Top 14 photos
1. whale watching (more photos on additional page)
2. whale watching
3. tonga bouy
4. drag queens
5. drag queens
6. drag queens
7. Hike to Vava'au lookout
8. pigs wander around like dogs
9. chickens wander around like dogs and they are everywhere
10. a lovely massage with a lovely view
11. burial plots (family members are buried on peoples property. there are no grave yards per se)
12. the Ha'amonga Trilithon (the Tonga Stonhenge)
13. swamp pigs - fishing for their supper
14. Cook's landing spot on Nuku'alofa (so they say!)
Bottom five photos..
Sorry Shortage of photo upload capabilities... so this is what you get for now!
1. the only multi branched coconut palm in the world (according to Toni)
2. of course, a flat tire on the tour!
3. For every two houses there is a church (Mormon's are a huge presence here) and a convenience store. People just open one in their front porches basically!
4. petrified proof of underwater life a million years ago, the ocean floor pushed up and is now the land the Tonga people walk on everyday.
5. blowholes on Tongatapau
so the land of Tonga has been naughty and nice to me, but I am here and have lived to tell so that is a good thing! Seriously this stretch of the trip has played on my patience in many ways, but it is all an experience, right?!?
Tonga is a small Kingdom in the South Pacific, 13 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. Tonga was made famous by the Mutiny on the Bounty, has never been colonized by a Western power, and is not a major tourism destination. It consists of 170 islands of which only 40 are inhabited and are divided into three mail groups: Tongatapu (where the capital Nuku'alofa is), Ha'apai, and Vava'u.
Nuku'alofa is home to the Royal Palace, the royal tombs, and his majesty King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV. There are some spectacular blowholes here and the trails and roads show remnants of the bottom of the ocean with petrified shells and animals on the ground as you walk. I arrived in Nuku'alofa and stayed at a B&B - Winnie's Guest House- for a couple of days with a nice family. Luckily I got on to am Island tour on the Sunday, as EVERYTHING closes for church, except for tour operator stuff. So off I went on Toni's tours and had to decide whether what he was saying was the truth or made for tourist ears! We went all over the island, which isn't too hard as it is only 18 miles long by nine miles wide. Of Course we visited where they say Captain Cook landed, though it isn't likely for various reasons that it was that very spot he came to shore. We also stopped by Abel Tasman's landing spot (also not likely the real spot), a Stonehenge kind of contraption created by no one knows and is linked to the longest and shortest days of the year (the Ha'amonga Trilithon), a very cool bridge made naturally from the land, some terraced tombs (burying bodies on top of each other!), and some very cool natural blow holes on the beach.
On Monday, I arrived nice and early to the domestic airport for a 6:30 AM flight, that didn't exist. Then when the staff showed up at 6:45 AM, my name was no where to be found in their "booking system" (a nice piece of paper.) AND sadly I wasn't the only one! There were 7 of us who had booked in New Zealand and didn't exist in Tonga Air and the flights were full for the day, as well. So we waited patiently in the "airport", which some described as a bomb shelter, for 4 hours and finally got word we could get on the 10:15 AM flight. So after a lovely one-hour flight we arrived on the island of Vava'u.
The weather being what it is has been cloudy and a little drizzly at moments, so I have spent my time wandering around the one main street, climbing the "mountain" and luckily, due to a stuffed nose, going and swimming with the South Pacific Humpback Whales! yup AMAZING, and a couple of people have sent me pics so you can experience it as well! SOOOOO COOOOOL! Vava'u sure has a presence of overseas imports of men and women who come for a visit and end up staying. The Palau (sp?) (white people) have sure taken over much of the business from the Tongan people, but the Tongans seem all right with it (and hopefully Tonga Air doesn't go bankrupt until at least tomorrow after I get back to the mainland! NOTE: I did make it out, though had to wait 4 hours later than my original departure time)
I have spent my time eating in different venues and trying not to think about the missing dogs and cats, just eating what I have ordered, as I believe it to be. Neat little tourist pubs and restaurants: the Lobster house (that had no lobster), the Bounty Bar (once owned by a Canadian), the Dancing Rooster (with a Swiss Chef), Tonga Bob's (with the Drag queen night), the little Crow' s Nest Cafe (where I really do not want to think about where the hamburger came from) and the Cafe Tropicana (with the over priced meals! but very tasty!) I did have a pretty good massage, overlooking the bay one day - she forgot and showed up an hour late and charged $20 more than I thought, but seriously here is a different time zone with it's own time limits! The flights are a great example.
So the highlight of this journey was definitely the whales! I had planned on going for a dive, but had a troublesome cough and a bit of a stuff nose, so when she said they were heading out in 2 minutes for a whale swim and had one spot, I jumped on board! Amazingly only 20 minutes after everyone was on the boat and we were heading out to the west coast of the island we saw out first two South Pacific Humpback whales... lazing in the water and hanging out. Then they started playing around and splashing, diving down and rolling over. We watched them for about a half hour and then headed off to a bay to find some more. Shortly after arriving in the bay it was impossibly not to hear the whale singing! AMAZING! so we quickly got our gear on and four of us got in the water and listened to him sing away for 15 minutes or so before he surfaced and swam away. Then we waited a bit until he returned and the other four got their chance.
After he swam away we watched a few others around and found a group of three playing in the warm water- rolling over, resting and lazing about - so the first four of us got in again and had the AMAZING opportunity to swim with 3 whales at one time. With the 30 meter visibility, it was like they were only 10 feet away and loving that we were there! so spectacular! And after a cool lunch, the whales came through and jumped out of the water for us. If you have never seen a whale breech out of the water, it is an experience to see this huge thing fling itself out of the water. Very cool!
Sorry Shortage of photo upload capabilities... so this is what you get for now!
1. the only multi branched coconut palm in the world (according to Toni)
2. of course, a flat tire on the tour!
3. For every two houses there is a church (Mormon's are a huge presence here) and a convenience store. People just open one in their front porches basically!
4. petrified proof of underwater life a million years ago, the ocean floor pushed up and is now the land the Tonga people walk on everyday.
5. blowholes on Tongatapau
so the land of Tonga has been naughty and nice to me, but I am here and have lived to tell so that is a good thing! Seriously this stretch of the trip has played on my patience in many ways, but it is all an experience, right?!?
Tonga is a small Kingdom in the South Pacific, 13 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. Tonga was made famous by the Mutiny on the Bounty, has never been colonized by a Western power, and is not a major tourism destination. It consists of 170 islands of which only 40 are inhabited and are divided into three mail groups: Tongatapu (where the capital Nuku'alofa is), Ha'apai, and Vava'u.
Nuku'alofa is home to the Royal Palace, the royal tombs, and his majesty King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV. There are some spectacular blowholes here and the trails and roads show remnants of the bottom of the ocean with petrified shells and animals on the ground as you walk. I arrived in Nuku'alofa and stayed at a B&B - Winnie's Guest House- for a couple of days with a nice family. Luckily I got on to am Island tour on the Sunday, as EVERYTHING closes for church, except for tour operator stuff. So off I went on Toni's tours and had to decide whether what he was saying was the truth or made for tourist ears! We went all over the island, which isn't too hard as it is only 18 miles long by nine miles wide. Of Course we visited where they say Captain Cook landed, though it isn't likely for various reasons that it was that very spot he came to shore. We also stopped by Abel Tasman's landing spot (also not likely the real spot), a Stonehenge kind of contraption created by no one knows and is linked to the longest and shortest days of the year (the Ha'amonga Trilithon), a very cool bridge made naturally from the land, some terraced tombs (burying bodies on top of each other!), and some very cool natural blow holes on the beach.
On Monday, I arrived nice and early to the domestic airport for a 6:30 AM flight, that didn't exist. Then when the staff showed up at 6:45 AM, my name was no where to be found in their "booking system" (a nice piece of paper.) AND sadly I wasn't the only one! There were 7 of us who had booked in New Zealand and didn't exist in Tonga Air and the flights were full for the day, as well. So we waited patiently in the "airport", which some described as a bomb shelter, for 4 hours and finally got word we could get on the 10:15 AM flight. So after a lovely one-hour flight we arrived on the island of Vava'u.
The weather being what it is has been cloudy and a little drizzly at moments, so I have spent my time wandering around the one main street, climbing the "mountain" and luckily, due to a stuffed nose, going and swimming with the South Pacific Humpback Whales! yup AMAZING, and a couple of people have sent me pics so you can experience it as well! SOOOOO COOOOOL! Vava'u sure has a presence of overseas imports of men and women who come for a visit and end up staying. The Palau (sp?) (white people) have sure taken over much of the business from the Tongan people, but the Tongans seem all right with it (and hopefully Tonga Air doesn't go bankrupt until at least tomorrow after I get back to the mainland! NOTE: I did make it out, though had to wait 4 hours later than my original departure time)
I have spent my time eating in different venues and trying not to think about the missing dogs and cats, just eating what I have ordered, as I believe it to be. Neat little tourist pubs and restaurants: the Lobster house (that had no lobster), the Bounty Bar (once owned by a Canadian), the Dancing Rooster (with a Swiss Chef), Tonga Bob's (with the Drag queen night), the little Crow' s Nest Cafe (where I really do not want to think about where the hamburger came from) and the Cafe Tropicana (with the over priced meals! but very tasty!) I did have a pretty good massage, overlooking the bay one day - she forgot and showed up an hour late and charged $20 more than I thought, but seriously here is a different time zone with it's own time limits! The flights are a great example.
So the highlight of this journey was definitely the whales! I had planned on going for a dive, but had a troublesome cough and a bit of a stuff nose, so when she said they were heading out in 2 minutes for a whale swim and had one spot, I jumped on board! Amazingly only 20 minutes after everyone was on the boat and we were heading out to the west coast of the island we saw out first two South Pacific Humpback whales... lazing in the water and hanging out. Then they started playing around and splashing, diving down and rolling over. We watched them for about a half hour and then headed off to a bay to find some more. Shortly after arriving in the bay it was impossibly not to hear the whale singing! AMAZING! so we quickly got our gear on and four of us got in the water and listened to him sing away for 15 minutes or so before he surfaced and swam away. Then we waited a bit until he returned and the other four got their chance.
After he swam away we watched a few others around and found a group of three playing in the warm water- rolling over, resting and lazing about - so the first four of us got in again and had the AMAZING opportunity to swim with 3 whales at one time. With the 30 meter visibility, it was like they were only 10 feet away and loving that we were there! so spectacular! And after a cool lunch, the whales came through and jumped out of the water for us. If you have never seen a whale breech out of the water, it is an experience to see this huge thing fling itself out of the water. Very cool!
Then I had issues getting out of Vava'u, so by the time I landed back on Tongatapau, instead of 12-hours to relax before heading back to the airport I had 5.. so I repacked, had a bite to eat, and watched the telly until my taxi showed up. The flight took me to Auckland, New Zealand at 3:00 AM arriving at 5:30 AM, and my connecting flight to Rarotonga, Cook Islands at 9:00 AM left on time (with me on the manifest!)
I am in the Cooks now and will do my best to get updated ASAP, but I can't upload photos and Internet isn't always available, but I''ll do my best to get you caught up to Rarotonga, before I go to Aitutaki.
AND to recap Tonga:
THE GOOD: swimming with humpback whales, the views of the Bay of Refuge
THE BAD: the flight systems, everything closed on Sundays,
THEY UGLY: the drag queens at Tonga Bob's!
1 comment:
So Tonga time is worse than our "Fort Smith Minute"? WOW!
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