June• 2019 | 105T
he King of Tonga saved my life.
This, a ny way, is how I like to
tell t he story. But this dine-out
tale m ay well be true.
It w as about 10am when I stepped
off a f ootpath intending to cross Ta-
ufa’ahau R oad, a major thoroughfare
in the Tongan capital, Nuku’alo-fa, a nd carelessly checked neither
left n or right. Moments earlier, I’d
vaguely t aken note of a large black
car h eading towards me – it wasn’t
speeding, nor was it travelling par-
ticularly s low. As I walked along
the f ootpath, it was simply cruising
along, keeping pace with the moder-To n ga THE FRIENDLY ISLES
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