how not to ride around the island of tongatapu

On Sunday 23 April, a couple of English volunteers (Al and Emma), another AYAD (Heather) and I embarked on our first significant ride around Tongatapu. The trip was inspired by Al who wanted to visit Mapua a Vaca (The Chiefs Whistle or blowholes) before his two months in Tonga came to a close on the following Wednesday.

As mentioned in the last post, Tongatapu is fairly flat which makes riding quite easy as long as you can avoid the potholes and dogs. The island isn't overly small, but you could certainly manage a full circumnavigation in a day if you kept the pace up and weren't too distracted by the scenery and beaches. Riding at a cruisy pace, and allowing for the few wrong turns that will inevitably result from relying on a tourist map for directions, the ride to Mapua a Vaca in the south-west of the island took about an hour traversing from Nuku'alofa in the centre of the north of Tongatapu.

An hour long ride constitutes exercise in most peoples comprehension, which means that the four of us were breaking the law as exercising (or working) on Sunday is illegal in Tonga. However, we were met with friendly smiling faces only and none of the pious ire that we were warned to expect.

This first part of the trip was calamity free. Apart from arriving at low tide which reduced the spectacle somewhat we were all quite happy with our achievement and after a few photos and a quick swim we were ready for some lunch. Being Sunday, this is easier said and done. Again, the law precludes shops from being opening so we were relying on our questionable map and navigational skills to direct us to one of the few resorts that would be nearby and flaunting this rule.

After an hour and a half of further riding heading east along the south of the island, a flat-tire (me, after successfully an entire town of potholed road I relaxed and took my off the road and caught the one lone pothole in otherwise good stretch of road) and a nip on the ankle from a territorial mutt (Emma) there was still no sign of a resort. Somewhat forlorn, we pulled off the main road and headed back towards the ocean in the hope of at least finding a nice place to swim if not food. We were well rewarded, as we had stumbled upon Matatahi (beach) Veitonga.

The drama of the day continued when we went to set off. My key broke in the lock of my bike and was only after much trying that we extricated both Al's and my bike from the pole they were locked around. We also managed to get a little further lost on our way back to Nuku'alofa (following other peoples directions) and thereby had covered nearly half the island in our day of riding before coming across a bakery on the fringes of the capital which from all accounts sold the most well appreciated warm sausage rolls and cup cakes ever.

Next time we go for a ride, we might do it on a day other than Sunday and go a little better prepared. I am still trying to overcome the chest cold I woke up with on Monday after all the exertion. On Anzac Day (Tuesday), we did return to Matatahi Veitonga, but went by car and took all our food with us.

On the Saturday, I went to my first rugby match in Tonga. The game was part of the second round of the Pacific Cup - a new five round competition between six teams, two from each of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji (a not-so-Super 6). It was a muddy affair and the gold jerseys of the Tonga Tautahi team were looking decidely brown by the end of the game. Coincidentally, Jess also went to a match that was part of the Pacific Cup on the weekend. I guess it shows how much a part of life it is here.

The way the competition is structured, means that there is a match in Tonga every Saturday the five weeks. I am pretty keen to go to some of the remaining games, so there should be a few more photos of polynesian rugby.

Still no real work. However, my time in Tonga won't be all beautiful beaches and rugby matches, thankfully. As nice as it would be to have an extended holiday, I do have to turn up at work everyday from 8:30 to 4:30 which is a lot of time to fill with not much to do. I have finally spoken to the director of my department at some length, and there is definitely meaningful work for me to do in the longer term on developing the Kingdom's strategic policy and ensuring that the policy is pursued by the various government agencies. This work will start post the restructure in July.

My job, well what I would like to do, is to encourage the soon-to-be-appointed CEOs of the government departments to at least adhere to what semblance of a plan their is for Tonga by imposing some discipline on the functioning of the public service through adequate planning and budgetary discipline. However, since there is nobody really leading the whole show this might be a little hard. The consultant who wrote the Strategic Development Plan will be back next week so that will be a good opportunity to learn a bit from him.

In the meantime, my time in the office will be spent working on the 'Eua Master Plan (though with two consultants being brought in there shouldn't be too much work) and studying the copy of An Intensive Course in Tongan that I bought yesterday. You will all have to test me by making me speak Tongan as much as possible when you visit.