Tonga

Malo-e-lelei! (pronounce malolele)
After a few days around Auckland in New Zealand then a week in the Kingdom of Tonga, we are back in kiwiland. The Kiwis (people) are still as friendly, the kiwi (fruit) is ripe and the kiwi (birds) as shy and impossible to spot as ever! So really not much has changed since we were last here 4 years ago.
We flew from Sydney to Auckland on the 5th of April, and had a few days to fill before flying onto Tonga. So we hired a car and went off to explore the North Island's East cape, a wild and slighlty wacky place, where Maori culture is more present than in other parts of the country. It was raining cats and dogs, which seemed to stun the sheep, who were just standing there like statues waiting for it to stop. Anyway we didn't see much of the landscape, but when the clouds thinned a bit we caught a few glimpses of some stunning coastline.
Then we arrived in the Kingdom of Tonga, on Tongatapu, the main island, at Fua'amotu international airport, which is really a big wharehouse. The weather in April is still showery, but it is hot and mainly sunny, it just usually rains heavily late afternoon.
The Kingdom of Tonga is made up off several groups of islands, and as we only had a week there we had to keep to the main group, Tongatapu, but there are many more wonders to discover further afield. The capital city is Nuku'alofa, which is even smaller than Vientiane, in Laos : there is only one street, and most of the shops were burnt during anti-royal riots 18 months ago, so there isn't a lot left to see. The market is fantastic, they sell fruit and veg by the pile at very good prices, then there is the royal residence, a post office, two cafes, and that's about it. And on a Sunday everywhere is deserted. The local currency is the pa'anga, or Tongan dollar, which is worth about 30 pence.
We loved Tonga, and it is certainly due mainly to its people, who welcomed us with opened arms and treated us like special guests : no doubt the kindest and most generous people we have met. As a "palangi" (foreigner) people greet you on the street, give you their chair to sit on and do anything to make you happy. At the market a lady wanted to give us a cucumber! Tongan people are very often more generous than they can afford to be, and don't seem to value money or possession : they give you too much change, and special discounts, and if someone owns something that they are not using, anyone else can rightfully claim it (that includes some plastic bowls that we left lying around!). People are desperate to make your stay as enjoyable as possible, to the extent that they will never answer "no" to a question... if you ask "is the beach this way?" the answer will always be yes, even if it is the complete opposite way...!
On the island of Eua we stayed at Taina's place, as we had met her on Tongatapu and she had told us about her hostel, and she drove us everywhere, treated us to bananas, sweet bread and lots of advice on local sights without counting her time or expenses.
Religion is essential in Tongan lifestyles. There are 330 churches on the small island of Tongatapu, probably as many as there are houses! (i do exagerate slightly...) On Sundays everywhere is closed and the churches are full. The songs are divine, everyone knows how to sing and enjoys it, and in the evenings you can hear people practising when you walk in the little lanes. As a sign of respect, people wear woven pandanus-leaf skirts over their clothes. Men usually wear long cloth skirts, with a woven one over the top. The priest at the church we attended was wearing a red shirt and jacket, a red skirt, a white tie and an embroidered pandanus skirt.
Other versions of these skirts are worn over a black outfit as a sgn of mourning. Funerals can go on for weeks, months if it is a close relative, so it gives a visitor the impression that at any one time the majority of the populaton is in mourning... cemeteries are decorated with colourful plastic flowers and homemade quilts in the honour of the deceased.
Tongan cuisine is based around coconut milk and... corned beef! Due tot his rich diet, 0% of the population is considered to be overweight, with great incidences of diabetes and vascular conditions, so you can see many campaigns in the street to encourage people to exercise and eat more healthily. You can still enjoy a great Tongan meal though, with raw fish salad and pickled sea cucumber.
Our short stay was jam-packed : we stayed a few days on Tongatapu island to immerse ourselves in the local rythm (Tonga time!), take in the sights (blowholes on the wild coast, a "trilithon" - a stone arch reminiscent of Stonehenge) and meet the local fishing pigs! Then we took the ferry to the island of Eua. Oh yes. And we nearly died. The locals gathered before departure to sing and say a prayer, and we thought that they were pushing it a bit, it couldn't really be THAT bad...We sat at the front of the boat, everything wa going well, the sun was shining, then we started getting sprayed quite a bit from the waves crashing on the boat, it was all good fun but we were getting wet so we went back inside. And it didn't get any better.... the boat was rolling more and more, from side to side and back to front, so much so that the windows were nearly level with the surface of the sea at times... We just told ourselves that if the locals weren't worried, there was no reson for us to worry. Then they all started to sing, and we started to panick. Pete was as pale as ever, with a tinge of green, and there were grandmas lying on the floor, mums trying to calm their terrorised babies down, and teenagers vomiting at the windows, we were really wondering what we were doing there. Well, we survived. We reached the coast of Eua, got of the boat and made ourselves a promise (like everyone else I think) to take the plane on the way back.
Our stay in Eua was very enjoyable, it is a wild island covered in forests and weird rock formations, and Taina was a great host. The first day it took us 6 hours to find a lookout that was meant to be an hour away (great signs - they are invisible), but the view was worth it in the end. The next day we saw some natural arches and cliffs and got sunburnt. Then we got told that the plane was on Fidji getting repared, so we would have to take the ferry back! The next day we got up at 4 for the boat at 5:30 am, and this time round (thank God!) it was much calmer and we even got some sleep. The same night we took a plane to Auckland, arriving at 2 am, then another one to Christchurch, on the south island, at 6 am.
We picked up our rental car and set off on the winding roads of the Banks peninsula, just South of Christchurch, where we stayed in Akaroa, a French town, with cheese, bakeries and 2CVs! And it was nice to have a good night's sleep after two very short ones.
From Akaroa we drove on to lake Tekapo which is turquoise and milky, from sediments that have ended in the water with the action of the glaciers in the area. Then we arrived in Mt Cook, at the foot of the mountain bearing the same name, which is the highest peak in Australasia.
It's rather cold here in Autumn, especially compared to Tonga, but the view are fantastic, especially with all the yellow and red autumn trees.
A bientot!