It’s a long way to Ha’apai.
31 hours or so, if you have good plane connections--all five of them.
For us, it’s Jacksonville to Charlotte and a one hour layover. Then
Charlotte to LAX, and 3 hours awaiting the next flight. Fiji Airways
leaves LAX at 11:30 p.m. and after a 13-hour flight arrives in Fiji at 5:50
a.m. two days later (all right, it’s not really two days--you know all
about that pesky international date line). 90 minutes later, we leave
Fiji for Tongatapu, Tonga, on a 2-hour turboprop
flight. There, we hang around 5 hours before leaving on Real Tonga
Airlines, arriving at the Ha’apai airport around 4 in the afternoon, to be
transported to a beach resort where the fun begins.
en route to Tonga
Real Tonga Airlines has a
reputation for erratic behavior when it comes to on time departures.
We’ve read stories about flights leaving hours earlier than scheduled,
not leaving at all, and not allowing all the ticketed passengers to fly.
Our next report will be to let you know whether we made it through the
flights and why we are making the trip. Maybe we will share some of the
fascinating history of the place. For the time being, we’re on Fiji
Airways somewhere over the Pacific, already exhausted.
Charlie and Tricia
© 2015
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