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Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop

a travel blog by chrischarly

After 6 months in the Western world, it is time to put back on our backpacks, pack away the rain coats and hit the Pacific!
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Chris being arty

Three Little Birds, Tonga

Chris decided to Surprise Lee and Isi with a little flower display in the morning, quite arty for him really! After this he sat down in the office he had built to help Lee draw up plans for the restaurant Fale.

Today was exciting as we were going to meet Isi’s family (wife Martha and son LeLei-Leka) who visit at the weekends. We picked them up and went back to Isi’s for a lovely meal, including some random shellfish that was tasty. Martha had bought a huge coconut pudding, which was simply divine!

permalink written by  chrischarly on April 27, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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EARTHQUAKE!!

Three Little Birds, Tonga

There was a lot going on at the beach today with the builder working on the furniture for our Fale, so everyone was busy. Chris fixed the tap and silconed the kitchen and also found time to make a swing for the kids whilst I cleaned out both shower heads for the fales.
In between Chris and I went snorkelling and saw some really nice fish, but not there wasn’t much coral and thus fish as well but it was still a nice swim. After everyone had gone home, we chilled for a while,
then showered and off to Isi’s for dinner. We awoke around 11.08pm to the Fale shaking around us, it was terrifying and my first thought was that some people were outside and literally shaking the building. After it had finally stopped, we went to check the building then gave Lee a call to check in. It was a fairly large earthquake, either a 6.4 or 6.7 as some websites gave different scales, but luckily no-one was hurt, just a bit shaken and scared, especially the two of us as it was our first one we’d ever experienced.

permalink written by  chrischarly on April 28, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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To church and a tour of the island

Three Little Birds, Tonga

We decided to join the family this morning and go to church as this is what almost all Tongans do every Sunday. But before church began we went down and drank some Kava at 9am with some of the local men- a tradition before and after the service. Afetr church we went back to the family home and ate Umu, which is food cooked underground on a huge fire, another tradition on a Sunday, similar I suppose to a Sunday Roast.

Isi and Lee then took us on a small tour of the Island including visiting a small cave with freshwater inside next to the sea, then to Tongan Beach Resort where Lee collected some ideas of what her place will look like when it is finished and then to a restaurant which had some botanical gardens next to it. At the last place we stopped for a couple of drinks and a chat before we were dropped off back at the beach before Lee came and collected us again for dinner. Nice chilled evening and an early night for us.

permalink written by  chrischarly on April 29, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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Poorly Chris

Three Little Birds, Tonga

Went to town this morning to get logged on as this was the first opportunity we had to get connected since the earthquake on Saturday and as we don’t have a phone yet, we were worried that our families couldn’t get in touch.
But it looks like the earthquake didn’t hit the news as we didn’t have any emails about it, which is good. After spending an hour on the very expensive and slow internet we headed back and relaxed for the afternoon as Chris wasn’t feeling well, just very achey, so he went to bed at 4pm and didn’t really get back out of bed apart from go to the toilet and eat some dinner which was brought down to us tonight so he didn’t have to go out. Whilst he was resting I did some washing, tidied up a bit, read my book and just looked after him.

permalink written by  chrischarly on April 30, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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A nice chill day

Three Little Birds, Tonga

Had a nice lazy morning, I read my book whilst Chris worked on Lee’s website offline. Chris went for an unsuccessful fish again and then borrowed one of the staff’s kayak to play about in for a couple of hours. Then went to see the family again in the evening to be informed that they had really missed us last night, which was lovely to hear.

Over the past few days I have somehow managed to teach Isi’s Mum and nephew (with a lot of patience as they don’t speak and English and myself only basic Tongan) how to play a dice game with me which has proved immensely popular and it was nice to sit on the floor and play with them for ages, which has become another nice routine here.

permalink written by  chrischarly on May 1, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
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Chris finally manged to catch some fish

Three Little Birds, Tonga

Isi’s parents came down this morning, one to see us and another to see how the guesthouse is coming along. So Chris and I kept Isi’s mother (Ofa) entertained by going out and collecting mussels and other shells and some yucky-looking things to eat.
We were out for ages and ages and we did actually get quite good at spotting the mussels and shells inbetween the corals dodging the sea urchins and sea snakes. But after a while I caught up with Ofa and saw that she had cut her feet as all around her the water was red and as I couldn’t communicate very well with her,
I ran back and made Isi take her out my reef shoes to wear so she wouldn’t hurt them anymore, which she finally appreciated once her stubbornness wore off.
I then went back to the beach and sat with Moni (Isi’s father) and we tried a few times, sometimes successful to have a conversation, but he was just happy with me sitting next to him.
God I love Isi’s parents, they are so adorable.
Once Chris and Ofa had had enough of the shell collecting Chris was taught by Vincini, one of the staff how to go fishing with a net.
His first few attempts were simply hilarious to us all, but after a while he finally got the hang of it, and after catching just one tiny fish,
on his next throw managed to catch 5 which we all ate raw straight out of the water (after displaying them in a basket for photo purposes) and Chris of course was so happy. We then cooked some tasty food on the beach before relaxing for a while and then to the family home yet again for dinner and then out to Aquarium for a couple of drinks before bed.

permalink written by  chrischarly on May 2, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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Spit-roast suckling pig

Three Little Birds, Tonga

Our last day in paradise was spent relaxing, with Chris having a bit of a fish and a very long snorkel.

In the evening was our leaving dinner and we were having spit roast babe – the only problem was that babe was alive when he arrived, so Chris took on the manly job of dispatching him under guidance from Isi.

Chris then decided to teach the Tongan’s about black pudding and made a batch with the blood, liver, kidneys and testicles. All wrapped up in a leaf and cooked in the Umu. Surprisingly not many of them wanted to try it, but Isi did, and I did and it was actually very tasty. The pig was delicious as were all the veg we had with it. We washed it down with some beers, sitting out under the beautiful night sky.




permalink written by  chrischarly on May 3, 2012 from Three Little Birds, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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Back to Tongatapu

Nuku'alofa, Tonga

Lee picked us up at midday today and took us to Isi’s House where we ate our last lunch in Vava’u which was a tasty fish curry shared with Isi’s family. After spending 22 hours up at the House it was a sad goodbye with Ofa and Moni, Isi’s parents who were even crying as we left. We’ll miss this place.
We then went and collected Martha and Lelei-Leka (Isi’s wife and son) from their village and Martha had made us some pretty flower necklaces as a leaving present, before driving to the airport and saying some more sad goodbyes. Unfortunately yet again we were not to fly on the DC-3 and back on the same plane we flew on before so Chris was disappointed, but at least it was on time and not delayed or cancelled. Peter, who works for Toni was waiting for us at the airport and drove us back to Toni’s via the supermarket for some basic supplies, before getting settled in and chatting to some of the other guests who we would be staying with, 11 Canadians who were training to be nurses and as they had made so much food they kindly shared some with us. It was then for an early night to be bright and fresh for Neil’s arrival tomorrow morning.

permalink written by  chrischarly on May 4, 2012 from Nuku'alofa, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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NEIL'S HERE

Nuku'alofa, Tonga

Peter, Toni’s driver had said to us we could sneak into the minibus that was driving to the airport to collect Neil and by sneak we mean not pay the transfer fee so we woke up early, showered and got ready to get a phone call from Peter to say that Toni would be driving to the airport instead. Bugger.
So we walked down to try and sweet-talk Toni into letting us come with him and to try and blag it for free. He of course was having none of it; we either pay full price or don’t go, so after some negotiating Chris managed to secure himself a seat for ½ price but there was no room for me in case he collected some more guests. So I turned back around and walked back, with the intention of going back to bed but instead stayed up and chatted to Carol, the mother superior of the nurses for a few hours before the boys turned up. It was of course fantastic to see Neil again and we were all excited to be spending 3 and a bit weeks with each other, Neil soon forgot about his jet-lag having flown for 2 days straight we all unloaded our bags in a different room and went straight to town to help keep him busy and awake. Then, after coffee and a bite to eat we headed back after a couple of hours and spent the rest of the day relaxing.

permalink written by  chrischarly on May 5, 2012 from Nuku'alofa, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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Changed flights

Nuku'alofa, Tonga

With Neil still recovering from the jet-lag we had a
relaxed day again today not particularly doing a lot, but Chris and I being King and Queen of relaxation it didn’t worry us and we happily wasted away the day chatting with other guests staying at Toni’s, so although not a lot occurred we still had a great day. Oh, but we did decided to change our plans a little; instead of spending a week here, after listening to our travel tales about Fiji, Neil liked the sound about spending a bit more than 3 days there, so we changed our flights and we leave tomorrow!

permalink written by  chrischarly on May 6, 2012 from Nuku'alofa, Tonga
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
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