2019-10-01Travel+Leisure

40 TRAVEL+LEISURE | OCTOBER 2019

TOM PARKER

two months in the future. On the phone, he
suggested we go fly-fishing in New Zealand. Sure,
I said. But, after we hung up, I e-mailed, Wouldn’t
you rather go to French Polynesia and stay in one
of those overwater bungalows?
If this sounds brazen and impulsive, fair
enough. But oddly, for someone who’s not—I
repeat, not—a high-priced escort, I’d gone on a
gonzo international date with a much older
nautical type before, and it had turned out well.
I mean, not so well that I wasn’t now free to
repeat the gamble with someone else, but well
enough that I thought, Why not?
On the other hand, there’s an inevitable
awkwardness to finding yourself alone in a
bungalow with a man and the enormous white
bed you’ve agreed to share for six nights,
opening the Prosecco the hotel has left with a
card wishing Mr. and Mrs. F a pleasant
honeymoon because Mr. F told them you were
honeymooning, because maybe honeymooners
would get things like free Prosecco. We took our
glasses out onto our porch and down a ladder
into the waist-deep water below. I shuffled
nervously in the sand, explaining I didn’t want to
step on coral. “Let me help,” he said, and picked
me up. After that, everything was fine.
People ask if overwater bungalows are worth
it, and the answer is yes. They are heaven. Ours
at the Sofitel Moorea Ia Ora Beach Resort had a
window in its floor that framed an aquamarine
rectangle crisscrossed by passing fish. It had
sliding doors onto the porch that we never
closed, not even while we slept. Openness was
our theme. We’d done our best to get acquainted
long-distance, but now we purposefully
immersed ourselves in radically candid
conversations that might have taken us months
to cover on a normal dating schedule. Efficiency
idea: every second date should be a honeymoon.
In the mornings we snorkeled or kayaked or
went scuba diving or whale-watching, and in the
heat of the afternoon we retreated into bed with
cocktails. We talked and napped, filled the space
between as you’d expect. We never turned on the
TV. In the evenings we lazed on our porch as
Tahiti purpled and darkened across the channel.
Time stretched and fell slack. By day two, we felt
like we’d always lived this way.
He left a day before I did, in the early
morning. I got up and sat outside with my feet
dangling over the water. The beginning of a trip,
like the beginning of a romance, brings a shock

of vitality and possibility. The finish brings a

shiver of mortality, a reminder that all things

end. In Moorea, they give you flowers when you

arrive and shells when you leave, little rattling

husks to hang around your neck. The next time

we saw each other, he and I, there would be

snow and rain, and our relationship would

combust spectacularly. As I watched his ferry

cross water that was red with breaking dawn,

I think I already knew we wouldn’t last, but I was

also glad for the space between arrivals and

departures, flowers and shells. Because, of

course, that space is life.

accorhotels.com; doubles from $455.

T+L’s Most

Romantic Hotels

in the World

I’m biased because I was

married there, but the

800-year-old Ashford Castle

(ashford castle.com; doubles

from $585), in County Mayo,

Ireland, is the sexiest version

possible of medieval times—

only with air-conditioning and

indoor plumbing. You can stay

in one of its gorgeous, period-

decorated suites, complete

with crystal decanters of

sherry and claw-foot tubs.

There are also original stone

fireplaces, a clubby bistro in

the dungeon, and magnificent

hiking trails laced across the

prop er t y. — Jacqueline Gifford

or a e

The Romance of Travel