Secret? Not really. Strange? Yes, decidedly. We visited two of Tonga’s island groups. Tongatapu, which houses the capital, Nuku’alofa, and Ha’apai, a few hundred miles to the north, and decades in the past. Tapu gives us the word taboo – the only Tongan word to make its way into English. Tonga meanwhile, means south. So Secret South it is. If the Tongans were solely responsible for their tourism, this is perhaps how it would remain. The few elements of tourist infrastructure that we saw tended to be run by foreigners, mainly Europeans. By their own admission, Tongans are not great business people. They’re not particularly keen on the beach either, meaning on our visits we usually had the sea and sand to ourselves, along with the aquatic life. So untouched are some of the waters, that
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