Tonga: malo e lelei

To start with, a little bit of Tonga for dummies: Tonga is a Kingdom, consisting of four more or less large islands (30 sqm) and 100,000 people. It lies between Fiji and Samoa, or more dummy, between Australia and US.

Tonga faces a clash between tradition and modern society. The king still rules. As the old king died in November 2006, riots for democracy resulted in an burned down city center (incl. their cinema, not so smart). Police was just watching. Now, everything is back to "normal". Working on Sunday is still illegal, although bakeries and taxi's are exempted. People go to church the whole day, but some would rather do something else. The Mormon churches rules here with 200 churches for 50,000 people on the main island. Funerals and weddings are the highlights of the Tongans. Working is not so important (but is becoming more), family much more. I attended a funeral, which took all day. Mainly sitting and talking...Everybody in black, but wrapped in very uncomfortable, heavy, not so fashionable mats, that we use in our living room! I had to go to the beach for a few hours to give my ass a rest. I also played tennis with the locals and learnt from that they live from their land awith almost no money. So for tennis stuff they rely on help. They said their live was mainly about tennis, working in the plantation and drinking kava tonga all night. By the way, what sheep are for New Zeeland, are pigs for Tonga. They are f... everywhere.

Then what can you say about the countryside? Well, in one word great!!! Not so much on the main island, but Haapai and Vavau have incredible beaches and one thousand small islands and hills. the first days I was on an island with only the "resort" owners and ten empty huts. Kind of Robinson experience. Water from a well, no electricity and great snorkeling (turtle!) from the beach. also a big spider in the toilet and mice in my hut that even managed to get into a bag with cookies that hang on a rope from the ceiling. After a few hours waiting I got a lift on a fishermen boat to an even more remote island, where I slept in a guest house. People that were evaluating a fishery project took me to even more remote islands. One had not seen a tourist since a year. They thought I was a new peace worker. The previous one left in a not so good mental state, after feeling kind of isolated. The last weeks I spend mainly living on the beach and taking the kayak to discover smaller islands.

By the way, flying to two of these islands appeared somewhat erratic. A hurricane resulted in the cancellation of my flight. because it was eastern I had to go to the bakery (!?) to ask when the next flight would go. This was in a few days (of course no flying on Sunday). However, a few hours later, the pilot stood in front of my door telling me we were leaving now and if I wanted a ride!? They decided to land on the way to an other destination. In the plane the pilot checked if we were all going to the same place...

Then the diving and snorkeling: really good. Highlight were reef sharks in caves and overhangs and even a leopard shark on the bottom (no picture because I forgot my camera...rrrr). Also, a highlight was our second dive being replaced by saving the boat from a hurricane. We got it out of the water on a trailer, which was not easy. But the real difficult part was driving through town, cutting trees with machetes and holding up electricity wires. Very safe practice!! Well still live and kicking, my next report will be from Samoa!