Aloha! A 2 week trip to the 4 Hawaiian islands

2009-2010

25 Dec:
Left on a early morning flight for Maui, Hawaii via Portland. Got a taste of the nice public transportation system as all friends were out of town for the holidays; very convenient by 2 connecting buses to SJC I must add. It was a long 6 hour flight from Portland over the Pacific. Hawaii is the most remote island in the world, with the nearest continent - America - being 2000 miles away. And because of that and of course a lot of tourism-hype, the cost of everything is
about 1.5 times the rate in mainland US.
Landed in Maui Kahului airport in the afternoon and was greeted with tropical heat, which made our California winter morning clothes seem a tad too much. Onto our Hertz rental car, and we got a red car (apparently we always end up getting a red car when we rent, my wife informed me....well, it also happens to be my favorite colour too) with a nice sunroof. Wanted a Jeep Wrangler for all the off-roading I was planning to do, but the extra $199 per day was enough for me to settle back to my little red car. Driving to our Condo at Aston Maui Banyan at Kihei on the South Western Maui coast for our 4 night stay, the scenary was very pretty with green mountains all around while we drove through a valley. Condos are real nice for long stays and ours was to be a long one for almost 2 weeks hopping 4 islands. The condo was fully furnished
with all kitchen and dinning stuff which we utilized to the hilt having brough rice/pulses/pasta to save on costs as well as to not have restaurant meals for so long. It was just across the road from the beach, actually a series of nice mini beaches.
We drove over to Kaanapali area in the north, about a 45 min drive through a scenic coastal road. Kaanapali was supposedly the touristy part of the island with all the resort beaches. Finding parking near the Kaanapali beach only in garage parking lots, as all the resorts hotels and condos around ensure that there be no street parking. There's a big Whalers village right in the middle with all exclusive shops, though why people would shop on a vacation still beats me.
We saw a little bit of Luao (Hawaiian song and dance) at the royal lahaina resort right by the beach. We drove back to Kihei which is a much more packed town filled on both sides with little shops, restaurants, and rentals. As it was Christmas day, most restaurants were closed. We managed to find Fred's Mexican which was open and pretty good
food and margaritas.

26 Dec:
Next day morning we walked over to get some groceries and fruits from a nearby store. Also rented my power-ed snorkelling gear from Boss Frogs for a week+. They have branches in all islands, except Oahu, and we could return it in any island. Power-ed lenses are good for 4 eyed people, as I remember the last time I snorkelled in Maldives 2 years back, I could
not see too much without my glasses, without a turtle showing me the way to the corals...but I digress.
Josho was not in the pink of health after going through a bout of fever for the last few days, so we decided to do the "road to Hana" for the day, which won't involve too much water. Hana is on the lush Eastern part of the island which receives a lot of rainfall and is covered with a tropical rain-forests. First stop was just at the beginning of the road to Hana on the East coast at Hookipa lookout, a favulous coastal view of huge waves crashing onto a rocky shore. There
were even some surfers there attempting to ride the wave, definitely pro, atleast hopefully so. Onward the road, it was narrow and winding along the mountain-side and mostly beside the Pacific. Not unlike route 1, except the tress were all tropical here, and mountains not that high. We stopped frequently by the roadside for the scenaries and once for buying fruits. And in about 3 hours we were had reached Hana; the road did impress us much at all, but then maybe we are
spoiled by California coastline. A little further from Hana was Oheo gulch or seven pools, which are are series of pools formed by cascading little waterfalls. Had a nice dip in the water pools there, and there were several people jumping from the cliffs by the waterfalls, or standing underneath.
Onward, the road become a dirt road for several miles in the south coast of Maui, the section of road rental car companies always forbidded against taking the car to, and the people almost always ignored. This road was quite forbiddingly glorious. Ridding, rather bumping along at 20 miles per hour, one could take in the exquisite scenary on both side of the road.
We stopped at nice desolate beach and found a litle and a big arch formed by the sea. With the setting sun and rocky beach, it was an image which will stay etched in my mind for a long time. Further we drove along the Maui highlands, from where
Molokini island looked glorious under the setting sun. Except for the last stretch in the south, and which is not in the drive to Hana itinerary, the rest of the road and scenary did not excite us too much, so one can really skip it if pressed for time. Dinner was a rice and pineapple tasty concoction that Josho had prepared to give us the Hawaii feel.

27 Dec:
Today was Snorkelling day at Molokini islands, and had to get up by 6:30 order to reach Maalea port for our Boss Frog boat departure. In the 45 minute ride to Molokini, we saw several whales from a distance, taking the deep dive or spouting. Molokini is a tiny half arc of a volcanic crater mostly immersed in water now, and which has a nice variety of tropical fish.
A huge bunch of boats and yatchs and catamarans are always parked there, with a crowd of snorkellers trying to see the promised colourful fish. The outer side of Molokini has much deeper depths, and is a good place for diving. Getting Josho off the boat into the middle of the ocean was a bit of a challenge, as she was a beginner swimmer at best, but with a lot of coaxing, a floating tube, and a boogie board to lie on she did venture out for a little bit. I went along further but the
fished were too few and of the same type, as well as the visibility was rather poor. So, after all the hype Molokini was bit of a disapointment. The snorkel I rented was a dry snorkel and was awesome though. I could dive into the water to get a closer glimpse and then come up and blow and the water would come out of the tube; did not need to take the snorkel out of the mouth
as you normally need to with a wet snorkel to get the water out. Then we went to coral garden by the coast, skipping Turtle town as the conditions were becoming rough and visibility poor with the winter swell. In the coral garden, the corals and the variety of fish was quite lovely. The corals were in 6-15 feet of water and in all sorts of shape and sizes and colours.
Some shapped just like a human brain, some with spiny fingers jutting out, and some just round and colourful. Fishes were in their full splendor as well with stripes and dots in red, black, white, orange and blues. Am glad I did not get the underwater camera like last time so that I could fully enjoy the experience much more. After that was lunch in the boat with sandwitches.
Coming back to port we saw a fascinating whale show. A mom, her few week old pup and a big escort whale were hanging out.
Right after we showed up, the little pup put on a lot of excited display jumping out of the water, spashing and spouting. The two older whales were more stately in their display of grandeur having seen a lot of such tourist boats in their lifetimes.
Josho felt a bit queasy with all the aqau motion of the morning and took a nap, while I set out to explore the south shores of Maui namely Wailea and Makena. Beaches here came thick and fast with lovely golden streches of sand, foaming winter waves and glistening water. Explored La Perouse bay down south which was a unique land - formed from fresh lava flows about 100
years back, the road was a bumpy dirt road. The old lava all around was a mash up of black rocks, I initially though infact that the earth was freshly tilled, so was the lay of the land.
We went swimming after that at big beach. That was a mile long golden arch, and waves were rough in the winters. Had a gala time tackling the waves, sometimes over and sometimes under the waves. A few times though ended up getting battered in the water fury. Sun was setting in the western horizon with islands of Kahoolawe and molokini arc in the background. It was Sunday evening and we had heard about the fire dance next door at little beach. Little beach is a much smaller arc of the same lovely sand beach next door to big beach, but can be reached only after climbing over lava rocks which extended into the sea. We had gotten flashlights,
but an almost full-moon provided all the guiding light that was necessary. There was a small crowd around a group of performers, who were doing the acrobatics armed with sticks having fire at both ends. This was a free Luau show sans dinner; the Luau shows were almost $100+ events. Little beach is a Au Naturale beach though being from the hippie eras of 60s and 70s, and so were most of the performers.
Todays dinner was khichdi with all the rice and dal we had brought along with us, and after that turned out to be next days dinner as well, I started craving a bit for restaurant food. Nothing wrong with the khichdi of course, but its just that your put a bong in an island with fish advertised all around and its a no-brainer of whats always on his mind.


28 Dec:
Today we got up and was out of the door around 4 am for the the famous Haleakala sunrise at Haleakala National Park. It was a 30 miles journey from sea level to almost 10,000 feet up in the mountains over very winding roads and all in the dark. We reached about 5:45 am, and had about an hour to get to a good vantage point on top of a peak, where I setup my brand new tripod. This was a heavier new tripod as a birthday gift from dada which a photographer friend of ours coaxed me into getting, after mentioning that my previous one used to first make him laugh, and later on cry. The whole mountain below us was clothed in a sea of clouds all around.
As the sun started coming out around 6:45 am, the sky became red and orange above the clouds, and then the sun peaked through from the clouds. It was worth all the early morning wakeup and driveup, and haleakala sunrise truely lived up to the promise.
Haleakala is not technically a crater though it looks like that, but instead formed by the erosion of the volcanic mountain top from several sides.Next we set out for some hiking to a nearby (or so we thought) crater. Hawaii is quite unique in that it provides for world-class hiking opportunities within a hour of so from lovely beaches, of course packaged American style. The hike went down almost 3000 feet in a matter of 2 miles for a 2.6 mile hike to the closest crater, formed within the Haleakala. The hike was through volcanic land that was so different from all the hikes I have done before. It was barren and broken land, punctuated with the odd craters nearby. Closest to such a land I have seen was Death Valley, or thoese television pictures of moon. Reaching the crater abour 100 feet wide and similar in depth we could walk all around it. The climb up was arduous, a 3000 feet gain in 2 miles at about 10,000 feet elevation is no joke anytime. Josho walked faster for the most part, no doubt helped by her new found endurance from 24-hour fitness trainings. Overall it took us hour and half to go down and about 2 hours to climb back up.
After an afternoon nap, we went to visit Kaanapali beach. The cliff divers thing did not happen at sunset as we had expected, but we saw another nice sunset, and saw Polynesian dances at Whaler's village - a large exclusive shopping place right on Kaanapali. Kaanapali beach I found most ordinary, and could'nt figure out what all the hoopla about that area was about. Am glad we stayed at the Kihei area, where we could walk to numerous grocery stores, surf shops, restaurants and nice close beaches in the south.


29 Dec:
Today was our last day in Maui with a flight in the afternoon to big island hawaii. We spent the whole morning at the Wailea beach - a perfect swimming beach. It had a mellow surf, which was very amenable for Josho to brush up her swimming. And also a nice snorkelling spot in the south end which had a reef. I practiced my snorkelling too at wailea, and perfected the art of diving
down holding your breadth so that one can have a closer look at the corals and chase some fish, and then come up and blow the water out without the need to take off the snorkel from your mouth. This was a type of snorkel called dry snorkel (as opposed to the wet snorkel) which had some innovation in the tube precisely for these kinds of dives. Came back to hotel just in time to rush off to the airport for our next island of fun.
At the airport we were directed to a small Mokelele air taxi terminal, and was thrilled to see the plane. It was 9 seater plane, even smaller than the 15 seater sea plane at Maldives, for the 20 minute ride to Big Island. We had to check-in our handbags too for this small propellor-driven flight. The flight flew low enough all over Maui for us to recognize all the beaches and places in Maui we had been to; everything looked so picture perfect. Other than us and the pilot, the only other passenger was a lady with her two little kids. Landed in big island in an airport build on top of recent land made by the lava. Big island is much more barren and
it is the place which has the most active volcano currently on earth, which was the main reason we were there. We got yet another shiny red car, as was the norm, and drove down to Kailua to our Uncle Billy's hotel. It was right across from the ocean in the busy little town of Kailua. There were scant beaches in this part of the island; the black lava rocks directly ended in the ocean, as
there has not been much time (in the geological scale) to form beaches yet. Strolled along the nice ocean front, where the endless battle between land and sea raged on. Had a gala dinner at Bubba Gump with shrimp and fresh fish, though I had to send back my Hebi steak as it was too rare for my taste.


30 Dec:
In the morning, we made our way through the western coast of the island to the southern part, on our way to the Hawaiian Volcanic Nationic Park. In 2009 I utilized my Annual National Park Pass to the hilt, worth every penny of the 80 dollars. Let's count -
Yosemite NP(7 times), Death Valley NP, Crater Lake NP, Redwood NP, Mount Rainier NP, Olympic NP, Kings Canyon/Sequoia NP, Grand Canyon NP, Arches NP, Bryce Canyon NP, Zion NP, Capitol Reef NP, Monument Valley NP (actually an Indian Navajo Nation NP) and now Haleakala and Volcanic NPs. Okey, enough showing off now..
The real name of Big island is actually Hawaii, from where Hawaii got the name Hawaii. Big island is futile attempt to avoid confusion by giving it a real name. Confusion like - so where did you go? Hawaii. Which island of Hawaii? Hawaii. Which island? No, really, Hawaii island - something like this. Also the whole nation was called Hawaii after hawaii won the battle for supremacy over Maui. Hawaii is a much more rustic compared to Maui. We passed through several hamlets on our way, none of which had any iota of touristic aspirations, as every "historic" village of Maui laid claim to. Punaluu Beach was our first stop, a gorgeous black sand
beach. Now it's not everyone's idea of a proper beach being black in colour, but the setting was so beautiful with swaying coconut trees in the background. There were even several turtles lying on the beach of dipping in out of the water.
Next we reach the Volcanic national park. The whole area smelt of sulpher, as the Halemaumau crater was currently active and spewing large amounts of Sulpher dioxide gas. There were several warnings posted all around about not being in outdoors too much,
and it was specially harmful for children, elderly and pregnant women. All of the Hawaiian islands are volcanic islands in the middle of pacific, and hence always has atleast one, and in big islands case 5 volcanic peaks or shields. The main crater, Kailua was technically a caldera as it's width was more than a mile. These craters are formed when the lava flows out of the peaks or the shields and then there forms a hollow underneath and it collapses under it's own weight. There was a crater rim road all around the huge caldera, but it was closed for half of the loop due to the currently high volcanic activity. On the drive we stopped to see hissing steam coming out of the bowels of the earth - rainwater seeps through, is heated by the magma very close to the surface and comes out as steam.
We stopped at Jagger museum for a closeup view of Halemaumau, a big crater more recently formed within the bigger kaulue caldera. From within Halemaumau was a thick plume of smoke of supher dioxide coming out and sort of merging into the clouds. This portends to a likely erruption in the near term, it was earth's way of letting off some gas through the vents as well as a warning sign for us.
Asked a "Oh! Ranger" question to a nearby ranger about why did the Polynesians first come to Hawaii and how did they know of the existence of it. He said - nobody knows for sure. But, the Polynesians had a history of going beyond the horizon probably due to their wanderlust,
as also possible population pressure. They kept on going from island to island from the south pacific, and then guided by the sky and ocean they made the seemingly impossible 500 mile journey across open seas in their rudimentary canoes.
We took a short hour long hike down to a Kailua iki crater, which was a more recent erruption of this volcano. It apparently errupted for 36 days nonstop in 1959, and then took 36 years to cool down. What was left on the crater floor was solid mud-like black volcanic
rocks in a tattered surface filled with cracks. Plants have started reappearing in the crater recently too in the rocky surface. Next we went to see an old lava tube. Lave after it comes out of the magma reservoir frequently flows underneath the earth surface through some
holes which are called lava tubes. We could walk inside one of those tubes 15 feet in diameter with the surface looking like remnants of solidified lava. Next we were off to the chain of craters road, about 20 mile drive within the park to the ocean to a point, where the road got cutoff by a recent lava flow in 2003. The road literally came to a dramatic end, with the tattered mass of black solidified lava cutting off any further progress.
Next, we retraced back our route out of the park towards where the lava was currently flowing at Kalapana at the end of HI-130. It was as the crow flies maybe 10 miles away from where the road got cut off by the lava, but we had to spend almost 2 hours as there was no other
road but around. After stumbling over the rough lava rocks with headlamps in the dark for about 15 mins, we came to a viewing area, about a mile away from the lava flow. The area is open from about 6-10 pm each day, as only during night does the true spectacle gets unleashed.
We were awestruck, have never seen the red hot fiery molten mass of magma flowing and then ending in a huge vapour at the sea, as a lot of water got evaporated when touching the 2000 degree lava. The vapour then merged up into a cloud. Sometimes the lava would flow strongly
and continue on quite a bit into the ocean before the water could extinguish the fire. We sat along with a bunch of people for over a couple of hours taking in this battle of land and sea, and actually seeing the birth of new land.
Coming back to Kailua was a long journey from one end to the other of the big island. We reached past midnight passing through the high peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, though in the darkness it was all a blurry mass.

31 Dec:
Morning was beach day again till our late afternoon flight to Oahu. Went to Kekaha Kai Beach state park just beyond the Kona airport. It was almost a 15 min bumpy ride over the unpaved lava rocks to reach the beach. It was very picturesque and quiet. What the locals called salt
and pepper beach, due to the mixture of black sand from the lava rocks and white sand from the shells and corals. We snorkelled around a bit. Next continued up north to Hapuna and Waialea beaches. Waialea was a typical resorty wide sand beach. Hapuna beach was a delight, a little
hidden beach between huge rock outcroppings. Due to the narrow opening, waves was powerful and high. Spent a lot of time playing with the surf, trying to go forward, backward, duck under, float up, and a variety of tricks to prevent being tossed around, which I still ended up getting
a few times. The waves would come from front, and within a few seconds get reflect from a side rock outcropping and come back sideways. So twice a many frequent waves.
Took the 5 pm flight onto Honolulu, just in time to get to party mood. We took a shuttle from the airport to our Waikiki beach hotel. Waikiki beach was a sight, milling with people, and food and shops. After dinner at Jimmy Buffet restaturant, we almost dozed off tired from
the day's adventure. Right in time all the noise woke us up, and we trotted down to the beach to catch the lovely fireworks show. All sorts of crazy people were around doing all sorts of crazy thing. And the craziest thing I did first thing after midnight was to email by boss saying - this year, not "next year" any more in the context of my return back permanently to motherland. It was always "next year" till the year before, so was glad to put that behind me.


1 Jan:
Spent a very lazy day going around sampling some lovely sushi and randomly good fish at the nearby International food court. Was glad we dint spend much time in Oahu, as Honolulu was just a big cosmopolitan city, and Waikiki was one of the most dirty and in general
terrible beaches we had been to. Had planned to go to Hanauma bay for snorkelling, but ended up giving it a miss due to some new year induced laziness.

2 Jan:
Landed up in Kauai next, the 4th and last island in our adventure. Heard a lot about this islands, in fact so many of my friends had come to honeymoon in this island of Hawaii within the last year or so. This was the oldest and greenest of the 4 islands; distinctly more rural and laidnback, though with it's fair share of resorts. We stayed at a resort in Poipu off the southern coast. Sheraton Shells Japanese buffet dinner was the highlight of the day, and I totally gorged on the oysters and shells offered.
The southern coast was the calmest in the island not exposed directly to the winter storms. Our plantation resort was on one of the main beaches of Poipu, but almost totally restricted to the hotel guests. The beach was quite rocky and sloping, certainly not ideal for the under-insured or faint-hearted.

3 Jan:
Poipu beach in the morning was our adventure destination. Putting on the snorkel, I jumped into the water. After thrashing around for sometime, came back to the shore to lounge around in the deck chair. Suddenly some people started pointing towards the ocean and people
started running out of it. We got up, and then everyone realized it was huge sea turtles floating. I picked up a friend similarly lazying around, and together we raced into the water after it. Felt a little iffy going alone initially as had seen too many shark films before. After swimming strongly across the waves towards where the turtle was, we could not spot it at all. Then after some diving underwater discovered that it had taken shelter under the huge coral gardens on the ocean floor. It came out to see what the commotion was all about, and gave quite a show going into the water and then coming up to crane its neck out of the water and diving back again. At some point, I was barely a few feet away from it. It was then that suddenly, the saying "kocchoper kamor (bite of a turtle)" came to my mind, and I hastily made a rapid retreat. There were 3 of us and we were pretty much encircling the turtle which must have been making it a wee bit nervous.
Then had a delicious Hawaiian plate lunch at Koloa old town. It was composed of pulled pork (kalua pork), raw marinated salmon (lomi lomi salmon) and raw tuna. After lunch we were off to Waimea canyon. It offered a view of the famous Napali coast from inland. Much of the journey was covered in clouds and fog though, and we later learnt that it was the usual occurance in the afternoon. So, recommended time to go is in the morning.

4 Jan:
Today was the day for hiking Kalalau trail off Napali coast. This was in the northern end of the island after the resort of Princeville and hamlet of Hanalei. The trail started from literally the end of the road. We had taken all the preparations of a long hike with water and sandwiches and bars. The trail started off pretty steeply; but the most interesting part of the trail was the very
narrow muddy and slippery trail, with a deep cliff falling off into the roaring Pacific on one side. Some places were so muddy due to the incessant rain, that we waded ankle deep in mud. Napali coast lived up to it's reputation for spectacular scenery, with sharp but green cliffs almost vertically ending in the sea. Due to the northern storms, the sea was very rough with 15-20 foot waves regularly pounding the shore. After a couple of hours of hiking came a stream crossing with almost waist deep water. Josho was terrified of this crossing, specially after reading all the warning posted around about so many people being washed away by this fast flowing stream.
Made it across (and back) safely, and had our packed lunch at the beach there. A lot of people were continuing on with their full backpacks to camp further down at the next beach. This trail is one of the most famous backpackers trails in the US, not for no reason.
We watched a movie which was around this hike down Kalalau trail after coming back called the "Perfect gateway", thankfully not before going; the movie had a lot of crazy maniacs murdering people on the trail. Came back on the trail, and back to Poipu stopping frequently at the beaches along the way, for a homemade pasta dinner.


5 Jan:
Today was a complete rainy day - something Kauai is well known for and the reason why it is so green. Ended up walking along the beaches of poipu, wAves lapping on our feet. And some of the mandatory shopping which you got to take the wife to. We did a good job not getting
fleeced into buying some pearl stuff. Dinner was at a nice open restaurant called Keoki's Paradise.

6 Jan:
Next day was the last of our almost 2 week Hawaii vacation. Flight back was convouted via maui and oahu to Oakland.