“Sorry about all this traffic,” the taxi driver remarked as we drove through the “city” of Nuku’alofa.
Traffic? I had to grin.
A Tongan will apologize for just about anything that he thinks might inconvenience a visitor to his country, even the world’s smallest traffic jam. It’s one of the characteristics of the kingdom that is so endearing, and one of the reasons why for more than 300 years Tonga has been called “The Friendly Islands.”
Capt. James Cook, who visited this South Pacific island kingdom three times in his voyages, bestowed that affectionate appellation in the 1770s after attending a Tongan feast.
It may be a lot more developed than in Capt. Cook’s day, but the kingdom has changed very little since my first visit in 1982.
The 45 minute ride from the airport on the main island of Tongatapu into the kingdom’s diminutive capital city of Nuku’alofa takes you along narrow, quiet country lanes lined with coconut palms. Interspersed among the palm trees are lush gardens overflowing with tropical produce. Husbands and wives tending their crops together look up and smile as you drive by. Now and then you come across a family out for a ride in horse-drawn carts. School children, dressed in neat uniforms, wave to you with great enthusiasm. And every so often a couple of foraging pigs, destined to one day grace a Tongan feast, dash out of the yards of their owners, slowing you down just a bit.
Besides the absence of traffic and hustle and bustle, there is a scarcity of crowds and crime and tourist traps and bad attitudes. Living a slow-paced life in the midst of serene scenery and in an idyllic climate seems to have made the Tongan people almost universally warm and good-natured. Politeness is a way of life and Tongan hospitality is world-renowned. You begin to feel as though you stepped back in time.
Centuries Past
The ancient Polynesian culture that still thrives throughout the kingdom’s three island groups—Tongatapu, Ha’apai, and Vava’u—places a premium on a code of conduct called nofo fiefie, which means one is always supposed to make others feel at home. Tongans believe in greeting strangers with a warm smile and a friendly “malo e lelei” (hello). There is a relaxed Tongan/ancient Polynesian way of going about things. It’s called mo’ui nonga—a peaceful life.Located about 500 miles southeast of Fiji and 1,100 miles northeast of New Zealand, this tiny country of 170 islands (126 of which are uninhabited) was the first and is now the last remaining Polynesian kingdom.
Perhaps because it is a true kingdom (here the king isn’t just a figure-head—he rules) and perhaps because it is the only South Pacific islands group never brought under foreign rule, Tonga is the best place in the world to observe Polynesian culture still largely intact. Unspoiled, unpretentious, and unabashedly unsophisticated, this little South Seas Polynesian paradise is the real thing, nothing too touristy about it.
The royal palace sits on Nuku’alofa’s waterfront on a six-acre parcel surrounded by a low wall and open-weave fence. It’s an 1867 gingerbread Victorian-style white frame building with gables and scalloped eaves, crowned with bright red roofs. Also very popular with visitors are the nearby Houma blowholes, a more than three-mile stretch of spectacular exploding white sea spray.
To learn more about the islands’ history, visitors go to the Tonga National Centre, a museum and cultural center of traditional oval design in Nuku’alofa. In addition to displays detailing Tongan history, if features craftsmen demonstrating handicraft making and performances of Tongan dancing and singing.
Nothing but Pleasant
It may be a remote spot on the globe and it may have the look and feel of ancient Polynesia, but Tonga is not a roughing it destination. Accommodations, while not in the many-star category, can be quite comfortable and pleasant and they are often bargain-priced. Tiny Nuku’alofa has several restaurants of good quality that offer a surprising variety of cuisine, including French, Italian, German, Chinese, and Japanese.Tonga is clean, pleasant, exceptionally safe, English-speaking (one of its two official languages, the other being Tongan), and friendly, but it is not for those seeking the bright lights of the big city. Nuku’alofa—Tongan for “abode of love”—is a dusty, tiny town of mostly old wooden buildings, with a couple of modern structures here and there. Its population of 23,000 is one third of the population of the main island and one-fourth of the population of the entire kingdom. Like so much about Tonga, it seems out of a different era.
A big hit with tourists is the fact that Tongans produce the most beautiful, the best quality and the best-priced handicrafts in the South Pacific. Good buys also include sweaters and dolls hand knitted from imported New Zealand wool, and tapa, produced by women pounding the bark of mulberry trees into long thin pieces of cloth onto which they paint traditional designs using brown and tan dyes.
But shopping and the sights of the Greater Nuku’alofa area are not, of course, what draws visitors to Tonga. It’s the fact that the kingdom offers every attraction that one dreams of finding in a South Pacific paradise: beautiful beaches, scenery, sunsets, and the opportunity to swim, snorkel, scuba dive, and go deep-sea fishing in some of the most inviting waters in the world. Nuku’alofa even has a 9-hole golf course.
Food and Faith
When it comes to eating out, nothing quite compares with a genuine Tongan feast. To describe a Tongan feast as gargantuan is an understatement. The main feature is roast suckling pig. Also usually included: crayfish; chicken; octopus; clams; fresh fish; papaya, mango, and other fresh fruits; taro, yams, and other fresh vegetables—all cooked in an earth oven called an umu and served on long trays made from plaited coconut fronds.A Tongan experience that is reminiscent of a different era is spending a Sunday here. The kingdom’s constitution declares the Sabbath sacred. Everything closes down, even restaurants, except those at tourist hotels. Airplanes do not land or take off. Boats do not load or unload. Driving a car, bus, or taxi is prohibited. Tongans don’t fish, work in the garden, or even hang out the laundry on Sundays.
Just about everyone in the country dresses up in their Sunday best and heads to church, Bible in hand. The sounds of hymns fill the air. Small wonder that Tonga is sometimes called the most Christian country in the world.
Exploring Tonga
The main island of Tongatapu is certainly representative of the entire kingdom and in itself a rare treat, but if time permits it’s a good idea to take advantage of Royal Tonga Airlines’s nearly daily service and reasonable rates to visit some of the kingdom’s other island groups.The Ha’apai group, in whose waters the mutiny on the Bounty occurred, offers miles of spectacular and isolated beaches.
So does Vava’u, the crown jewel of the kingdom. Spectacularly scenic, with one of the world’s finest natural harbors, Vava’u is one of the loveliest island groups in the South Pacific and an even better bargain destination than the main island of Tongatapu.
