Sunsets and beach bonfires

Having spent a week in beautiful Vava'u snorkeling with whales, exploring secluded beaches and much more, we caught a flight to Ha'apai on 1st August. Ha'apai is a group of islands halfway between Tongatapu and Vava'u. Driving through the main town Pangai makes Neiafu, the main town on Vava'u, feel busy and buzzing with life. This isn't the only contrast to Vava'u.

Bonfire on the beach of Uoleva island.

The islands of Ha'apai are, with just a few volcanic exceptions, all low-lying atolls with nothing even resembling the 100-200 metre high "mountain tops" on Vava'u. The shorelines are also as different as the sun and the moon: on Ha'apai broad golden beaches separate the jungle from the edge of the water. This makes Ha'apai the very image of a Pacific paradise.

There is one island where all your preconceptions and expectations will only be met by perfection, and that is Uoleva. This crown jewel is southwest of the main island Lifuka, where the airport and Pangai are located. Uoleva comes very close to being uninhabited; there are just about four permanent inhabitants. They own and run the three "resorts" which are the only buildings on the island. Though called "resorts", these facilities are quite rudimentary and should not be mistaken for anything even close to the stereotypical image of resorts. For instance, Daiana Resort where we stayed and which we reckon has the best location, consisted of four traditional Tongan huts called fale, and a main house built from scrap wood. During a storm in April, all but one of the huts had blown away, which tells of the flimsiness of these buildings.

Our fale at Daiana Resort on Uoleva.

So what makes Uoleva the place to visit on Ha'apai? Well, the isolation, tranquility and lack of electricity awakens the Robinson Crusoe in you. Watching the dying sun disappear next to the distant slopes of volcanic Tofua, while sitting by a beach bonfire, stirs your inner Dylan Thomas. ..."And death shall have no dominion"...

What a sunset!

For the adventurous there is the three hour walk around the island and climbing a coconut tree to fetch your own refreshment. Naturally you have to do the test of every truly independent traveller: opening a coconut with just the tools of nature. Would you survive, stranded without fresh water?

Why climb a vertical coconut tree when there are easier subjects?

Read a book, improve your tan, and when it gets too hot for you, go for a swim in the crystal clear water or snorkel in the nearby reef. Uoleva, and Ha'apai in general, is much about not doing anything, or at least doing it in a very leisurely manner. So it shouldn't have come as a great surprise to us that Tongatapu felt like an ant-hill when we got back on 5th August, but it did. And when we arrived in Sydney with its four million inhabitants on 11th August, it felt like the centre of the world.

We ♥ Tonga.

To summarize our time on Tonga, we'd like to say that it's a wonderful destination, but you have to get away from the main island Tongatapu. For budget travellers like us this can be a strain on the purse, however, it's well worth it. Unfortunately Tonga is no longer the super cheap backpacker paradise it was just 5 to 10 years ago. Indeed, just since 2006 prices have almost doubled as more and more tourists flock to the kingdom. Despite of this, Tonga still retains the unpolished image of the developing country it is. It has a lot of problems, most visible the environmental ones, but being such a positive and welcoming people, no doubt things will improve. It is not hard to see why Captain James Cook, upon leaving Tonga in the 18th century, named them the Friendly Islands.

For that's what they are.

More pictures available in the image gallery.