Poor Little Piggy
28 September 2016 | Anne doing the kava ceremony
Long time ago at the start of my career, or as our pal Chris would say, "when I was working class" I worked for a company that printed postage stamps.
Little known fact. The company actually printed the worlds first self adhesive stamp. Wow! (Yawn) 35 years on, it's still a new trend in stamps. Anyway, I digress. One stamp we printed was for Tonga and, for the proofing run, the King himself was coming to sign it off. Now, the King, like many Polynesians, was a big lad. This and Royal protocols meant a special large butt chair had to be commissioned. It was still in the chairman's office when I left to join the corporate world where, guess what! I ended up managing a stamp printing business. How spooky is that. (OK. Not very but there's hee haw doing right now).
So, how do you breeze through immigration and health in Tonga?
Park the boat at their dock at low tide and when the "big lad" from Health appears look up expectantly then look down at the gap to dark waters then suggest we do this in his van.
Much easier.
So, checked in and all legal we picked up a mooring and settled in to see what we could find out about the islands. First tour was to "My Tongan Home" a pig roast, dancing, eating and the ritual kava ceremony. This involved sitting in a magic circle, clapping chanting and drinking of a fairly revolting crushed root.
Nice grub though. Shame about the wee piggy.