A few years ago, when I was fortunate enough to make a great trip to New Zealand and Fiji, I called my story about this journey to the ends of the earth. However, sitting on Tonga, next to the ocean, I understand that I climbed this time even further.
The Kingdom of Tonga is a small island nation in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. There even a line of change dates had to move slightly. Time here is +13 from Greenwich and +10 relative to Moscow. Before that, I always believed that +12 is the maximum.
In fact, it creates the feeling that the time here is really a little bent and flows differently. It does not look like sluggishness traditional for hot countries. It just seems that part of everything that is happening on the island is lost somewhere. A good example is a local Sunday, when everything on the island freezes. The streets are empty, shops and restaurants do not work, and ships do not go to sea.
Only tanned pigs running along the streets, confirm that people live here. Most of the inhabitants will return only after dark. And the tourists are left to themselves all day. On the other days, life goes on and everything repeats with minimal changes. Especially, if now, the season of whales.
Actually it is the whales that attract tourists here. Forcing to spend tens of hours on the road, doing three or four flights.
In order to understand the possible routes, I will name the main places from where they fly to Tonga. There are flights from Auckland (New Zealand), Sydney (Australia) or as in our case Nadi (Fiji). Almost all of them fly to the island, where the capital is located. On whales, the same goes with the other two islands: Vava'u and Ha'apai where also need to fly.
But we specifically chose the option of direct flight to Vava'u winning in convenience, although having received large, for several days, docking in Fiji.
But as you understand, Fiji itself is not a bad place to relax. And instead of a long wait for the flight, we made ourselves a all-purpose vacation in Fiji. Diving in them with sharks and much more.
So, to get to Tonga, you must spend at least 20-odd hours in the air.
Is it worth it? Certainly yes.
There are not many places in the world where you can not just watch, but also be together in the water with the largest inhabitants of our planet. To see their relationship, listen to their songs and conversations, and of course look at the very small, as far as this word is relevant in this case, the newly born baby whales.
The baby whale at the age of a couple of weeks can be about 3x-4 meters long and constantly spinning around its mother. He is not yet able to hold his breath for a long time, on this deeper 10-15 meters does not go away, continually rising to the surface. The mother, however, usually either stands in place at a shallow depth or slowly moves. In this case, the whale, if tired, can lie on her back and relax.
We also managed to look at pairs of adult whales, which, depending on time of day and weather, either played and jumped from the water, or hung at a depth of a couple of dozen meters, only occasionally getting up to breathe.
At the same time, probably, one of the most memorable moments was the whale's sight directed at you. When between him and you there is an order of a couple of meters, you look at him, and he's at you. Great eye, another intelligent being.
All these impressions are very close to all those few tourists who come to Tonga from all over the world. Several dozen people, who spend 8-10 hours a day in the sea, to once again be close to their dream.
