BORA BORA
by Sam and Bronson Page
Bora Bora is like one of those places Bugs Bunny was trying
to get to when he made a “wrong left turn at Albuquerque,”
and my boyfriend Bronson had never even heard of it until
we booked our “Escape with the Stars” trip featuring
actress Kathy Griffin—or more precisely, Kathy, the
cast and crew of My Life on the D-List, Mario Cantone,
and 50 men and women, gay and straight, from all over
the world.
The line between fantasy and reality
can be fine and blurry, especially these days when technology
does its best to erase it completely, and a trip to
Bora Bora is no exception. In fact, the sheer exotic
nature of the place epitomizes the line between the
two as its beauty challenges you to believe it’s
real. You’ve probably never seen anything quite
like it before. I know what you’re thinking: travel
pieces are by their nature over-the-top, and no place
can actually be so amazing. That’s what we thought
too, until we went to LAX to take the 4,100-mile Air
Tahiti Nui (www.airtahitinui-usa.com)
flight bound for Bora Bora, leaving the rest of the
world behind.
A bit of geography: Bora Bora is one
of the Society Islands of French Polynesia, a group
of tiny, volcano-born specks in the South Pacific. One
of the last places in the world to be “civilized,”
the islands remain among the most unspoiled regions
on earth. They are equidistant from Australia, South
America, and Antarctica—the middle of nowhere,
yet only eight hours from Los Angeles.
We met Standout Destinations
(www.standoutdestinations.com)
founder Mikael Audebert at the airport, standing next
to a statuesque blonde who seemed oddly familiar to
Bronson. Her name was India Brooks, and it wasn’t
so much that he recalled having met her, it was more
that he recalled the stunning impression she made.
We’d been Googling “Bora Bora”
for weeks, wondering if the water was really that blue,
and that aqua, and if it was really that beautiful,
but we didn’t even begin to get it until we traded
our boarding pass for their native Tiare flower, worn
behind the ear, and boarded the plane. Flight attendants
clad in uniforms that blue and that aqua ushered us
through the cabin, smiling with a sense of peace that
transcended genteel customer service—they knew
what we were about to experience.
After a few cocktails, two tasty and
decidedly European meals, a snack, some awkward galley
cruising by an annoying fellow traveler, and a three-hour
time difference, we arrived in Tahiti at about 11 P.M.
We were eased into the allure of the islands by arriving
in Tahiti at night, and shuttling to the Sheraton
Tahiti (www.sheratontahiti.com),
one of two five-star resorts in the city, for a few
hours of sleep. Bora Bora is a commuter jump away, but
the airport closes at 11 at night, without exception.
We saw little of the Sheraton, and less of Tahiti, but
the balmy evening breeze and moonlit palm trees were
already starting to relax us, and the best was yet to
come.
With the distinctive Mt. Otemanu looming
in the distance from nearly everywhere on Bora Bora,
it’s hard not to feel like you’re in Jurassic
Park or on Fantasy Island most of the time. With lots
of entertainment types along, like our new buds Joy
Di Palma and Sue Bailey (producers of reality television),
the one-liners didn’t stop. We boarded a private
yacht, were greeted with leis and hibiscus tea, and
took our 20-minute trip through the shallows of a blue
lagoon. Along the distant horizon, huge waves crashed
onto the surrounding reef in a bright white line that
divided the saturated blues of water and sky.
We rounded a turn and saw our destination:
the Bora Bora Nui (www.boraboranui.com)
and its bungalows that hover above the turquoise sea.
As we drew near, the resort staff gathered on the dock
to welcome us with Io Aranna (Yo-RAH-na) an ever-present,
smile-inducing greeting that means “hello.”
Everyone who passes greets each other this way, (ignoring
passers-by, like we do in the big city, is just not
done). A quartet of men with guitars and ukuleles played
and sang as we arrived. Once we were checked in, we
were whisked down the boardwalk to the bungalow we’d
call home for the next week.
There are more than 100 suites at the
Nui, ranging in size from 900 to 1,350 square feet.
Some suites are on the beach, but most are bungalows
built over the water. A third of the space is a living
room with glass end tables providing a view to the water
beneath, satellite TV, and a daybed designed to accommodate
a third person. Opposite, and divided by mahogany-framed
pocket doors, is the bedroom, appointed with a king-sized,
mahogany canopy bed, another satellite TV, and desk
(with high speed internet access, if you absolutely
must). A full third of the bungalow is a bath suite
with spa amenities including a generous tub for two,
twin vanities, AVEDA products, a private room with a
toilet and bidet, and a large marble shower that could
easily fit six at once…if that’s how your
vacation unfolds.
A few steps out the back sliding glass
doors is a private deck, with access to a water-level
dock that made wading in the aqua water among native
fish and coral a pleasure that the Florida-boy in Bronson
simply couldn’t refuse.
 Late
that afternoon, we gathered for the first of Kathy’s
two performances and the welcome dinner at the Tamure
Grill, one of the resort’s two open-air restaurants
with elegantly casual attire (shoes are optional and
the floor is made of sand). We sat with the fabulous
India Brooks (a.k.a. “Chief Entertainment Officer”).
Turns out she and Bronson had met twenty years earlier,
when they were both young men at University of Florida.
The friendly familiarity all made sense and the first
of our new friendships was formed. That same night,
we noticed for the first time the “third sex”
of Tahiti and her islands, which have a long tradition
of transvestitism and transexuality. Ancient Tahitian
custom called for the first male born to a family to
be raised as a woman, a rae-rae, representing the best
and the divine of both sexes. Today, effeminate boys
choose to live as women and become rae-raes with little
or no difficulty or discrimination at all. They’re
recognized as a legitimate third sex, even charged with
sacred rituals and duties, and many of these beautiful
young women staff the Bora Bora Nui. Of course, when
they laid eyes on India (all six-foot-something of her),
they thought they’d seen the face of a god—and
that was before the floor show.
With impeccable comic timing, Kathy
Griffin and her “D-List” entourage arrived
right after our salads. Making her way around the room,
chatting in her signature La Griffin style, she jotted
down a few things on a small notepad and gracefully
deflected the over zealous, over-cocktailed “galley
cruiser” we had encountered on the plane. It was
all fodder for her improvised standup act an hour later.
It’s a testament to Kathy’s comic genius,
forging a set on the fly from the random comments of
a more random crowd whose sole common denominator was
their adoration of her. Somehow, she pulled it off.
Continued
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