Fabulous Samoan Honeymoon

Dates travelled: JULY 2009

First stop, the most populated island in Samoa, the island of Upolu. We transfered across to the southern coast to the SINALEI REEF RESORT. Unfortunately due to the tsunami it has now been closed until approx May next year, but when it is back up and running it is a beautiful resort to stay at. What we liked most about it was that there were no children under 12 (sorry kids, but when on honeymoon...) and our private fale with a beautiful sea view. As it is now closed I won't go into any more details of the Sinalei, but I do give it a huge recommendation as we visited many places on the southern coast including COCONUTS and the rustic SEABREEZE and in our opinion nothing really compared to it. (However, it is not cheap, so depends on your budget)

Back in Apia, we found a great restaurant owned by an Italian guy and his Samoan wife (apparently, but can't confirm that) called PADDLES. It has an excellent lunch menu and serves great coffee - which is something hard to come by in Samoa we found. Actually, we went back there three times as the food turned out to be fabulous.

We circumnavigated the island, visiting waterfalls, the Piula Cave pool etc, but actually nothing beat hanging at the beach and swimming in the natural water pool at the Sinalei.

Five days later we were on our way in our hirecar to the ferry to Savaii. The trip should have taken 40mins but we decided to take the seaview route and were not disappointed. From Fagalei Bay to Cape Tulivae was the most scenic views we had found on the island. We passed through beautiful villages. We crossed some of the worst pot-holled roads ever, and a ford in about a foot of water, all of which our little Hyundai Getz was not designed to cope with!

The crossing on the ferry took 1.25 hrs. The boat was jam packed - I doubt OSH would have approved! The roads on Savaii are well maintained and we drove past a lovely beach on our way to LE LAGOTO RESORT. The restaurant at the hotel was pretty standard, however we prefered to walk down the road to a little hut where an Austrian guy was making 'authentic' Italian pizza at SEKIA PIZZA. He prided himself on using the best ingredients he could get his hands on and we were not disappointed. Amazing thin crusted pizza at a great price ($25-29ST) and he even delivered. Sitting on our patio looking out to sea, eating fabulous pizza and drinking local beer - what more could you ask for?!

LE LAGOTO has spacious airconditioned rooms with seaviews. Staff are friendly, breakfast was excellent (included in the package) but the best deal was the jug of Pina Colada for $50ST. Fantastic! It has a lovely sandy beach and a great swimming area with crystal clear water and plenty of fish. The coral is getting a hammering, but it is still somewhat alive.

10 days in a tropical paradise, where the people are friendly and pace of life is island time. Priceless!

This review can also be found on http://www.tripadvisor.com