Daily Photo - Nu’kualofa, Tonga

Daily Travel Photo - Tonga

Kids at a blowhole in Tonga

Daily Travel Photo - Nuku’alofa, Tonga

While in Tonga, I stopped by a high school rugby match. I was introduced to rugby in the Pacific as it is the biggest sport in New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

My Afternoon At The Footy

While I knew of rugby and even knew people who played rugby, my first real introduction to rugby has come during my trip here to the Pacific. New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga are all big rugby countries, and its hard to avoid it when you’re here.

In Tonga, while wandering around Nuku’alofa, I came across a high school rugby match and decided to go in and take some photos.

My descriptions of the game should be taken as someone that really doesn’t know much about rugby, so if I say something wrong, feel free to correct me. I’m also going to use American football terms to describe stuff because I have no clue what the rugby term for it would be. I did no research on rugby prior to writing this…

If you are a rugby fan, you will probably pull your hair out and roll your eyes at some of the things I say and how I describe it. Be forewarned.

Overview

If you are a North American who understands American football, you can probably get the gist of rugby in a few minutes of watching it. Likewise, I think anyone familiar with rugby can get American football quickly. (American football evolved from rugby)

The field is pretty much the same. It’s about the same length, it has goal posts and there are 10 zones on the field (like yard lines). I think a rugby field is a bit wider.

The ball is also similar. Its oblong like a football but without laces. The surface feels more like a basketball. It seems much easier to drop kick in rugby (kicking the ball after it bounces). The drop kick was always a rule in American Football, but I’ve never seen anyone able to pull it off given the shape of the ball.

The scoring is also similar. You want to get the ball into the endzone. If you do, you can kick for extra points. A touchdown in rugby is only 5 points and the extra point kick is for 2. You can also kick a field goal for 3 points. Final scores in football and rugby seem very similar.

There is also punting in rugby. Punts can happen at anytime and can be kicked by anyone with the ball. The purpose of the punt is the same as in football…to give the opponent poor field position.

The biggest differences between rugby and football: there are no downs, there is no forward passing, there isn’t any blocking, and very little padding. The entire game is like a last minute play in football where everyone is trying to lateral the ball.

Pre-Game

The stadium could have been any high school football stadium in the US…except I think this is where the national team also plays its games. There was what appeared to be a Royal box with the coat of arms for the Kingdom of Tonga not far from where I was sitting.

The teams came out, lined up on the track, joined arms and said something in Tongan and bowed. I assume it was some sort of sportsmanship pledge or something. Everyone clapped.

After that, both teams got onto the field and did what can only be described as a pre-game tradition in the Pacific: the haka.

The blue team from Toloa College (college means the same thing as High School here, like it does in the UK) did a normal tough guy type haka. The green team from Takuilau College started off doing a normal one, but then seemed to end up doing a nursery rhyme and they started touching their toes. Everyone laughed. It was in Tongan, so I couldn’t understand, but I think I got the gist of it.

I was told later that all the schools on the island have different colored uniforms on the basis of what religion runs the school. Green is Mormon and blue is Methodist, so I assume that was what I saw at the game.

The game began with a kickoff, which was not as dramatic compared to a kickoff in American Football. Like in basektball or soccer, the play centers around the ball. It is different than in American Football, because the flow of play is chopped up into downs and everyone is active on every play even if its just blocking or running a route.

The part of rugby that most Americans would recognize is the scrum.

A scrum is sort of the same as a tip off in basketball when a ball needs to be put back into play. The sides sort of press their shoulders against each other and the ball is thrown into the pile on the ground.

Another part of the game I found interesting was how they threw the ball into play from out of bounds. They would throw it like soccer, but they would lift a team mate up into the air to do an alley-oop type pass back to another team mater. Really neat.

The rugby field goal is also unlike Football field goals. You can take it after a penalty and like the kickoff, there is no rushing of the kicker. Likewise, the extra point kick is different. You kick from where the ball entered the endzone. There is a strong incentive to get the ball in the endzone in the middle of the field to set up and easy kick.

The were lots of soliders out in Nuku’alofa that day. I was told it was because there had been fights in the past between the two schools. Somehow, I don’t think it was the entire truth….

The students started dribbling in after the game started and didn’t sit in the stands with the rest of the spectators. The blue students sort of took the prime space at the 50 yard line. They were far more vocal and did most of the cheering.

The green students were lined up vertically from the field. I thought it was really odd. It looked like they were going to rush the other students.

I eventually realized that they were all sitting in the shade of one of the light posts.

The concessions were similar to what you would see at a high school game in the US. People selling food on folding tables - bags of homegrown peanuts and large bottles of orange soda. The peanut vendors were unique, however…

It was an interesting afternoon. After the main match, there was a seven man game between the two schools as well. The seven man teams appeared to have separate rosters. I was surprised they didn’t play first.

….oh, and the blue team won.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms

Almost every night I get to tell the same story: the story of my trip. Most people I meet on my travels are just visiting somewhere for a weekend. Sometimes I’ll pull out my laptop and show them the Google Earth map and walk them through the places I’ve been and the places I’m going.

People who are traveling for extended periods are usually just stopping in the Pacific on their way to somewhere else, usually the US or Australia/New Zealand. Few people visit more than one Pacific country. (Although I’ve met several Aussies and Kiwis who have been to several countries over the course of their lives)

I was asked by a woman last week, “Aren’t all the islands pretty much the same? Once you’ve seen one haven’t you seen them all?”

It’s a fair question I guess. Without having been there, I suppose most islands would seem the same. Certainly, in Polynesia at least, many things are similar. The languages are similar, the foods, what few they have, are similar, and the music and dancing are similar.

But they are different, sometimes dramatically so. The best example of this is difference between Tonga and Samoa.

Tonga and Samoa have histories that are intertwined. Tonga was originally settled by polynesians from Samoa. (In fact, all polynesians can trace their roots back to Samoa). Prior to the arrival of Europeans Samoa was ruled by Tonga. Samoa and Tonga are both regional powers in Rugby. Both have populations similar in size. Both have large expatriate populations. And of course, they are close together.

Yet, Tonga and Samoa are very different.

For starters, Tonga was never colonized and Samoa was colonized by the Germans, New Zealand, and in part by the United States.

In Samoa they drive in the right and in Tonga they drive on the left.

Last September, the King of Tonga died and in May, the King of Samoa died. The King of Tonga was buried in the royal graveyard in the middle of the capital. No one can get within about 200 yards of the grave. The King of Samoa is buried off the road just north out from town near the parliament building, and the grave is accessible by everyone. Many people have left flowers at the site, but it isn’t a giant edifice like the Tonga royal graveyard is.

While in Tonga, I saw soldiers all over the place. Soldiers around the royal palace. Soldiers near the new king’s palace. Soliders in the downtown. Solders out to keep peace during a high school rugby match. On the tour of the island, I was struck at how often our guide would mention stories or customs in villages that surrounded warriors. I also saw lots of police on the island. That is a lot of uniforms for a country of about 100,000.

In Samoa, they have no military. None. I saw a few police directing traffic. That’s it. The Samoans seemed like a much more peaceful people than the Tongans. The recent riots don’t take away from that perception. Nor does the historical fact that Samoa was conquered by the Tongans before the arrival of the Europeans.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Samoan village life is very structured around the village. Tongan villages seem more like small towns and not as highly centralized as Samoan villages.

I suppose if you just went to these islands to sit on the beach you wouldn’t catch a lot of this stuff. This is why I’m traveling.

Time Zones….or, how I’m not really sure if I’ve lost or gained a day

Tonight I’m going back to Samoa to pick up my Chinese visa. It will be my fourth trip across the date line in a month. I’ll have to make a 5th trip across in a few days going back to Fiji. I might have to make a 6th and a 7th crossing, but I’ll know more about that shortly. I hope I don’t have to.

Everyone is pretty familiar with time zones. I’m sure you’ve crossed time zones and have an intutitive understanding why they exist. The Earth is a sphere and we have noon at different times. The idea originally came from the railroad companies. Because each town would have a different noon (the time at which the sun is at its highest point) organizing schedules became difficult. Time zones were a means to keep everyone on the same page for what time it was.

In theory its pretty simple. Greenwich, English was picked as the arbitrary point for the Prime Meridian. There is nothing special about it, its just that is where the Royal Observatory happens to be and the English in the 19th Century took the lead in these matters.

Because there are 24 hours in a day, the Earth should have 24 time zones of one hour increments, going 12 hours plus or minus from Greenwich. Exactly on the other end of the Earth, there needs to be a line where the day changes, else it gets into problem when each side going backwards and forwards meet each other on the other side.

Picking Greenwich as the Prime Meridian was actually a good move if only because it put the 180 degree longitude line in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean. 180 degrees longitude is the theoretical date line.

In practice, however, you have to move it a round a bit. Most countries don’t want to have their countries split in different parts by day. It makes things really confusing. There is a tiny stub of Siberia which is in the western hemisphere, a few of the last islands in the Aleutian Island chain in Alaska are in the Eastern Hemisphere, some of the minor island in Fiji are in the west….and the nation of Kiribati (which I’ll get to soon).

What I said about there being 24 time zones is also not true in practice. There are some time zones that are offset by a half hour (Labrador and Newfoundland for example. There are also some odd fractional hour time zones in India. China puts the whole country into one time zone, even though it should really be five.

And then there is Tonga. Even if there aren’t 24 time zones, you’d think they still would all be within 12 hours plus or minus of UTC (UTC = Greenwich Mean Time without daylight savings). You’d be wrong. Tonga is +13 UTC. It is east of 180 degrees longitude, but sits on the west side of the date line.

Kiribati is the worst offender. It is a country of several island chains in the north Pacific. The country is really spread in two on either side of 180 degrees longitude. They just lumped everything together and made a huge bend in the dateline. They only only have parts which are +13 UTC, they also have islands that are +14 UTC. The same clock time as Hawaii, but a day ahead!

I think Tonga is on this side of the date line so they can share the same day as New Zealand and Australia who are their major trading partners. Kiribati I think did it so it could say it was the first country in the world to usher in the year 2000. (Geraldo went there, so it must have worked to some degree)

My 6th and 7th crossing will all depend on if they still run flights from Kiribati to the Marshall Islands. If they do (and all the flight schedules you see online are usually out of date) then I don’t have to. If they don’t, then I may have to fly to Hawai’i, which I’d rather not have to do. Ideally, I’d like to fly Our Air (formerly Air Nauru) from Honoria to Nauru to Tarawa, Kiribati then to the Marshalls. That would be the easiest trip, but I have read they may cancel the Tarawa and Marshalls part of the flight.

Such is life in the Pacific…..

Living on Tonga Time

I’m alive in Nuku’alofa, Tonga!

My initial thoughts in the drive in from the airport:

• Like most pacific countries, it seems like there was a burst of building activities in 50s and 60s. My “hotel” tonight looks like something you’d have made on a road trip in the Kennedy administration.
• There were fields with crops and houses and businesses, which is more than you can say about driving around Samoa.
• Things seem cheap so far. An hour at this internet cafe is T$3 which is about US$1.50.
• FIVE Mormon churches between the airport and Nuku’alofa.
• The Tonga and Samoa time zones are not pre-programmed on my watch. They have the same clock time, but different days. I’ve been using the Hawaii time zone and subtracting an hour, but now I have to subtract an hour and add a day.
• I am told they have cheap WiMax broadband around Tonga. If so, I’m impressed.
• I see no evidence of the riots that happened last year. There are a bunch of empty lots around town however. I wonder if they just demolished what couldn’t be fixed.
• Go and look at the flags for Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands, and other former British Colonies. They all have the Union Jack in the upper left corner where we have the stars. On that basis, you’d think that Tonga was a former Swiss Colony.
• Tonga was the only place in the Pacific that wasn’t colonized.
• This is the first atoll I’ve been on since my trip started.

Turning Lemons Into Lemon Flavored Drink….with real Lemons!

I managed to salvage the missed Tonga flight. I went to the Air New Zealand office in Apia and got the ticket changed to July 11, which is when I should be arriving back from Tokelau.

If the Tokelau boat can’t get fixed before then, I can move the date up a week.

I also went into a travel agent in town and asked them handle my tickets for Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and PNG. I’m not going to bother trying to arrange my own travel in the Pacific anymore. That should give me a month planned ahead, which is far more than I’ve had so far in the trip.

The only big mystery for me now in the Pacific is Kiribati. I know I can get there from Nauru (or at least I think I do. I shouldn’t assume any flight schedules are true around here). I don’t know if i can go from Kiribati to Guam or the Marshall Islands, however. If I can figure that out, then I should be set on everything up to Japan.

I now need to work on getting my visas for China and Kiribati. I have to get the Kiribati visa in Suva, Fiji (they only have like 3 embassies in the world) and I can probably apply for the China visa there too.

I’m going to go around the island of Upalu today and then try to go to Savai’i over the weekend. Savai’i is supposed to have the western most point on Earth…which considering it’s sphere really means its the western most point of land on this side of the International Date line.