JOURNAL OF NUKUALOFA; BICYCLES AND SALE OF STAMPS AND CALORIES AND KINGS

NUKUALOFA, Tonga-Several times per week, as approaches to sunset, a surprising appearance emerges from the Royal Palace in a blue bicycle with a seat extra.

The King is going to ride a bicycle. Fitted shirt, polo and truly marriage short plastic sunglasses monarch 360-pound pedals steadily upwards and downwards in the lane for 40 minutes, transmitters of young soldiers running beside him.

This group of Polynesian island may have been the last redoubt of eating brazen, a country where people used their Wattles proudly. However those Rubensesque values are losing ground to the Western adulation of slenderness, and these days Tongans are reducing local high in calories, delicacies like bread soaked in a sugary drink.

"Everyone is trying to lose weight," said Miss Tonga, Kerry Cowley, 20 years of age who is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 133 pounds.

Few years ago, Miss Cowley was as scrawny pity and people reflected that she would be attractive if you put on weight. Tonga had traditionally considered size as a distinctive feature of the beauty and respect, and the result is disappointing.

King Taufaahau Tupou IV is a solid 6 feet 3 inches and 360 pounds. He is the largest of the mundo-no monarch as well known as Queen Elizabeth II, perhaps, but three times its thickness.
However, the King weight-watching system is working. He is well below the top reported in 1976, when the scale in the country that are large enough to accommodate him (at airport) you linked to 462 pounds. The great war of Stamp Industry label, now a manufacturer of money around the world, has been a source of income for Tonga. These days some Tongans complain that, as other countries copied his success, stamps have become less lucrative.

Tonga postage stamps are distinctive - some are way banana or pineapple - for an astute financial reason: most of stamps sold to collectors around the world. Only 20 percent of Tonga stamps are never stuck to an envelope. By an accountant, 18 percent of the currencies of Tonga comes from sales of postage stamp collectors.

An American, Bernard Mechanik, granted credit for the idea of making a fortune of stamps. Mr. Mechanik, who died in 1980, he became philatelic Advisor in the 1960s to Tonga and the Republic of Sierra Leone.