OMR - Tonga Islands

29-01-2012

We are now in Tonga, to continue our documentary looking for the last surviving examples of traditional lifestyle in harmony with the environment. We visited first Tongatapu, the arrival point for most visitors from overseas. At first look Tonga appears as a land where people live their daily activities with no great interest for the tourism but very friendly, helpful and curious about the visitors. Most people said hello to us or gave us a big sincere smile just passing by the villages around the main roads that surrounds or cross the island. Here the time flows slowly and people appear, as expected, more sincere than in places used to have a lot of tourists. When we were in Rarotonga, a lady working in a car rental company warned us that people in Tonga would be less "friendly" than in Cook Islands. What we discovered instead, is that maybe the do not always pay attention at you, but if the do they it not because you are a tourist but because they sincerely feel it. On the counterpart, the tourism industry and policies are not well established here and it is not easy to find very clean accomodations and working services. Internet services is slow and sometime is not available. Electric power dipends on diesel generators and is sometime discontinuous. Transports are here, as in Cook Islands, not enough developed, but there is an Air Company and two Shipping Companies of which one is runned by the Government. Reaching the islands is much easier and cheaper than in Cook Islands where there is no government boat and going by airplane to some of the northest islands is very epxensive and relies on charter flights only. Despite of that, more than two years ago, a cargo passenger/boat sank and more thabn 60 people died. Now the government is taking much care on the safety standards but there are still old vessels running. The lifestyle is very quite and centered on the crops, fishing, and going to church. There are so many churches that it is difficult to count them. We were able to have more friends and share some days with them in a few days in Tonga that in more than one month spent in Rarotonga. Apart some exceptions, we felt more intimacy form the guys from Fiji and Philippines we met in Raro than with local people. If this means being "not as friendly as in Cook Islands", we definitely prefer the "less friendly" Tonga. This does not apply to the outer Cook islands like Mauke, Nassau, Palmerston, Pukapuka where we met many lovely people instead....