A Rough Guide to Ha'apai - Cashless, Clueless and a little Confused

Sunset on Uoleva with dormant volcano Kao towering over the Ha'apai Group

When you think of the South Pacific the image you conjure up in your mind is Ha’apai. The Ha’apai Group (a 30 min flight north of Nuku 'Alofa) is a sparsely populated group of islands, atolls and coral cays that sit upon crystal clear, aqua-coloured water teeming with marine life. It is an amazingly beautiful place and is the perfect getaway if you like spending your days snoozing/reading/having a few beers under the shade of coconut trees before strolling down to the water for a snorkel, or in our case spear fishing If you like fast-paced days visiting tourist attraction after tourist attraction, Ha’apai is not the place for you.

Our beach on Uoleva - Coconut Trees, beach and reef... that's it

For all its’ natural beauty, the tourist infrastructure in Ha’apai is basic at best. While this is part of Ha’apai’s charm I would like to point out the following:

What not to do if you travel to Ha’apai:

• Think that you can rely on ATMs or other forms of ‘modern’ banking systems to withdraw cash or pay for services.

• Rely on the majority of locally owned accommodation providers to offer food and drinks for guests.

• Think that locally owned accommodation providers have a basic sense of customer service and can in some way, shape or form, work with foreign owned service providers (such as Scuba Diving/Whale watching businesses) to ensure visitors enjoy their stay as much as possible.

After arriving at Ha’apai’s surprisingly modern looking airport we were promptly greeted by one of the manager’s of our accommodation (Taiana’s Place). Although we had booked the previous week we were informed that there had been a mistake and that all the fales were booked for the weekend and we (myself, Tom and Bruce) would have to share a tent during our stay. Fair enough. However, on that very same flight were a couple and their child who had not booked any accommodation and on asking our manager if there were any rooms available he replied there certainly was and they were welcome to stay at Taiana’s. We laughed it off as we didn’t mind the prospect of sleeping in a tent and would more than likely be collapsing every night after consuming too many beers and Tongan rum.

The weekend was spent with Tafi in hand looking out at this view

However, as we were being driven to the boat for our transfer (Taiana’s is located on Uoleva Island – a 15-60 minute boat transfer depending on how fast the ‘captain’ decides to go) the level of Tongan-style customer service confounded us once more. We asked to stop at the one and only dive shop in Ha’apai (Fins n Fluke) as we wanted to go diving that day and get dropped off to our resort after the dives. We were told in a rambling explanation that the owner of Taiana’s would not like that very much and it would be better off to go straight to Taiana’s. We were a bit confused and insisted that we wanted to go diving. The manager stopped at the dive shop but as I got out of the car to organise the dive he said,

“Um….. I think if you go diving…. You will have to stay somewhere else”.

“Sorry?”

“If you go diving with them, the owner will not like it and you will have to stay somewhere else.”

“Right,” I said slightly confused, “can we go diving with you then?”

“Um… no” I have shortened this answer as it was a rambling Tongan-esque answer and it took us a little while to decipher exactly what he meant.

“If you go diving with them, you cannot stay with us,” the manager finished.

After a slightly awkward silent period during which we all had no idea what was going on we decided to cut our losses. We were incredibly hung-over from the night before (in fact we were lucky to make the flight after leaving home at 715am for an 8am flight, Bruce managed to get us to the airport in 15 minutes, a trip that normally takes 40 minutes) and had no idea if we were able to find another place to stay considering all other accommodation options we had called were booked out for Easter. So we decided to book diving for Monday and then stay on the main island before flying home early on Tuesday. We later learnt that the management of Taiana’s and Fins n Fluke had fallen out with each other over a number of issues ranging from Taiana’s running whale watching tours without a license to Fins n Fluke taking people diving and then transferring the customers to Uoleva, thus ensuring Taiana’s missed out on the semi-lucrative boat transfer charge.

Uoleva from the air

In one word, it was ridiculous. Fins n Fluke were more than happy to take us diving but Taiana’s wouldn’t allow it. We even offered to pay the transfer for our luggage so Taiana’s still got paid the fee but the answer was no. The question is how can an accommodation provider ‘not allow’ a guest to use another service provider? The situation perfectly encapsulates the Tongan way of doing business; they have no sense of customer service and no idea about how service now can affect your long term business. That day they actually kicked out two other couples who went diving. Those couples had to find other accommodation - luckily for us this meant we were able to sleep in a fale and not a tent - where else in the world would this happen? I would confidently wager nowhere.

Our fale complete with coconut tree leaf and garbage bag roof

Despite this start we actually had a great time on Uoleva. We spent our days chilling on the beach, drinking beers and rum (while we didn’t bring any food on the trip we brought enough alcohol to get us through four days…. Good planning!!) before going spear fishing to catch dinner and retiring to the beach to drink more beer and rum (usually warm by this stage due to a lack of fridge, esky or ice) before starting up a fire on the beach for the night. It was a great way to spend three days and the marine life was stunning. There were countless fish, beautiful coral while we also saw a number of large reef sharks, a turtle, eels and stingrays.

There were also a few characters on the island, which kept things interesting. The resort is a family run resort and the head of the family is Kalafi, a one-armed Tongan who used to be the national boxing champion of Tonga, before he lost his arm obviously. Kalafi was telling us one night that while he was born and bred on Uoleva, he discovered that he just “loved to fight” and that as a youngster he would go across to the main island of Pangai to drink and basically look for fights. This led him to take up boxing where, according to Kalafi, he quickly beat opponents from all over Tonga regardless of their weight divisions to become champion of Tonga. This was all before losing his arm in a drunken fight where he was thrown through a glass door; his arm was shattered and had to be amputated.

Kalafi

Taiana’s also had a semi-permanent resident in the American, ‘Lefty’. Lefty (we thought he may have been nicknamed Lefty as he cut Kalafi's right arm off) is 62 and has spent the past four months living at Taiana’s, he has apparently travelled to Tonga each year for the past decade and spent two to six months living on Uoleva each trip. Lefty is a retired gardener/artist/dancer/musician who would like to turn Taiana’s into an “Artist’s Colony”. Personally I thought that was code for a hippy commune where Lefty could smoke all the green he likes and spend his days producing his “modern art”. During our stay Lefty treated us to such entertainment as producing a piece of modern art (it was like one of those paintings you see sometimes where the artist has just thrown different coloured paint at the canvas and called it art), some interpretative dance at breakfast (it was all we could do to keep a straight face after waking up with rum induced hangovers to watch a 62 year old bronzed, topless man, with hair the length of his back dance interpretively for us) and some soothing music which consisted of Lefty simultaneously playing the harmonica, maracas and finger symbols.

Silhouette of Lefty

As Monday rolled around we asked for our bill before setting off to go diving and stay our final night at Matafonoa Lodge on the island of Foa. We only had 525 Pa’anga between the three of us and it turned out (partly due to the fact that Taiana’s seemed to be making up costs and inflating costs as they went along) that we didn’t have enough. At this stage we were unaware of the lack of ATMs in Pangai, the main town of Ha’apai, and asked if we could go to the bank to withdraw the extra money to pay our bill. After being transferred to the main island and visiting the bank of Pangai (which was shut due to it being Easter Monday) we learnt there was not a single ATM in the whole of Ha’apai. We were lucky that one Palangi (white person) owned business, Mariner’s Café, was open and the generous owner Magda, agreed to lend us the money. Again, the owners of Taiana’s seemed to have no idea what to do if customers didn’t have enough cash to pay their bill, however if they informed us at the time of booking that they only accepted cash (which you would think quite sensible), we would have made an effort to carry more money.

After lunch at Mariner’s Café we went diving with Brian and Sabina at Fins n Flukes. I have been living in Tonga for six months and these were my first dives and all I can say is that it was an amazing experience. The visibility was unbelievable and the marine life and coral formations were incredible. Brian and Sabina were great and I would love to travel to Ha’apai again and go diving with them once more when the whales arrive on their migration in June/July. Again we didn’t have any cash to pay our bill, however Brian and Sabina had no problem giving us their bank details to transfer the cash in at a later date.

Our final night on Ha’apai was spent at Matafonoa Lodge on Foa Island. Foa is connected to the main island of Pangai by a crudely constructed causeway and Matafonoa is located right on the tip of the island. It is a beautiful location and the accommodation is pretty decent too with a number of Tongan-style beach front fales scattered about their premises. Matafonoa is owned by an English couple, Darren and his wife (not sure we actually got her name!!), and Darren has previously worked as an underwater cameraman for all manner of documentary channels. We spent the night drinking COLD BEERS (an absolute luxury by that stage), eating a delicious home-cooked dinner and talking rubbish to Darren.

Didnt move far from these chairs most days

Ha’apai is a beautiful place and I would recommend anyone travelling to Tonga go there and spend a few nights relaxing in this beautifully isolated part of the South Pacific. The sad thing is, is that a little bit of service made all the difference in leaving a great impression. If I were to return to Ha’apai I would almost definitely stay at Matafonoa once more, this is despite Taiana’s being cheaper and arguably at a more aesthetically beautiful location. Unfortunately, the issues experienced at Taiana’s pervade elsewhere in Tonga. If Tonga is to become the truly popular tourist destination that its’ natural beauty deserves, Tongans need to learn the basic 101s’ of customer service.

Our pilot Callum ahead of our flight back - managed to get the co-pilot's seat on the flight!

Tonga from the air

A Day in the Life of a Football Coach

This blog is dedicated to those who think that being a full-time football coach in Tonga, is in some way, shape or form a bit of a bludge. While I admit that, at times, in fact on many occasions over the past six months here in Tonga, I have had little to do apart from sit at Keleti Beach with a beer, read my book and go for a few swims, now that the Tongan Major League has finished preparation for the National Team’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers at the South Pacific Games in August/September has stepped up. We have been training for three weeks now and the below is an example of a typical day which I will experience 4-5 times per week over the next four months as National Team Coach of Tonga.

The view from 'my spot' at Keleti

6:30am – Wake-up and get ready for the day. I usually wake up naturally at this time now due to the cacophony of farm-yard noises created by various roosters, pigs and dogs outside my window every morning. I have breakfast and a bucket shower - our indoor showers don’t work that well so instead, we fill up a bucket outside and throw it over our heads every morning much to the delight of our neighbours.

6:55am – After a five minute bike ride I arrive at the national gym to meet our Strength Coach ahead of the morning’s session.

7:00am – Group one arrives at the gym and warm-up (we currently have a squad of 32 players so divide the team into two groups for the hour long gym sessions). We dedicate two gym sessions per week to building strength and one/two sessions to core strength and agility.

9:15am – Group two finish their gym session and are transported back home in the Tonga Football Association (TFA) bus.

9:30am – After chatting with our Strength Coach and reviewing the morning’s session I usually spend 30-45 minutes in the gym doing/pretending to do my own work.

10:00am – It’s either off to Friends Café for Bombay Eggs or to Café Escape for breakfast and the luxury of air-conditioning. I use the internet here to respond to/delete the various banter emails I get from home (which can total 70+ in a day) and check the latest football news.

11:30am – Arrive at work after a 30 minute (11km) bike ride from Nuku ‘Alofa to the TFA. If it is raining or has just rained, this journey is a pain in the arse as I don’t have a mud guard on my one-gear bike and my back can be covered in mud (as it was this morning) when I arrive at work. While there are supposed to be 15 full-time workers at TFA I usually arrive to a near deserted office. Tongans are clearly not fans of work in general and we are lucky if the majority of employees turn up for more than an hour or two of work each day.

1:00pm – After a couple of hours mucking about on Facebook, email, Skype and SMH.com.au, I map out the coming week’s training sessions.

2:00pm – Sit down with my support coaches (I currently have three Tongan Assistants, including my “boss”, a Fijian Assistant, an American Strength Coach and a Swedish Physio…. Unfortunately the Swedish Physio is not a female) and explain the afternoon’s training session, their roles and the drills we will be running.

This can take some time as even if Tongans don’t understand something they will say they do anyway. It can usually take a verbal explanation accompanied with diagrams and giving a physical example out on the pitch for my Assistants to understand these drills. It does feel good however that the guys are learning and that I am building their capacity to run future training sessions by themselves. I would love to get to a point here in Tonga where I can allocate the training drills to different coaches and then ‘manage’ the session and only step in at key points… I doubt this can or will happen though.

2:45pm – Head outside into the consistently humid 25-30 degree heat to set-up the fields. I quite like this part of the day as it’s quiet and our fields are surrounded by palm trees so I find it relaxing to be wandering about my ‘office’ and when I compare my office to that of most of my friends and family back home, I realise, that for the next four-five months I am very lucky to be working in this environment.

The Office

3:15pm – Try and have a late lunch, chill out and muck about on the internet before training starts.

4:00pm – All the boys should have arrived if they have slight injuries now is the time to speak to our Swedish physio. It is much to the disappointment of the boys as well that the physio is not a Swedish female. This opinion was formed after our physio’s girlfriends, also Swedish, turned up at training last week.

4:15pm – Head out to the training fields, make sure all the boys have arrived and begin training. Training here is slightly different to anything that I have experience in the past as:

• Before and after each training session it is customary to pray.

• The boys, even the most experienced players, have never really been trained properly and each drill we do, even the most basic, is new to them. So it takes time to explain and give demonstrations of each drill and requires a bit of patience to wait for the boys to understand exactly what they should be doing before correcting technical aspects of their play.

• I don’t speak fluent Tongan but try to speak as much of it as possible. I feel I have learned the important words so far – leilei Oma (lay-lay oma) = sprint; ngaue malohi (na-u-he ma-lo-he) = work hard; fakacau’cau’ (Fa-ka-Cow-Cow – my favourite) = think; faka piko’piko (as spelt and another favourite) = lazy. I have learnt more football-specific words but those, especially the last two are my favourites.

6:15pm – As it does take a little bit of time to explain each drill and wait for translations we normally finish after close to 120 minutes. Being honest, the boys are technically not great but you would come to expect that from a bunch of amateurs who have never been trained before. However, they work incredibly hard, have a great team spirit and, most importantly, are doing their best.

6:30pm - After letting the boys cool down I usually summarise the training back in the office and take note of who has performed well and who has not. It is then my job to drive half the team back home. My job description really should be – National Team Coach/Bus Driver. Most of the boys don’t work let alone own cars so after making their way to training through a combination of running, hitch-hiking or jumping on one of the infrequent public buses, I make sure they get home as quickly as possible.

7:30-8:30pm-ish – Tonga is bigger than I expected. It takes ages to drop everyone home and I only cover half the island, my Fijian Assistant takes the boys who live out east back home and I cover the west and central parts of the island. I get home and if it’s Thursday or a Friday it is time for a beer or two and dinner in Nuku ‘Alofa and potentially some grinding at The Billfish, if not then hopefully one of my housemates has cooked dinner!

The Billy

As you can see days can be quite long; however this is balanced by the one or two days each week where we only have the afternoon session or the boys play an inter-team trial in the afternoon. On these days I generally sit at Keleti Beach with a beer, some of the freshest fish ‘n’ chips for lunch, snooze in the sun, read my book and swim in the balmy South Pacific until it is time to get back on the bike for a five minute ride back to work for training.

Not a bad way to spend a year!!

Keleti Beach

N.B. - Its Friday here which invariably means the internet is rubbish so I have only been able to upload two photos. I will try and upload more as the afternoon goes on.