Tonga-The Last (Plastic) Beach

South Pacific Serenade

This Morning On Deck

Well, I just completed the World Cruise on board Crystal Serenity  in May, and Yes, I have been here and done that-- when it comes to the South Pacific and Tonga too--Let's see if the adage  the first time you visit a country, you learn, the second time you live, on board P&O Australia's Pacific Pearl.

No Man Is An Island, yet after age 40, land is seldom seen and you can count your friends on one hand.

I am an expat, yet not every country will do. I don't know why, some countries fill the gaps and others emphasize my expat-ness. In reality those that satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my ''idea of them."

 Life’s a beach in an ocean of ennui is the take away from the South Pacific. These Islands are  extraordinary within their  limits, but their  limits are extraordinary. Yet if I do the math, an   emotional algebra adds up to 1+1=infinity. It's a pristine place.This is no 9 to 5. You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. It is just a fraction of you. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating on the last  plastic beach, just like in the brochures-fake authenticity, complete with thatched roofs and hula, and the palm trees are actually cell phone towers.