Since Captain Cook first landed here, Tonga has charmed travelers with its wild feasts, friendly people and awe-inspiring natural beauty. The modern world has crept into the kingdom with LA gangster wear more common than traditional waist mats on the streets of Tongatapu. Still the islands remain peaceful and visually spectacular with rainforest crater lakes and volcanic peaks.

May to October is the best time to visit as summer (November-April ) is the hurricane season

Gorging yourself at a Tongan feast, especially on Tongatapu and Vava’u Dodging the spray at the Mapu’a a Vaca Blowholes, Tongatapu-a 5km stretch of geyser-like blowholes with fountains of seawater up to 30m high Stumbling through unexplored tropical rainforests and limestone caves on ‘Eua their boudoir Climbing eerie, uninhabited (but still active) volcanoes that rise out of the ocean on Tofua and Kao

Read Tonga lslands: William Mariner’s Account by Dr John Martin, published in 1817 and still one of the best books on pre-Christian Tonga

Listen to Dance Music of Tonga-Malie! Beautiful, a sampler of various artists of traditional music

Watch The Other Side of Heaven, a Disney story of a 1950s missionary preaching inTonga

Eat a genuine Tonhgan feast served in an umu ( underground oven), taro and sweet potato, roasted suckling pig, chicken, corned beef, fish and shellfish

Drink kava (Piper methysticum), the all-purpose forget-your-cares-and-stare-at-the-sunset tipple that’s widely available

Malo e lelei (hello)

Friendly indigenous people; migrating humpback whales; kings and queens ruling an island paradise; tapa adoring the walls of even building; packed churches on Sunday

Despite the sackloads of tourist dollars whale-watching brings in, Tonga has a prominent whaling lobby that believes hunting the sea mammals is a long-honoured part of Tonga culture. The king, however, outlawed whaling in the 1970s.

From Captain to Paul Theroux, Tonga has beguiled, charmed and frustrated travelers who have tried to get under the skin of this enigmatic kingdom. Sometimes warmly friendly, sometimes reserved and insular, it defies sweeping description despite being one of the Pacific’s most homogeneous societies.