March 17, 2008

We had a hotel inspection at the Hilltop Hotel. The hotel was really high up, and the lobby had an open porch with table and chairs, and the view is amazing. There were a couple of brothers staying there from the US, and they had been there a week or so already, and they were thinking of extending their trip because they were having such a great time. They loved how friendly the locals are, and already had many stories to share.

Then we went to the Ene'io Botanical Gardens. It's pretty far off the main road. Here we were met by our host. We all got beautiful fragrant leis and were shown around. There were all sorts of trees and even vanilla, we saw the plant that kava comes from, saw demos of how tapa is made, as well as coconut husking and banana leaf weaving.

They served us a light lunch of fresh papaya, banana, pineapple and fresh shredded coconut along with fresh coconut juice to drink.

Then on the way back to town, we a few minutes to go shopping. My advice for people shopping in Tonga is: buy it when you see it, as you may not see it again. That's what happened to me, I thought I'll see some of the same stuff back in town, but I didn't and had to come home pretty empty handed.

We went to the Mermaid Bar for dinner down on the docks. It is a very atmospheric bar. There are signed t-shirts, and flags from all over the world stapled to the ceiling, and they actually cover the entire ceiling. It's a fun place. There were a few locals having their beer, and one guy boated over and had himself a cold one as well. Dinner was snapper with salad and potato.

Thanked our hosts and flew back on Airlines Tonga back to Tongatapu. We were picked up the Teta tours, and transferred to the Janfull International Date Line hotel. We were taken up to our room (cute tiny gecko on our door), and the bellboy went in and turned everything on for us: the TV (only 2 channels), air conditioner, lights, and lamp. It was quite funny. After he left, we flopped down on our twin beds. OUCH. The beds are rock hard, like concrete, not kidding. It was horrible. We knew we would not be getting much sleep before our long flights home. Our room had no view, it was of the roof. Had a few hours until bedtime, so went downstairs and used free internet. It took ½ hour to send an email! So I only sent one.

I went back upstairs to adjust the air-conditioning. The remote is in Chinese so I pushed all the buttons until I hit the right combo to turn the A/C on.