Into February and Tonga

Friday 30th Jan
Managed to chat to my sister, Shirl, before leaving this morning. Also posted off some of our stuff to Brent's mum for storage...unfortunately I managed to stuff my trusty hat in with the stuff, so had to buy another! Found a bargain in Khatmandu.. a cap with optional neck protector. Headed towards Auckland stopping for lunch at the botanical gardens in Hamilton, which we'd wanted to see on our last visit. It was a lovely couple of hours. Stayed in a motel for our last night... not quite what we were used to for $NZ100 but ok.

Sat. 31st Jan
Decided to head to the Botanical gardens for lunch, as we'd really enjoyed them on our last visit. .. you wouldn't believe how hard it was to find the entrance! Finally made it and enjoyed a coffee and a nice walk before returning the car to the Omega office near the airport. Arrived far too early but were able to check the bags in early and relax, whilst looking out for Niel, who we'd hoped to see before we left. At 4,30 we had to go through security, with no sign of Niel... we do hope that we didn't miss you Niel and that something else turned up. You were so kind to show us around Tauranga and we hope we can reciprocate one day back in England. Our flight was fine and we arrived in a dark Tonga at around 8.30. It was lovely to be met at the airport along with 3 other folk: a Canadian couple and a Dutch guy. As we got close to our resort we turned off the road onto a pot holed track... a bit scary in the dark. What a relief when Sven, our host appeared and helped carry our bags to our superior fale, which was great. After settling in we had time for a cold beer and a chat with our fellow travellers before bed.

Sun Feb 1st 2009
Struggled to acclimatise to the humidity today! Enjoyed a lovely Tongan breakfast of fresh fruit, coconut and toast. Then got dropped off at church with Mary, a retired American who's lived here for 5 years, and 2 girls from Iceland. We attended the service at the Catholic basilica, which was very beautiful. We weren't disappointed by the singing... the church was full of people, many of them dressed traditionally and the service included a lot of singing, with a choir leader conducting. Absolutely amazing sounds. After church we picked up some rolls, doughnuts and biscuits at the local bakery then went back and spent the rest of the day chilling back at the lodge. We both had power naps before dinner, which was really good! I had tuna and Brent had chicken both cooked in a lovely sauce and served in banana leaves... preceded by papaya soup...all very delicious!

Mon 2nd Feb
Another hot and humid day with temperatures around 38 degrees. We quickly realised that our brains found it difficult to work in such conditions and we slowed down to a snail's pace. This morning we joined a group, complimentary orientation tour of the town and enjoyed visiting the cafes and generally having a look around. At the market I bought a Tongan fan, which is really efficient and Brent was very tempted to buy a Tongan shirt: they are really colourful and are worn over black skirts with sacking type aprons. I'd like Brent to buy the whole thing really, but don't think he'll be persuaded! Upstairs in the market was interesting: there was a guy with a sewing machine, making made to measure shirts and women making handicrafts. Later we met up with Kristina and Victoria from Iceland in the supermarket and at the bus stop and got a bus back around 4.30. Time for a bit of a chill before dinner. Tried to check email but the internet was dead slow and for some reason we can't connect our wireless to the system here.. shame! Best thing about today??? We met a lovely Swiss couple, Stefan and Monika, who over the next few days became really good friends: we didn't stop laughing!

Tuesday 3rd Feb.
Brent here. We booked an island trip today to one of the nearby resorts. Got a lift to the port where the boat picks us up. A rather nervous German couple were standing there. They had disembarked from the cruise ship. The man looked around at the chaos of the port and said to us “ this is not the German vay “. I had to think its not the English way either though didn't say it. The boat duly arrived at 10 and we scrambled onto it. We arrived on the island to be greeted by a Tongan woman on the landing. The resort at first appearance looked very comfortable with a central bar and restaurant and some comfy if slightly grubby chairs on the timber decking. Linda and I decided to go for a walk and found that the resort was very self contained with a security guard posted at one end. Almost as soon as we left the resort we noticed a huge pile of rubbish...tins etc at the side of what had seemed a pretty, green path. The path soon disappeared though and we felt uncomfortable exploring what felt like people's homes. The rest of the island was very poor in contrast to the calmness of the resort (that's Brent's opinion..I didn't feel we got a good enough look). On returning to the resort we were told we could kayak so we went out to to find two on the beach. Linda was fine with one of the small ones but alas for me they were far too small. I tried a large open one which resembled a surf board but realised very quickly it was too difficult to balance in. The whole experience was very frustrating and we began to realise that the resort was not that well equipped. The other clear fact was that it was deserted so had a strange atmosphere. The staff were just hanging around watching the TV and didn't seem keen to ask if we required anything. That fact coupled with the high temperature and humidity meant we just sat and read. It wasn't long before Linda had dosed off in the chair. When lunch time finally arrived the choice was very limited... and we were thankful that it was included in our trip, as the chicken sandwich with a few chips cost T$26, which is about £9!! It was pretty awful too. The trip back to Tongatapu was made more interesting as we shared the boat with a Kiwi couple and their 10 week old baby, who were visiting the mother's grandmother for her 90th birthday on Saturday. They'd spent one night at the resort and found it very expensive.

Wednesday 4th Feb 2009
Joined a new group to get into town today. We'd looked for flights to the Va'vau islands, but they turned out to be prohibitively expensive..although accommodation there was reasonable. We really couldn't imagine staying here until 19th Feb, so went into Air NZ to enquire about changing flights...we were put on a waiting list for Monday... and told there were no spaces after that all week!!! Oh my god! Had a wander round and enjoyed the cafes on the main street. Back at the lodge we arranged to share a car with Stefan and Monika for the next few days. We all enjoyed a game of Quiddler and the laughing was very therapeutic.

Thurs 5th
Stefan's tour of the western side of Tongatapu island:
A good day today – we took over the car from an Australian woman and her German helper! There was no contract, which worried all 4 of us, so we headed for the Fab Rental (love the name!) offices, where Lee sorted a contract out for us..very smart offices...NOT! It was completely chaotic, with bizarre objects strewn around each desk..eg. cans of motor oil, piles of papers etc. Anyway feeling happier we headed off and despite Sven's warnings that there were no road signs to the “attractions” we successfully found: the coral beach, the flying foxes ( very large bats) and the blowholes, which were really impressive! When we arrived at the beach there was a show going on at the nearby resort and brent and I snuck a quick look: a fabulous group of dancers was performing and the music was brill. The group was enjoying a lunch along with the entertainment. Around an hour after we got there they all disappeared and we reckoned that we'd seen a tour from the cruise ship we'd seen that morning. After that we had the place to ourselves. What was not so impressive was the large amount of rubbish found along the beach, where we also saw several rats! Swimming here was also tricky as there was a very strong undercurrent, which pulled us very quickly away from our stuff.

The local villages we saw on the journey were generally poor, with few facilities apart from a small church. All had wild pigs and chickens wandering about and there were lots of wild dogs. The children we saw were always curious and friendly calling out “Bye!” as we drove past... we later learned that they found this easier to say than hi, but at the time it made us laugh and we enjoyed calling out hello and hi to them.This evening we cooked in the super hot lodge kitchen, alongside mosquitos and geckos!! We retired after to the lounge, where we enjoyed a game of Uno with M and S...lots more laughs.

Friday 6 Feb
Stefan's tour of the eastern side of Tongatapu island:
Monika suggested that we buy flowers for the air NZ lady, organising our flights, and we seriously thought about it...oh my god it was hot!! “Bloody hell ,”said Stefan. Fortunately our flight was confirmed for Monday without the bribe...hurray!
It was boiling again and Stefan kindly made us all pancakes for lunch. Later
headed off to explore all those remaining kilometres...tee hee!

Got very excited at Captain Cook's landing stage, which turned out to consist of a wooden information board and a huge, concrete platform overlooking a rather seedy mangrove swamp...not even a real view!! We moved on to find some of Tonga's other attractions: the pyramids – stacked graveyards and the stonehenge like archway were both hard to find...but worth it...well the arch was! The best bit was the journey: the car's air con worked...especially in the front of the car and the banter in the car was just brilliant. We were amazed by our friend's standard of English: they could use play on words and were fluent in slang expressions. They even knew the difference between Mr Bean and James Bond!! ( private joke). At the end of the afternoon we found a lovely, white sand beach and had fun snorkelling amongst the beautiful coral. It was like being in a warm bath and we saw some very colourful fish. That night we went to the local show on Oheipi? beach.. this was great. The venue was lovely: on arrival we were shown along a torchlit path in the sand to the resort, where a band was playing ( loud, oldies) and tables were set up. We spent a bit of time on the beach, where we found some unusual lounger chairs and enjoyed the beauty and serenity of our surroundings. We headed back up to the resort in time for the buffet dinner, which was very nice. Kristina and Victoria were helping out there...they became “close” friends with the staff there. After dinner we were shown into a massive cave, wherethe entertainment took place. The atmosphere was wonderful, with candles and torches lighting up the venue. A family run show then followed with men and then women performing traditional dances. The men's dances were very aggressive, warlike type dances, whilst the women performed gracious and elegant flowing dances. We all enjoyed it and we were very impressed by M and S's cameras.

Saturday 7th Feb
Mr Bean drives us to find the land bridge:
After another slow start Brent took to the wheel in search of the final attraction on our island: the land bridge. This took some finding and when we finally got there it was...wait for it...unbelievable! ( our Swiss friends' favourite word). Muddy, unsigned paths where you had to lean over a sheer drop to see anything!! Oh well!
We headed back to the sandy beach, but there had been a storm and the water was very cloudy and not clean. A group of locals were in the water just a bit further along and brent suggested we head over there. The 2 of us then enjoyed snorkelling in much clearer water, following a coral ledge. As we left the water the locals were clearly interested in us and we got chatting to a Tongan woman, living in Oz and several of the children, one of whom was intrigued by Brent's goggles ( or should that be googles Stefan?). That night to celebrate our leaving M and S suggested we get a take away pizza and some wine to share. Good idea, but turned into a bit of a farce: The restaurant we went too was a three storey very posh building owned by an Italian – so good so far. We went to the counter ( stefan and me – Brent ) to check on prices. Expensive and with a mystery tax we had not encountered before. We ordered a takeaway of the cheapest pizzas – neapolitan and hawaiin. Ten minutes we were told. Half an our later we were still sat there. The manaer arrives and gets angry with the staff – suddenly two pizzas arrive. Relief, we walk out of the place only to be stopped when the manager opens one of the boxes to look inside and declare “ they have not put any oregano on it it has to go back – they will never learn unless they do “ Sit back down. In this time we decide to go and get some wine – so I drive Monika and Linda to the supermarket. Only just in time. Return to pick up Stefan who is now justifiablylivid
We reflected on the problems of organisation in Tongan society. Went back to base and had a game of backgammon.

Sunday 8th Feb
Day of high humidity..we spent with Stephan and Monika at the lodge... brief outing downtown in the hope of finding ice cream..Realised the tank was on empty so went very slowly only to find that all the shops were closed and the streets deserted. Tonga is a very religious nation. That evening we chatted with our friends and shared our last bottle of wine. Tonga was experiencing record temperatures and the humidity was crippling. I have to admit it was going to be a relief to fly out to cooler climbs but we realised we would miss Stefan and Monika without whom we would have struggled to get by. Much laughing and joking always helps lighten the mood. Thanks again to our friends !!!