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Tonga - Singing with the Whales

Part 13 - Around the World 06/2015 - 02/2016

By Beyond All Maps - Portraits of our Planet by Thorsten Mehret

October 5^th, 2015

Introduction

The Kingdom of Tonga is the worlds only remaining Polynesian monarchy. It´s also the only South Pacific country that never have been colonized by foreign power. Between June to November migrating humpback whales stay in the warm waters and Tonga is one of the few places in the word where it´s possible to swim with them. A magical experience.

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Arrival

My flight from Vanuatu was going via Nadi in Fiji and I had a long night at the airport waiting for my flight in the early morning. Luckily I found a comfortable couch. The staff at the airport was extremely friendly, everyone smiled and gave a hearty “Bula”. When I was looking for the toilette someone noticed and helped, same when I was looking for a power plug for my laptop. Wow, good service. In they plane I could get already a first glimpse of the Tongan. I read already in the guidebook that Tongans often have a quite massiv appearance and I can´t deny it.

A massive Tongan. If you sit next to him your legroom is your smallest problem

TONGATAPU

Tongatapu is the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga and the location of its capital Nukuʻalofa. As there was no connecting flight to Eua in the afternoon, I had to stay overnight. I took a taxi to show me around and learned that a day is enough to get an overview of the island. There are not that many things to see.

Snapshots from the Street

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AROUND TONGATAPU

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Market

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FERRY TO EUA

The ferry takes around 2,5 hours and is a nice experience. Not only offers it stunning views of the coastline it´s also fun to watch the people on the boat. Unfortunately the ferry is not very reliable, especially in case of stronger winds the crossing is canceled on short notice, so it´s better to plan with some buffer on the way back in case of having a scheduled flight.

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Tongan with the traditional mat around the hip.

EUA

Eua is said to be one of the oldest islands in the pacific. The islands was shaped by rubbing of the Tonga plate against the Pacific plate, pushing the island up. Close to it is the Tonga trench, with 10800 meters the second deepest trench in the world. It´s a peaceful island, with a couple of villages along the only road and heaps of pigs and chickens that are roaming around.

The HideAWAY Resort

I loved this place, as it felt so relaxed and the staff was very friendly. The rooms were basic but perfectly alright, there was a nice sitting area and a hut right at the shoreline to see the sunset or even the passing whales. From time to time the local pigs named Honey and Princess showed up. Stroking Princess behind her ears she dropped to her side fully enjoying the procedure. Very funny. To my surprise it was really cold in the afternoon requiring a jumper after sunset. You wouldn´t expect that so close to the equator.

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Nice beach, a 5 minutes walk from the hideaway resort.

Sunday morning Church

By law everything is closed in Tonga on Sundays, meaning shops, transports (even domestic flights and ferries) and of course tourist tours. Not much to do in Tonga on a Sunday so why not go to church as the locals do. It seems there is a church on every corner and lot´s of different confessions as well. I went to a methodist church, a huge building compared to the size of the island and number of people living here. The service started at 10:00 and everyone was in their best clothes. Women with colorful dresses and hats, men with suits, ties, FLIP FLOPS and woven mats around the chest under their jacket, which looked very exotic. The singing was a goose skin experience. Although the church was only 1/3 full, it was an enthusiastic and loud performance close to hurting my eardrums.

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Cemeteries in Tonga are colorful and big pictures are memories of the deceased.

eua under water

Tonga is famous for its whales and from almost all islands whale snorkeling tours can be arranged. It´s absolutely stunning to see this majestic and smart animals in the water. I was a bit concerned if the close encounter might be disturbing for the whales but number of tourists in Eua is still small and the whales can easily swim away with one or two strokes if they feel disturbed. All the more it´s amazing that they often decide to spend quite some time with the snorkelers, having a close look at this “strange creatures” and sometimes even interacting. If the guide dives down and spins around they occasionally do the same. What a great experience, although back in the boat I had to “feed the whales” It got a bit to choppy for me.

The second not to miss water activity is diving the blue cave. It´s a huge cavern under the reef with several openings illuminating the cave in magical blue light. Very beautiful, especially as we could hear some whale vocals from the ocean during the dive. I added some vocals to the movie below to give it some extra atmosphere as the whale did not sing in that moment.

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EUA above Water

There are quite some interesting sights, best visited in a day tour. Also several beautiful hikes are possible.

This cave with some bats was nothing special but the way involving some climbing was nice. As it was private land the owner showed us around. A nice guy always giggling and surprisingly fast and agile for his age. Was not easy to follow him sometimes.

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A beautiful lookout at the north side to the island

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