Into Polynesia

With the bright fluorescent lights, the uncomfortable chairs, overhead announcements, and occasional vacuuming, sleeping in the airport proves to be more difficult than I had anticipated. 

I manage to snatch maybe an hour’s worth through the night (I think), before checking my baggage and boarding a flight to Nuku’Alofa at 5:00 a.m. 

Sleeping on the plane is easier. I can’t concentrate on my book, and I unconsciously curl down into my seat, blinking slowly, eyelids heavy. Before drifting off, I notice that we are flying over orange clouds, into the coming sunrise. I can hear John chatting up an elderly lady as my book falls into my lap.

He wakes me when the first islands come into view. 

They are just the kind of tiny, isolated, and uninhabited islands you might imagine getting shipwrecked on. They seem to erupt here and there, volcanoes of jungle and white sand on a silver ocean. 

On the other hand, Tonga is much flatter than I thought it would be. I have never been to the Prairies, but as the plane passes over, I think to myself: This is the flattest place I have ever seen. Palm trees, planted in perfectly straight rows, cover much of the island. I wonder out loud if these are palm oil or coconut plantations, but then, who knows. 

We land in the greenest airport I could have imagined – just a single paved runway and a little parking lot, surrounded by summer grasses, gardens, and lush jungle on all sides.

After an appropriate amount of waiting and jostling, everyone steps off the air-conditioned plane and into the hot, moist air. I breathe deeply. It’s so hot you can taste it, and it smells divine, like a tropical perfume of green plants and sweet juices. 

I have made it into Polynesia.

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Our room is simple, clean and cool. Crisp linens and red trumpet flowers welcome us to our bed. 

The windows face both east and west, and toward the beach, we can see the other guesthouses. They are round bungalows with grass-woven exteriors, looking picturesque among the riot of jungle. Sven, the owner, has turned a careful hand to what was once plantation land, and has created a garden, full of coconut palms, banana trees, papaya, avocado, and mango trees, many kinds of tropical flowers, aloe, vanilla and coffee plants, papaws, and of course, Heilala trees, which give the lodge its name.

view from our window

I immediately change into cooler clothes and put a flower behind my ear. We haven’t eaten in about twenty hours, but we have no food, and we’re about a half-hour drive from town. We have no Tongan money, in any case.

Outside, hammocks swing in the shade, and palm trees lead onto the beach. We can see white waves curling onto the reef, far out on the horizon; it’s low tide. The beach is steeply banked with deep sand, very hot, very soft, and made out of shell fragments – the pounded and rounded refuse of the sea. Further down, the retreating waves have left white coral skeletons behind.

The water is as warm as I’d hoped, warmer than a lake in midsummer. A cool bath.

We’ve heard a rumour about a restaurant around here somewhere, and we’re hoping that they accept Visa.

We choose a likely direction – south – and begin plowing through the waves. I feel marginally cooler with my feet in the ocean. I wonder how far out the coral is. Right now, all we can see is seaweed, growing like a bed of brown cauliflower. 

I see sand-coloured crabs scuttle across the beach, almost faster than I can follow with my eyes, and disappear. Their camouflage is so perfect that you can’t see them at all when they’re still.

“Lid!” John hisses urgently, freezing. “You want to see this. Come here right now.”

I try not to make too much noise as I catch up and follow his gaze: several bright blue damselfish and two yellow butterfly fish flirt with the cover of the seaweed – just like in a saltwater fish tank. As we watch, a larger one, silver with black stripes, streaks by. 

I feel a wave of excitement. We’re in the tropics.

John spots an eel, gliding along beautifully, like a gymnast’s ribbon. It has no fear of John, who tries to pet it but stops short at my paranoid warning. The eel’s tiny eyes inspect John’s hand, seeming to smell it, perhaps to see if it’s food. Then it carries on, nonchalantly.

“I can’t wait to go snorkeling!” he declares, gesturing grandly.

                *             *             *             *             *

The restaurant is beautiful. It’s got an enormous deck that sprawls out onto the beach, and no windows in front – just open air, all the way back to the pool table, lounge, and bar. Inside, a vaulted ceiling, decorated with woven grass, creates luxurious space, and the cool tile floors, pillars, and carved teak furniture radiate wealth.

We order two surprisingly cheap beers, a sandwich, a chicken salad, and a bowl of fries for 35 Tongan dollars – about 18 Canadian dollars. The food is really good, too. Maybe we’re just hungry, or maybe we’re just glad it’s so cheap, but as we sit in the shade- with our cold, sweating beer bottles, the breeze cooling our skin, overlooking a tropical beach pristine enough to be a commercial for Corona- I think this is one of the best lunches of my life.

                *             *             *             *             *

The heat, the food, the beer, the lack of sleep – snorkeling sounds fun in theory, but first I need a nap.

Luckily, with the fan on, our room is still relatively cool, so I sprawl out on the bed and close my eyes. I can hear strange birds calling – some of them sound like monkeys. The bed seems to spin up to meet me; I fall asleep instantly, with my arms stretched over my head, as if I am about to dive into deep water.

Some time later, I wake for a moment; my arms have fallen asleep. The sun is setting, the forest is cooling, and the air coming in through the windows flaps the curtains hypnotically. I roll onto my side and exhale, deciding to let the nap have its way with me.

I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep. When next I open my eyes, it’s fully dark, although an enormous full moon is rising up out of the trees, its brilliance casting long shadows in the room. A chorus of insects buzzes and chirps in the silence. The palm trees are silhouetted against the dark blue sky, and as I watch, I see a giant fruit bat land clumsily in a papaw tree. 

I’m wide-awake, and in a few minutes, John is too. I wonder out loud if we should just sleep through the night or try to get some dinner. I grope in the dark for my iPod and find that it’s only 7:30. 

Definitely dinner, I think, as my stomach makes that gurgling sound.

*             *             *             *             *

The only place we know of with food is the beach restaurant, so we go back. It’s mostly empty, but we see a few other guests who are staying at Heilala, including a young Danish couple and a boy from Holland.

Our server is delightful. John orders grilled fish with white wine, and I order the prawn-stuffed chicken (how could that not be good).

And yet, it is even better than I thought it would be. The chicken breast is stuffed with prawns as promised, but it’s also smothered in a buttery rose sauce with scallops, crayfish and chives, and served with herbed potatoes and salad. The sauce is so good that it tugs at my brain and makes my face twitch. John’s fish turns out to be tuna steak, medium rare, finished with a creamy white wine and dill sauce. This time, our meals and drinks cost us maybe forty Canadian dollars.  

So worth it. 

The Danish couple has a little girl who’s maybe two, all big eyes and damp blond curls. I watch them dance together with their child in their arms, on the verandah under the stars, the ocean crashing behind them.

Of all the dinners in my life, I know that this one will stand out in my memory when I am old.