Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - two weeks in Tonga

burning some miles on a trip to Tonga on our honeymoon next March. We are considering splitting this time between two islands, any ideas? All we want is to be alone and meet the least people we can for this time. We are thinking about the Sandy Beach Resort and the Tongan Beach. The Palm Tree is another one that caught our eye. Anyone been to any of these places recently? How is the transportation between the islands these days? We appreciate any tips.

Thanks a bunch!

FR

burning some miles on a trip to Tonga on our honeymoon next March. We are considering splitting this time between two islands, any ideas? All we want is to be alone and meet the least people we can for this time. We are thinking about the Sandy Beach Resort and the Tongan Beach. The Palm Tree is another one that caught our eye. Anyone been to any of these places recently? How is the transportation between the islands these days? We appreciate any tips.

Thanks a bunch!

FR

I was on Ha'apai in April this year and stayed at Billy's Place, although I was at the Sandy Beach Resort everyday for a diving course. If you want alone and meeting the least amount of people possible, Ha'apai is your best bet. The plane stopped there, and I was the only one who got off! Everyone else went on to Vava'u. Billy's Place was fine for me (20 USD/night versus the Sandy Beach 120 Euros/night) and it wasn't that huge a drop in comfort except for public cold showers (I never missed a warm shower while there). I was the only guest at Billy's Place except for my last night. On tripadvisor I wrote about both places so check there for the details.

Royal Tongan went under just after I left. For a while, it was ferry-only service, but a few months ago, they restarted plane service.

Good tip: bring a flashlight and mosquito repellent.

We spent Xmas in Tonga a year or so back.

Fun visit if you like that kind of thing. ;)

Pretty cheap place to visit. We stayed mailny in the main city, but wansreree doff by plane to some other little islands called E'ua. RUSTIC was sure the word for it tho. :)

So Royal Tonga Air went under?

Wow. Our air tickets cost $US8 each. No wonder. :D

A ton of comments on our trip here:

http://www.moremiles.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000094#000000

I loved this:

SUNDAY on Tonga sounds like a wild old time - from a web report:


Tonga is a very religious nation, with very strong blue laws - - there are no flights into or out of Tonga on Sunday, all businesses close all day, swimming and fishing are not allowed, etc., so we stayed on the yacht today, catching up on minor boat chores.

And this recent one is even better:

In the late 1800’s the king agreed to allow Sunday to be the official day of rest, and Tongans take this very seriously. Everything is closed, and the only activities Tongans engage in are going to church and cooking and eating omu. Omu is a way of cooking meat or fish wrapped in kava leaves, and placed in holes in the ground. The holes are heated by fire and kept hot with rocks. This creates a lot of smoke and it can be seen and smelled all over the place.

Pigs, roosters and dogs are everywhere. People “own” these animals, but they roam around loose everywhere. The pigs seem to just eat whatever they can find. Most are killed for food when they are young. The rest are kept to breed more pigs. The roosters don’t limit themselves to **** -a-doodle-doing at 5 or 6am. They can go at it at any and all times of the night or day.

Tourism is quite undeveloped in Tonga. There are no souvenir shops, and it took nearly a week for us to find any postcards. There are some handicrafts shops, and we did buy a couple of carvings.

Each morning at around 5:00 am, we heard the drums being beaten to call people to church. At 5:30, the church bells sounded. This in conjunction with the roosters, did not bode well for sleeping the first couple of nights. But then we got used to it and slept through it. It also didn’t hurt to use earplugs!

There are no “Tongan” restaurants that I could see. Tongans don’t have the money to eat out, and for them, eating is something done at home. In fact, they often eat outside in their yards, because until very recently, that’s where they lived. Only in the last several years have Tongans been building houses and spending time in them, and even then it’s usually to sleep. In fact, many of the basic houses we saw didn’t have furniture in them, and we were told that Tongans sleep on mats. This is not necessarily from poverty, because Tongans don’t consider themselves poor, but rather from custom.

JimC and Ozstamps

thank you so much for your messages. A lot of helpful info there! Now, more than ever, we can't wait to get there! Sounds exactly like the place we want to be at our honeymoon.

We will be staying at the Sandy Beach for a week and at the Mounu at Vava'u for another. We got reservations at the new airline there (who flies two DC-3s!!! I just love it, never thought I'd had the chance to fly in one of these!).

I'll make sure to post a trip report when I get back.

FR

I think you made a great choice for your honeymoon, and you'll get to see the difference in the island groups since you're going to Vava'u also.

Sandy Beach had the best beach I saw on Ha'apai--the resort is also on the west side of the island where it's almost always calm (the winds blew waves a lot more on the east side). I'm pretty sure they lend out snorkelling gear for free. You might also ask Herbert (the dive instructor onsite) about snorkelling trips to other islands--while we were out doing the open water dives, he'd usually have several guests snorkelling while I was way down below failing miserably at buoyancy tests. The kayaking was great as well.

It's an interesting drive from the "airport" to the resort also--you'll pass plenty of homes and churches and catch good glimpses of how the Tongans live (ie. ozstamps' article will come to life as you drive by). The drive over the causeway that links the island the resort is on (Foa) was a little hair-raising--you'll see what I mean when you get there.

Have a great trip!

we're currently set for 5 days in Vava'u and 7 days on Ha'apai. Is that a good proportion? Should we rent cars in either place or bikes will do? Any particularly good restaurants or should we eat at the hotel mostly?

Once again, we can't thank you enough for all this info.

FR

Not sure about Vava'u since I didn't get there, but the people I met who had said it was more for sailing, so I think your proportions are good.

There's absolutely no car rental on Ha'apai. There are two taxis total, and a bus that goes once or twice daily between the two islands (Foa and Lifuka). The other islands are accessible only by boat or foot (low tide). You'll be on Foa at the Sandy Beach. On Lifuka there's the town of Pangai, and that's about it. There are two restaurants in Pangai--Mariner's and Lindsay's. Lindsay's only serves whatever the owner wants to make that night. Mariner's had a varied menu (and my favorite Victoria Bitter available as a beverage). Both the restaurants are outside enclosed patios, and very much 1 star. People raved about the 5 star dinner cuisine at the Sandy Beach (I couldn't eat dinner there since I wasn't a guest), so if you've been eating there, these places might be too much of a downgrade. The Sandy Beach has a beach bar for snacks or lunch.

A bike ride would be fine--it will take a good hour to get to Pangai from the Sandy Beach on bike. It's completely flat, and the road is ok for biking, maybe a little gravelly. You won't want to bike back in the dark though. Juergen, one of the owners of Sandy Beach, drives guests to Pangai also, so you may not need to worry about transportation. The taxi fare I'm thinking was around 5 USD from Pangai to the Sandy Beach.

Something else that came to mind was when I went there, I flew Air New Zealand. Their daily flight arrives at the ungodly hour of 02.15, then goes back to AKL at an even ungodlier 03.30. The domestic flights didn't start until 08.00, so I had a six hour layover, and then had to switch to the complete joke of a domestic terminal. It's a significant walk in the dark from the international terminal, or a 1 USD taxi fare. The open-air domestic terminal has hard plastic chairs, cement, or the grass out front as your sleeping options (I chose the grass). No need for an alarm clock, as the roosters will start pecking around the terminal when dawn breaks. A ride to Nuku'alofa is about 30 minutes at that hour, so you might consider a room there for a few hours if that's too much of roughing it!

I don't know what's happened with the whole international/domestic terminal situation now that the new air carriers took over for Royal Tongan, but that's something to think about if you aren't stopping over in Nuku'alofa. There is another weekly NZ flight that comes from/goes to Apia, and also some Polynesian flights.

Jim

our NZ flight arrives from LAX at 5am after a stop in Samoa. Our connection to Vava'u leaves at 7am, so I think we'll be fine. On our way back, we get there at 4:30pm from Ha'apai and our flight leaves at 8pm, again stopping in Samoa. If by any chance our domestic flight is canceled then we will have to treat ourselves with one extra day in paradise. :D

Are there many small islands in Ha'apai accessible by kayak or foot? We were thinking about kayaking a lot there, and just spend the day on some deserted island. Hopefully Sigi will prepare us some sort of picnic for that. ^

FR

OK, so no bad layovers for you. At TBU there's absolutely nothing to do, other than admiring the "Malo e leilei" paintings the local schoolchildren have made.

There's only one island in the vicinity where you can walk--Uoleva. The little tiny island just north of Foa (forgot the name) supposedly can be done by foot, but from what I saw, I wouldn't have risked it. The kayak would be fine though. For Uoleva, if you're going to do it, get the tides schedule and cross at the lowest tide possible. The water was about 2 feet deep at low tide. If you get the tides schedule wrong at all, you'll be stuck 12 hours. Maybe that's not the worst thing that could happen? In any case, you can still find plenty of deserted beaches on Foa or Lifuka. Just keep walking until you find something! A half-hour north of Billy's Place on the east side of Lifuka was my spot.

The larger island Ha'ano was too far by kayak. But there's water taxis on Foa that could take you there.

The other islands in Ha'apai (like where the Bounty landed) are impossible to get to without your own boat.

I'm sure Sigi would probably have a picnic lunch made up--I can picture her sitting in the lobby there, yapping away on the phone or at the workers with her "shrill" voice (you did read tripadvisor I see). For 120 Euros a night, she'd better! ;)

There are a few places to stay on Uoleva if you decide to do that. Dont' know what your expectations are in terms of 'luxury' or not, but if you'd like even more isolation than what Ha'apai gives you, you might consider spending a day or two there.