Nuku'alofa

At its best!

page 3 of 10

 

 
This town, which is lacking some flavour (for my taste), is the capital of the kingdom of Tonga. Here you find shops of all kind, restaurants, churches, the king's palace and far too many cars. You can see traffic jams in the morning and you will also find wildly gesticulating traffic police officers who seem to do their aerobics when they swing their arms. It stinks from exhaust fumes and you soon realize that this is a densely populated spot in the pacific. Today there are even more people coming to town as there is a big parade to greet the new parliament.

 

 
Hardly anyone wants to miss out,

 

 
Everyone is keen to show their best is marching through town. The "heavy" king also passed by in his car. Being more than 80 years old he was not fond of walking in the midday heat.

 

 

After the parade the market gets populated. Here I find plenty of fresh produce, although not a lot seems to be making it onto tongan plates. As in most pacific islands the main course consists of starchy food and tinned fish or corned beef enriched with fresh coconut cream.

 

 

I find some yummy bananas, drinking coconuts, Papaya, Mangoes and Mandarins.

 

 
This is my "prey" from the market

 

 
Here is the kings palace. I was prompted that this is a "nogoforawalk" zone. But I was granted to take a photograph, after I made friends with the officer on duty, promising him a copy of the photo.

 

 

This is not a shot from Soweto! Many small shops in town and in the countryside are barred. I don't really understand that as there is not really a lot of crime here.

 

 
From time to time I see a church that stands out from the crowd. The red steeples are quite common, however most of god's residences are pretty plane. The missionaries had been very thorough and each success results in a new church.

 

 
Strolling through the backyards of town I came across a place that must be the house of a very ingenious inventor. This machine obviously catches orbiting aluminum cans.

 

 
Well, you probably notice, this town is not my favourite. The nearby Fanga Kakau Lagoon does not invite for a swim either, if its name would be cocoa lagoon at least the colour would match its name. Swimming is tapu because the hospital dumps the waste straight into it...

 

 

And if the action gets too "hot", the fire engine is always on alert.

 

On the next page I will take you to an island called 'Eua.
 

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