Tired of everyone else deciding what's good for you? Whether you want to swim with stingrays or stretch out on a sun-lounge, Tahiti offers the perfect means of escape. By Kris Ashton

Only alkies and uni students drink before the sun's over the yardarm, so my new wife Kellie and I spend our first morning at the Le Meridien Tahiti resort photographing its gardens ('jardins' in French). Frangipani, hibiscus and water lilies add colourful splashes to the manicured grasses and leafy banana trees.

We retire to the deckchairs. A light breeze blows across my bare chest, dispelling the mild humidity. The temperature is perfect for swimming, but I'm too content to get up. I watch a few guests glide around in the huge sandy-bottomed pool.

An American spots my LA Dodgers cap and - perhaps mistaking me for a compatriot -strikes up a conversation. As we're talking, a roving waiter from Le Meridien's beach bar asks him if he’d like a drink. It's about 11am.

"Uh, not yet," the American replies. "I think I need to pace myself." The waiter leaves. "God, I was so hungover yesterday," the American confesses (perhaps he knows an Australian will sympathise).

"I felt like a teenager again."

Two days later, Kellie and I leave Tahiti. We'll be back, but now it's onto a plane for the quick hop over to Bora Bora. The landing strip is on its own islet away from the resorts, so a representative from Le Meridien Bora Bora picks us up in a boat.

A golf buggy meets us at the resort's jetty and runs us up to reception, where we receive a mocktail on arrival. Once we've checked in, we're shuttled up to our room - a premium overwater bungalow. At the foot of the king-sized bed a section of glass floor provides a window on the reef below. Striped fish glide past, unaware we are observing their watery world. It's like a gigantic aquarium that never needs cleaning.

We move out onto the back deck, which has its own ladder and jetty for easy access to that vibrant sky-blue water. On the mainland, the 727m Mount Otemanu reaches up into the clouds like a stone finger. No resort in Bora Bora has better views of this impressive monolith, which demands to be photographed every time you see it.

What really sets Le Meridien Bora Bora apart, however, is its lagoon and turtle sanctuary. Here, endangered green sea turtles are raised in small pens until they are a year old. They are then released into the lagoon, which has everything the surrounding waters do (sand, fish species, coral etc) but is fenced off from predators. While they receive one meal of lobster and lettuce a day - from the resident scientist in training, Marie - the rest of the time they have to search for their own food, ensuring they can survive once they are released into the wild at three years.

But while it's a sanctuary, this is no zoo. Hotel guests can snorkel in the lagoon and the curious turtles will often swim within arm's length. The restaurant area extends out over this lagoon and while we enjoy a buffet breakfast, tropical fish, turtles, an octopus and even a moray eel keep us entertained. In return, the hotel only requests patrons do not throw food into the lagoon as this can make the marine life sick. Unfortunately, some halfwits can't grasp this simple concept.

It's these little freedoms - the kind that have slowly been chewed up in our increasingly coddled society - that help the mind unwind. More await us at our next destination: Moorea.

We catch a speedboat from the Intercontinental Hotel's jetty and a few minutes later we stop at a sandy reef.

We don't have to sign an indemnity form, we don't have to watch a 15-minute 'safety video', we just jump off the transom and into crystal waters swarming with sharks and stingrays.

Clad in flippers and snorkels and brainwashed by media hysteria, we're a little apprehensive. But when our boat driver, holding a handful of fish, is swamped by five or six stingrays and comes to no harm, it's clear you have to be unlucky or stupid to get stung. "Many Americans, they will not get in the water with them after Steve Irwin," our driver tells me. The reef sharks are even less fearsome, cruising past at a cautious distance and refusing to be touched.

We get back in the boat and make the short journey to a nearby islet. Bora Bora has a reputation for the best snorkelling in the region, but the channel flowing past this islet beats everything. For two hours Kellie and I float over a marine wonderland, pointing out Finding Nemo characters and giggling at the rainbow fish that swim beside us and sometimes stare at us through our goggles.

By midday we've built up a good appetite. A Polynesian feast, cooked in an earth oven, is set out buffet style. Palm trees offer shade from the tropical sun as we sit down to this smorgasbord of clams, chicken, beef, fruits and other delicious things we can't identify. Beer and soft drinks are at hand in eskies. Polynesian music fills the air.

While we're waiting for our boat to pick us up, some stingrays appear in the shallows. Our earlier fear seems all the more ridiculous as the rays swim up to our feet and consent to be patted on their soft, slippery heads. One is missing part of his tail (probably a shark bite says a local). We dub him 'Stumpy'.

From the Intercontinental we catch a bus back to our accommodation at Moorea Pearl Resort and Spa. The glass floor in our overwater bungalow is smaller than the one at Bora Bora, but it provides an even better show - fish of all varieties swim past day and night and the effect is hypnotic. The snorkelling off our back deck is something else as well, with the dense coral reef leading out to a vertiginous 10m drop-off.

We ride the Aremiti 5 catamaran back to Tahiti and our junior suite at the Le Meridien. The next morning we catch Le Meridien's truck into Papeete city. If your concierge tells you three hours will be enough time to shop and explore here, don't believe him. Remember, men tend to shop like women when they're tourists, so the markets alone will sap a good hour. Throw travel time, lunch and a pearl shop into the deal, and your three hours are gone. 

On our penultimate day in paradise we take an inland 4WD tour with Tahiti Safari Expedition. The sealed road soon becomes potholed and then turns to dirt. We jounce our way through muddy puddles as sheer cliffs and tangles of vines rise up all around us. Skinny waterfalls hundreds of feet high splash down into the crystal waters of the stream snaking along on our left.

It was sunny on the coast, but here, due to a quirk of geography, it's cloudy and even begins to rain. We arrive at the lip of an ancient crater, and rain or no, I plan to swim in the stream. The water is amazing - it not only tastes clean, it feels clean against my skin. I nearly break an ankle getting out across the mossy river stones… another thing the hand-wringers wouldn't let me do in Australia. 

We've been back home a few months now. Kellie still sheds a tear when she reflects on her "princess room" at Bora Bora or her encounter with Stumpy the stingray. But Tahiti is like that. I miss it, too. I miss its wonderful clichés - the turquoise waters, the swaying palm trees and the burnt-orange sunsets.

Most of all, I miss its freedoms.

Open Road November/December 2009.