's pretty small. The food stall was great, It had self service, so no hassles waiting in queue.

We drove back to our hotel to park our car and walk to the port to catch the ferry to Devonport. The picture above was our beautiful walkway from our hotel to the port. It was about 10 minutes from our hotel. When we got off from Devonport, we took a bus to go to the beach there. It was a scenic drive and the beach was clean, but with dogs around. There was one perfect house that I fell in love with. I would love to have my bedroom with a beach view. We spent sometime at the beach. While, we were waiting for our bus back to the ferry, we had yummy pasta and thai food. 


View from restaurant & ferry ride:

Finally the bus arrived and we reached our hotel late in the night. 


Day 3 Auckland: We wanted to do bungee jumping from the Auckland bridge. The hotel had made a reservation for us. My husband was quite confident that I wouldn't do it and he knew the only way to make me do it was placing a bet. The bet was if I did do the jump, I could buy myself a Gucci bag (I love bags!!! Can't get enough of it..) We reached the place early, where they would pick us up in a van. We were given safety instruction and given the gears to wear. Also, to sign a document that they are not responsible, if anything happens to us. We started climbing the bridge and it was a long walk. All I could think was the beautiful Gucci bag that I could buy if I did jump. I definitely didn't want to look down as I was climbing up. Before I jumped, I did look down and it was freaking scary. I finally did it and it was an amazing feeling. 


Bungee Jump View:

On our way back, we did have our brunch. We hurried back to the hotel to check out and leave to Bora Bora. I had a wonderful time at Auckland but I did feel the place was a bit pricey. I would definitely go back to Auckland to explore the place more and also stay at a better hotel


Shall describe Bora Bora in my next post :)

Bora Bora - My heaven

As soon as I got engaged, I started thinking of places to go for my honeymoon. Since my better half loves island, I was trying to narrow down my searches related to Island. While I was browsing, I came across this place named "Bora Bora". It looked too good to be true. When I searched on Google, I found that it was a part of French Polynesia island in Pacific Ocean. When we told our parents about it, the reply was like "Why can't you go to a normal place than to go to an unknown island. What if there is Tsunami. How would we even contact you for emergency" The questions were just too many to post here

Something told us we had to go there and we started doing our research. By "we", I just mean "I" :D . I want to make him feel like he planned. I had to be there in February 2011 and I started my booking process by October mid. Once I started searching more about the place, I realised it is not as remote as what I had imagined it to be. It was connected by an airport and all the major hotels were located there. I thought it's easy to plan the itinerary and book through a travel agent. When I did call SOTC, Cox and Kings, etc there was no response from them. Of course, Thomas Cook was the only one who responded to my enquiry, but the package was not very expensive.

I was talking to a friend of mine at work, who happened to know a travel agent. I got the contact info and trust me the big names in the market neither give you a proper response nor do they give you a good deal. This lady was fantastic. She was extremely frank, hard working and flexible. I had told her my requirement and she had planned one beautifully. I know she had to stay awake in the night, so she could speak to the person at Bora Bora, to co-ordinate my trip. 

Coming back to the trip... It takes almost 35 hrs to travel from Chennai, which happens to be the shortest distance. The route that I did take was Chennai -> Hong Kong -> Auckland -> Papeete -> Bora Bora. So that was one hell of a travel and I decided to take a pit stop at Auckland. I had decided to stay at Hyatt Regency at Auckland and Four Seasons at Bora Bora. I was so excited, since it was the first time I would be staying at any Four Season property.

I think this post is way longer than I expected. Next post will be about my travel and stay at Auckland and Bora Bora. Enjoy the aerial view of the place ;)