<h3>Tonga 'n' Stuff</h3>
Here I am in sunny Tonga, sitting 
  here trying to make my letter as <blink>impressive</blink>
  as possible.
  <p>We arrived 
    this morning, Monday the 25th or Sunday the 24th depending on which 
    side of the date line your on, in the Kingdom of Tonga. I am currently 
    confused as<img src="content/pic/trip1/king.jpg" width="277" height="250" align="right"> to which day it is and which day it is in England, or Sweden for that 
    matter. This is a lousy attempt at HTMLing a letter. Htmling is probably 
    not a proper English word but who gives! Tonga 
    appears to have a population of 50% officials who speak English in such 
    an appalling accent that I cannot describe it let alone understand it 
    the Skipper and Börje (both Swedish ) seem to be having even more trouble. 
    As officials go I suppose there not to bad..... they came to the boat, 
    all 4 of them, we didn't have to got too them, something I suppose we 
    should be thankful for. We are at the main ship wharf in Nuka Loafa 
    or some such place. All the names in the pacific islands are spelt in 
    English as they sound, usually they either don't sound like they're 
    spelt or they're spelt several different ways just to confuse you average 
    cixelsyd (dyslexic) ocean hippie. The reason for this is thought the 
    names have existed for a long time the Local language didn't have writing 
    until the arrival of the English, usually captain cook. Obviously I 
    can't spell very well anyhoo I mean anyhow. At least the English did 
    better here than they did in Fiji, the first Westerner to actually live 
    there was an English missionary. He was Rev. Thomas Baker, he converted 
    much of Fiji to Christianity, before he was put in a big pot and devoured 
    by cannibals from a near by island in 1867. Apparently his shoes are 
    still on show in the Fiji museum in Suva, our next port of call. </p>
  <p align="center"><img src="content/pic/trip1/turtle.jpg" alt="Thomas Turtle (turtle.jpg)"></p>
  <p>We were planning 
    to stop at some more islands in Tonga, that doesn't look possible however, 
    mostly because the quarantine people want to kill the cat, poor old 
    Abba. Now they have allowed the cat to live which is against the rules. 
    Since its against the rules they want to keep an eye on us and, more 
    likely, they don't want any other officials to find out they didn't 
    kill the cat . It isn't an ex cat it hasn't ceased to be (Yet). </p>
  <p><img src="content/pic/trip1/mod.jpg" alt="Tom on a scooter blowing his hooter (mod.jpg)" width="155" height="320" align="left">Unfortunately 
    for me it looks like my old job will be available when I get home..... 
    to spend my life as an under paid lab tech or not to spend my life as 
    an under paid lab tech that is the question. The answers obvious, don't 
    even think about it. I'll never make my fortune as a LRA (learning resource 
    assistant, lab tech in English).<br>
Tomorrow we are going to rent Scooters again, 20 Tonga dollars (pa'angas 
    or something) a day, I already have a valid UK driving licence and a 
    cook Islands driving licence. Which was copied off my UK one, my UK 
    one doesn't allow motorbikes... My cook islands one does, I'm sure I 
    can make some sort of deal with the 2 of them! Tonga has been clever, 
    they are about 176° West longitude, they should therefore be the last 
    place in the world to celebrate the new millennium, but they had some 
    clever person who decided to run the date line to the east of them so 
    they are 13 hours ahead of GMT, when they should be 11 behind. This 
    means that they stand to make an absolute fortune out of the Idiotic 
    Americans who want to be the first people to celebrate the millennium.</p>
  <p>The fact that 
    the millennium should logically be celebrated at the beginning of 2001 
    is a silly idea that no one cares about, not only that but the real 
    millennium should be celebrated at midnight in Israel if one was exact, 
    certainly not in Tonga who's deliberately moved the date line to make 
    money. I hope the hotels computers have the millennium bug it will serve 
    them right!</p>
  <p> <img src="content/pic/trip1/rumline.jpg" alt="Navigation Örnen style! (Rumline.jpg)" ></p>

<p><img src="content/pic/trip1/chess.jpg" alt="Börje plays chess, slowly (chess.jpg)" align="left">Time is 
  relative! This is easily proved by Börje playing chess, he takes 
  all week to make his move and then complains when I take more than 
  a minute. Score 1 game all, boredom stopped play OK well that's 
  all I have time for right now, see you sometime!<br>
  all right that's 
  not all..... After Tonga we've reached Suva in Fuji and Port Villa 
  in Vanuatu and this whole page was updated in Honiara, Guadacanal 
  the Solomon islands, we leave the 15th for Ghizo Island also in 
  the Solomon's. Its nice here but these a bit of a war going on like.........<br>
      
  Have a nice night (its day 
  round this side of the planet) </P>