Tonga in Seven Hours

Malo e lelei! So Wednesday consisted of the all day tour around the island. We had two guides pick us up along with two other guys who joined us. We started off at the landing point of the first missionaries. Not too exciting, but it was close to where we had been staying. We then stopped at someone's house to see the bats (I think they call them flying foxes or something because they have fox like heads). They hang from the trees during the day, and at night they go eat all the fruit on the island. Nobody really likes them. They also stopped to talk about the burial grounds.There is probably one in every village, but they're a bit different than ours. From what it looks like, the people are buried above ground and just covered with dirt. If anyone has a bit of royalty in them they get covered in a special black rock. They also have some strange customs such as I think if your father dies, you have to wear black for an entire year. Not depressing at all.

I can't really remember the order of everything that happened, but it was quite the experience. This was not a normal commercialized tour. Tonga is quite an interesting country. It isn't a big tourist country like Fiji and Rarotonga. It is absolutely beautiful, but the people don't have a lot, and they are perfectly happy. Plus, they're always willing to give. If someone doesn't have food or a place to stay, they will be welcome in someone's home. They are a very friendly people. Everyone said hello to us. I'm pretty sure their children are not taught to not talk to strangers. Because of the way their culture is our tour guides would make random stops when they found something they thought we ought to see such as some women doing some weaving. They literally pulled the car over, walked into their house to ask if we could come in and see what they were doing, and they let us. It was no big deal. It was a little strange, but had we done a tour on our own we would have missed out on some things.

Most of the land outside the villagers is made up of plantations. So we would randomly stop, and the one guide would get out and show us some of the plants such as the tapioca root, which is where we get the tapioca from to make tapioca pudding. They don't have pudding in Tonga. We got to see some really cool plants along the way and a ginormous spider. It was in its web, and the guide decided to grab it. Apparently it was harmless, but I sure didn't want to touch it.

They took us out to the southwest coast where there are tons of blowholes. We got to spend a little extra time to there so we could watch them all. They were probably one of my favorite parts of the tour. We got to go back into town where we grabbed some lunch and saw the royal burial grounds. Super exciting. We drove along the northern coast and learned about the new harbour they're putting in and got to see one of the huge old canoes that sank a while back.

We also got the amazing opportunity to stop at the museum. Made my day. Just kidding. I'm not a huge fan of museums, but we only spent around fifteen minutes there. We got to see Captain Cook's landing site. Captain Cook was one of the big European explorers who "discovered" New Zealand. We all know the Polynesians discovered New Zealand first. 

Tonga is ruled by a king, and the king sort of has two palaces. He has his own outside of town, and his father has one in town. He recently moved to his father's, but we went to see his own. Of course there are a few soldiers guarding the palace, and in any other country the gates would be as far as you'd be able to get. Not in Tonga. Our guides had a few words with the soldiers, and what do you know, they let us in. So we got to drive up to the palace and drive around back, see his swimming pool, and everything else back there. There wasn't much of a chance to take pictures, but it wasn't that great of a palace anyways. Only in Tonga. We also learned that when a daughter is born she is immediately more noble than her brother. So while Tonga is ruled by a king, if his sister wants something, she gets it. She can tell him to do whatever she wants, and he has no choice but to say yes. For example, she just made an agreement with Russia for them to come to Tonga and drill oil. The problem there is that Tonga is floating on oil, and once it is gone, they will probably sink. But the king can't do anything about it.


We also got to see the prison. Not exactly a typical American prison. The prisoners we saw were out in the fields gardening. The field is right up by the road and surrounded by a three foot fence. The prisoners supposedly jump the fence at night and head to the nearby bar where they get piss ass drunk, and then make their way back to their cells before morning. But crime isn't too high in Tonga. I believe they told us there are around seventy prisoners, and the only reason they're in there is for getting in a fight or stealing pigs.

seater. So I waded through the mud and climbed in.

So we're driving along, and of the guides mentions that in the building next to a church we just passed were some guys drinking kava. Kava is an alcohol found in the Pacific Islands. It is made from the root of the kava plant, and from what I had heard it looks like dirty water and tastes pretty much the same. So the guides want to know if we've had it yet. We hadn't. So what do they do? Whip the car around and go back. The one guide walks into the building, chit chats with the men there, two whom are priests, and comes back out to get us. So we take our shoes off, sit in a circle on the floor with these men around the kava bowl, and drink kava. It does in fact look like dirty water, but it doesn't taste as bad as I thought it would. I was expecting the worst, but it's nothing I would drink again. It also makes your tongue go numb almost instantly. Now that was quite the experience.

We get back in the car and drive for a bit when the one guide tells the other to back up. Apparently he saw some flowers he wanted to pick for us. So he gets out of the van, and the lady who lives there comes to greet him. She then grabs a hook for him to pick the flowers off with as they were quite high. While all this is going on, I ask the other guide if they know this woman. He didn't answer right away, but then randomly said, "We don't need to know her to take her flowers". Only in Tonga.

We then made our way to the old royal grounds where we find the Stonehenge of Tonga. I believe it served as the gateway to the palace. We then walked down to where the palace would have been to find a huge stone that legend tells us what the backrest of the king. Apparently the king was a giant, and you can see where his head would have rested against the stone. 

The last stop of the day was the east coast. Too bad it was the only good sunset we had seen while in Tonga and we were stuck on the east coast. Oh well. The tour ended at the airport. We were lucky enough that they took us there without any extra cost. We literally got to see the entire island in seven hours, and got to see and do some very interesting things. Until next time...

Malo e lelei!
Laura