Articles from this Category
22 December 2012
Above: Second blood-letting treatment, this time on my lower back. I opted to return to the Chinese physician today for a second treatment, this time it is for my back. This had seized up during my 11h of airborne hell from Auckland to Hong Kong. It had been overshadowed by the butt issues so I […]
20 December 2012
In February this year, I had a fall which saw me use crutches for 6 weeks. While my knee injury healed nicely, a complication left me with recurring pain in my left butt, glute, piriformis, whatever. And it radiates down my left leg some times. Despite visits to the physiotherapist, acupuncturist and osteopaths, it seemed […]
18 December 2012
It was a 0600 arrival into Hong Kong and that saw me reach downtown Nathan Road by around 0730. I’ve been let into hotels at this time before but luck wasn’t with me today. For a start, the hotel reception didn’t open till 0900 which meant that I had to go sit at McDonald’s with […]
22 October 2012
I was going to take the public bus into Apia today for a look-see before my night flight. I realised at breakfast that the owner was going to see the Prime Minister today to try get some funding for tsunami repairs required by the village. They offered me a ride for WST20 and dropped me […]
21 October 2012
Samoa is very Christian but perhaps not as much as Tonga. I was surprised to learn that dive shops are open as in Tonga, all activities come to a halt. As I had been to church before (in the islands), I didn’t go here. The singing is supposed to be very good. After breakfast, I […]
20 October 2012
We dived with Aquasamoa while on Upolu, Samoa. At that time, they were the only dive operator on the island as the other ones which we had read about appeared to have gone west. As with any dive outfit, the experience depends on who your dive master is on the day. We were very lucky. We […]
20 October 2012
We woke around 0700 and had breakfast of toast and fruit in the poolside garden. The Outrigger Hotel is an old but very well-kept place. It is somewhere we would come back to for another stay if we were to pass through Apia again. At 0815 we were collected by Aquasamoa for our dives back […]
1 September 2012
There was enough time to catch a light breakfast at Friends Cafe (which turns out to be owned by an ex-colleague of Kim’s). We headed to the airport around 0900 for our 1120 flight back to Auckland. On leaving Tonga, here’s my summary: It is probably my favourite Pacific Island so far. It is cheaper […]
31 August 2012
Above: The King’s Palace in Nukualofa. Today we head back to Tongatapu on the 1535 flight. The timing would allow us some activities (at a push) if we had been unsuccessful with whaleswim on the preceding days. Since we had been rather lucky, we could do absolutely nothing but laze around the guesthouse then go […]
30 August 2012
Today is our “spare” day in case weather or other factors prevented us from achieving our whale-swim or dives. Since everything had gone so well, we rented a scooter today to go sightseeing around the Vava’u. Due to its odd octopus-like shape, we thought we could go to a few different arms of the island. […]