NUKU'ALOFA, TONGATAPU, TONGA

 Tonga is exactly the kind of place you've seen in every South Seas Island vacation brochure. 

(Correctly pronounced with a soft 'g', as in schlonga or chaise longa) It is the kind of unspoiled, undeveloped island paradise that tickles our fantasies of tropical get-aways on the darkest days of our bleak mid-winter. The warm sun, the warm water, and the warm smile of the people.

The kind of place where kids run out to the road as you drive by on your scooter and yell out, "Bye Bye", or they climb a palm tree for you to get you a fresh coconut. The kind of place where, within minutes, you'll be having a converstation with a local and they'll treat you like a long lost friend. The people are so friendly that James Cook called Tonga 'the friendly islands'. It's a name that stuck and still holds true. Tell a Tongan your name once, and they'll remember it and use it from that point on. The girls in the coffee shop I frequented daily would always yell out when I arrived, "Malo e lelei Patrick, how are you today?" or, "Patrick in the house!" Where there are Tongans, there is laughter and smiles.

Tonga is miles of this...

...and miles of this

 Tonga:
-is one nation of one hundred and seventy-six islnads
-is the same latitude as Rio di Janero
-has the most PhD's per capita in the world
-has one of the worlds' highest literacy rates
-is the last existing Polynesian Kingdom. It's royal lineage can be traced back to 950 A.D.
-is home to The Ha'amonga a Maui triathalon on Tongatapu, which has been running continuously for about 800 years.
-sits on the International Dateline, so is the first nation to see the sun every morning
-has some of the deepest oceans in the world
-has the oldest constitution in the world (1875) and has never been colonised (though clearly the missionaries spun their web at some point 'cause it's a veeeery christian country) 

 

 

Tongan one-stop-shopping viewed from my veranda.

Fresh fruit and veggeies in foreground

Catch of the day across the road

Driving yourself anywhere on the island of Tongatapu is an adventure.
1)  When driving in town, all intersections are uncontrolled. It is expected that the drivers on the bigger, busier road (be it north/south or east/west) have the right of way. It's up to you to decide if you are on the busier road or not.
2)  Tongans are not always particulalry detailed when giving directions. When looking for the pharmacy, I was told, "Just there. Up the road", which actually turned out to be two streets over and up the back alley behind the office supply store.
3)  Though there are island maps available, they are wildly out of scale. Pretty to look at, but out of scale. I've put almost 300 kms on my little scooter in four days.

4)  The roads on the map have names, but the actual roads have no signs, except for a few right in town, so you have to guess which road you're actually on.
5)  Here's where it really gets interesting, the maps do not differentiate between major, paved roads, smaller, secondary roads, or parallel dirt tracks leading off through a coconut grove. Many times, I've come around a corner to be faced with a narrow road, so full of potholes that it looks like it's been under mortar fire (and the holes are sometimes so big they could swallow the scooter whole) and I've thought to myself, "This can't actually be the road I'm supposed to be on". It alway is. 

 A Tongan 'must see'

The 'road' leading to it

6)  And just to add to the fun, the "must see" sights that are marked on the map, are not necessarily marked by any signs on the road. (Tourism not being very developed here) Through trial and error and a whole lot of following my nose, I did manage to find my way to most of the things I wanted to see, but a few remain a hidden mystery.

Case in point:
I wanted to see something on the map marked as "Flying Fox Sanctuary". (Flying Fox is a pretty name for a Fruit Bat). After driving around for a while, stumbling onto some other sites that I wasn't particularly interested in, I stopped for a refreshment at an out-of-the-way beach 'resort'. I asked the bartender for help.

Me: I'm trying to find the Flying Fox Sanctuary but I think it's back down the road, right?
Her: You passed it. It's back down the road. In Kolovai.
Me: That's what the map says, but I couldn't see anything. Is there a sign?
Her: Oh no. There's no sign.
Me: No sign?
Her: Oh no.
Me: So.....
Her: It's just a big tree where they all hang out.
Me: (Dripping sarcasm) So if I go back down the road to Kolovai and look for a big tree full of bats, I've found the Flying Fox Sanctuary?
Her: (Unsure about the sarcasm) Do you want another beer?

I never did find the 'sanctuary'. I did, however, on my way back into town, miles down the road from the actual, supposed 'sanctuary', look up into the sky to see a huge flock of winged shapes circling above me. The shapes were so big I thought they were ravens or some kind of sea eagle. Fruit bats. Hundreds of them. Big, mothah-fuckin' bats, all screeching like banshees. Almost as big as some of the spiders I saw.

If and when you do arrive at a "must see" site,  there are no ticket booths, no guides, no explanatory signs. Sometimes a pig rooting around, or perhaps the odd local selling carvings or weaving, or just sitting in the shade eating,  but generally, the sites I went to were deserted.

On my last night, sitting in a seafood place down the road from my hotel, gazing at the open ocean, watching the barefoot kids climb palm trees for coconuts, the live band struck up a meloncholic, Hawaiian guitar rendition of "White Christmas". Surreal, but fittingly appropriate to the pace of island life...

Malo, Tonga. Malo.