Tonga has 170 islands, only 36 are inhabited.

Nuku'alofa  is the capital and also an island.

"Tonga" means "South" and it is believed he inhabitants moved "South" from Samoa.
The Samoans and Tongans are considered to be the most intelligent of all the Polynesian people.
Having written and posted my very first postcards of this cruise,at 11.15 I went in search of a taxi and found a driver immediately.
The islnd of Nuku'alofa is 17 miles long and 9 miles wide.
There were four sites I wanted to see and we agreed the price of $60 for all.
The Kolovai village,the most beautiful of the villages we had driven through, is the home of the sacred  fruit bats,also known as flying foxes,who live in the casaurina trees.Smelly and noisy, they can only be killed  by  the Royals.
When we arrived, there was already a busload of people from the ship.
The three-headed coconut tree is one of the natural wonders of the Polynesian world and we passed one on the way to the next attraction,the  blowholes.
Blowholes are a 5 km stretch of shoreline,where the water shoots up to 20,30 m, creating the loveliest of spectacles,my favourite attraction on Tonga. For a few minutes there is nothing, then suddenly there is  a shot of water and you do not always have the chance to take a photo.
The Captain Cook's landing place,his third visit to Tonga in 1777, is a quiet bay amid dirt and squalor.
It is incomprehensible to me that the island can spare 7 days to celebrate the King's birthday for a week in July when everything is closed,yet they cannot find time to clean up at least around this much visited site.
Ha'amonga,a Maui Trilithon,is a structure similar to Stonehenge.No-one knows when it was built,probably 800 years ago.And no-one knows why it was built,very likely to determine the  seasons.
Tonga is the first country in the world to celebrate New Year.It is the first country in the world where the sun rises.
We passed a prison site,it looked better than many houses.
We stopped for the driver to replace a burst tyre.
We were handed a speeding ticket.
Tonga has about 100 000 residents,people drive with open doors, because someone who sleeps inside the car, has to stretch his legs.And my taxi driver manages to get a speeding ticket.Never in my entire life have I heard of a taxi driver getting a speeding ticket.
Yes, I loved Tonga.