Tonga

30 January 2008

Nuku’ Alofa, Tonga

Tonga was a place that I was looking forward to. Both because it was the first port where I’d been allowed off the ship after having port manning for the last two ports and also because I had a tour there.  The tour was supposed to start at 9.15am and take 3 hours. It was the “Scenic island tour”, a bus trip to various island highlights and was advertised as having “very little activity involved”. It sounded like an easy way to see a bit of the island and it finished in plenty of time for me to drop my trip report back to the office and still see a bit of the town of Nuku’ Alofa on my own. Ahhh, but the best laid plans of mice and men and my seemingly endless run of misadventures on tours continued.

We were supposed to be docked in Tonga. This is usually a good thing because it makes it so much quicker and easier to get off the ship than having to use the tenders. For some reason known only to those a bit higher up the ranks than myself we didn’t dock but anchored out in the harbour. This threw a bit of a spanner into the works because, instead of having everyone doing tours just file off the ship and onto the buses waiting for them, they had to go in smaller groups down to the tenders and be ferried to shore. I found all this out when I arrived at the Queens lounge to collect my backpack, first aid kit and large sign with a big red number on it.

All of the escorts gathered in an alcove and waited as the rest of the theatre filled up with passengers. We all had our assigned numbers and as an empty tender returned from shore numbers were called and we trooped off with our brood of passengers down to the tender platform. A few passengers had pulled out of their tours because they couldn’t or wouldn’t use the tenders but there were still a large number eagerly waiting for their call to leave. Eventually number 15 was called and I gathered my gear, waited for the passengers wearing a little coloured sticker with a 15 in the middle of it, and made my way down the stairs. Despite being the last one out of the theatre I was still the first to the platform by virtue of being the only one to use the stairs rather than waiting for the lift. I found a seat, waited for everyone to board and then we headed off.

The first view of Tonga was one of low slung buildings along a tree fringed shore hiding behind a commercial port. There were no real features to be seen and the view lacked the majestic backdrop of mountains or deep greenery that other ports had had. The island seemed completely flat and nothing was visible behind that fringe of trees. In truth it was a little underwhelming and even the place where the tender docked was nothing more than a large open parking area with a couple of scattered buildings. But ports are rarely the most attractive feature of any place.

After waiting patiently and politely for the passengers to disembark the tender I made my way to the row of waiting buses, stopping on the way to be told by the shore excursion desk person that I shouldn’t have waited and should have been the first one off so that I could show passengers which bus to get on. When I got to the bus marked with a large paper sign reading 15 taped to the inside of the windscreen, I found that all 18 passengers were happily aboard and seated already so I must have luckily gotten the bunch who could figure it out on their own.

Now, remember when I said 18 passengers? The catch was that there were only 18 seats on the bus. That left both me and the young female tour guide with nowhere to sit. She ended up sitting on a wooden box between the driver and passenger seats and I stood in the door well, the bus not being high enough for me to stand in the aisle. It wouldn’t have been so much of a problem but there was no door, or more accurately the door had been tied permanently open with a piece of old rope so that I was left with one foot in the well, one a step up in the aisle and the wind tugging at my shirt as we set off at a sprightly 20mph through downtown.

The breeze was pleasant, there was reassuring concern from a number of passengers that they would catch my camera if I was to throw it to them as I fell out of the bus and I had an interesting view of the road passing under my feet through a couple of holes rusted in the floor of the door well.

The downtown area had a small town feel to it rather than that of a capital city. We had been told that Tonga was one of the poorer islands that we would visit and it became obvious from the way that Nuku’ Alofa fell somewhere between the idyllic ruralness of the smaller islands and a true urban capital. Schools abounded, many of them attached to various denominations of church. The roads were sealed but seemed to lack any real maintenance, traffic was thin and in little hurry, all adding to the village feel. Island time seemed to be the norm. Businesses seemed clustered in a small area and it wasn’t very long before we found ourselves out of the “CBD”.

Our first stop was the Palace, Tonga still having a king. This was a large white wooden colonial style building, surrounded by a large grassy area and a chain link fence. The building was masked to a degree by construction, additions were being made, and scaffolding covered one end. This is the only real construction I can remember seeing, perhaps another sign of the islands economy.

Where the little flotilla of buses were pulling up to get a view through the fence a number of enterprising women had set up a roadside blanket market place and were doing a good trade. I clambered up onto a rock wall edging the water of the harbour and took a few photos of the palace over the fence and then waited with the guide while passengers drifted back to the bus.

The guide was a young woman, dressed in a traditional style and with a lovely smile that displayed a gold tooth prominently placed in the front of her mouth. The only problem was that she seemed extremely shy, a little intimidated, and more than a little out of her depth. She simply sat on her wooden box at the front of the bus, clutching a slip of paper I was to later find was only a list of the places we were supposed to visit, and either stared back at the people on the bus or studied her feet. I tried asking her a couple of questions to get across the idea that she should be doing a bit of talking but she either didn’t understand me or was too embarrassed because she would just smile and give a half giggle. This wasn’t such a problem for me because I was having a bit of an adventure and getting my money’s worth from hanging out the side of the bus but the passengers who had paid for the tour were becoming less happy the further we went. I ended up having to announce where we were each stop and also say how long we had and when everyone should be back on the bus. The things we do to get a free tour.

Our second stop was the royal tomb. This was another white edifice in the middle of a large grassy field. At first glance it seemed to be more of a memorial, perhaps to fallen soldiers in some past war and was a mismatched collection of white stone statues atop a large rectangular dais. I’m sure that I’ll be able to fill in a lot more detail about the tomb once I get home and can do a bit of research but at the moment, without the benefit of a forthcoming guide, I’m not able to say much more than that. The church across the road from the tomb seemed much more impressive with its large stained glass window, stone construction and even flying buttresses. It seemed an obvious attempt by those early missionaries to bring a touch of European religious architecture to the islanders.

Next we went to a natural bridge. It was quite a drive through the rural side of Tonga, passing small villages and large amounts of land under cultivation, mostly with what I would assume was taro, the exact details being a little hard to get from the guide. The island may be considered poor and the houses we passed certainly seemed to reflect that, but they were by far the happiest seeming and friendliest people that I have encountered so far. It may have been amusement at seeing me hanging out of the door of the bus but the number of people who broke into spontaneous grins and waved at us as we went by was amazing.

They may be friendly but unfortunately the organisational side of the island left a little to be desired and when we arrived at the natural bridge we found that there was a narrow, single lane dirt road to be negotiated and that there were already at least half a dozen other buses clogging the way. The first ones up the road were unable to get out and the later arrivals were all trying to get in.

A couple of buses, including ours, ended up parking on the “main” road and those passengers who were able walked the five or six hundred metres down the road to the bridge. The rest stayed on the bus and watched the driver change a tire that had gone flat, less from a hole than from being so worn there was virtually no rubber left to hold the air in.

The bridge was spectacular even if the approach was a little precarious. Many other places would have paths and a viewing platform of some sort but in this case it was just a grassy bank and a drop into the ocean. As I walked back to the bus I spotted a trail leading off into the grass and a bit of exploring gave me one of the best coastal views I have ever seen. There was a cliff overlooking a little cove of the whitest sand with waves crashing spectacularly against a rocky point beyond. For me anyway it was nicer than the bridge and the jostling for position there to be able to stand in the breeze and stare down at this little bit of perfection.

Our next stop was a bit of coast that had blowholes. It seems that blowhole is a term that can apply to a variety of natural features, both big and small, tame and spectacular. The one in Tahiti had been tame and what I would have called nice. The ones here were more towards the spectacular end of the spectrum.

The piece of coast where we stopped was rocky of a volcanic type, sharp edged and with the look of molten rock that has solidified suddenly, retaining all the little dimples and peaks of something that was literally boiling at one time like porridge on  a hot stove. It was this rapid cooling that had caused the fissures in the rock face that forced the waves into such spectacular displays. As they crashed into the shore the waves would splash up, as they would against any other obstacle, impressive in its own right, but at the same time more water would hiss and roar and be shot geyser like upwards through the holes and fissures in the volcanic rock. And this was happening all along the stretch of coast, not just one hole. You could stand and look right and left and see a natural display of ocean pyrotechnics rippling along the shore. I had my photo taken in front of them by someone as I was so impressed and I am not one to have my photo taken just anywhere.

From there we moved on to the animal portion of the tour. Bats. I have a feeling that not every bus went to the same spot to view bats because I talked to another tour host from another bus and our descriptions didn’t match. I also suspect that each driver may have their own favourite bat viewing spot and with bats probably not being in short supply on the island I doubt that any one spot is any better than another. We ended up stopping on a rural road and looking up into a tree in someone’s front yard at a lot of bats. I have to admit to not being overly impressed. Not at the number of bats, just at bats in general. To me they are just things that $%^& on your car with material potent enough to strip the paint off it in a very short time. The passengers however seemed impressed and many photos were taken.

From there it was back to the dock, the drive through a rural countryside rapidly giving way to a rural town and then the waterfront. I grabbed the tender back to the ship, dropped off my report and then headed back to shore. This was my last Pacific island and I was determined to get a souvenir of it. With the late start to the tour we were late getting back and after two tender rides to drop off my trip report and then get back to shore I only had time to grab something to eat in a small café at the port and then browse through the few little stands set up in the car park. My All Blacks t-shirt eased the introductions as I looked at what was for sale and chatting to one woman who had gone to Massey University in New Zealand gave me a “mates” discount. I ended up with a fridge magnet, postcard and small wooden statue for a very reasonable price.

Okay, so it may not have been the most exciting or best organised tour in the world but it is one that is going to stand out in my memory for that very reason and I think I am always going to fondly remember balancing in that bus doorway with the tropical breeze whipping around me. Tonga for me is going to be a combination of that and some of the friendliest people I’ve met.

Next is my first visit to New Zealand in over 20 years. I wonder if all kiwis are like me or if there are actually some nice ones?