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Published: July 15th 2006
Waimea canyon-1
Is this Waimea canyon or is it 'Konkankada'? ‘Konkankada’ and ‘Lingmala Falls’ on Kauai, Hawaii
Lush green vegetation and red earth, azure blue sky, white lacy waterfalls and all around you dark, blue-green ocean stretching to the horizon. Why, this is my own native land! This is no different than our own Sahyadri Ghats and Konkan! (Konkan region is the western part of the state of Maharashtra, India between the Arabian Sea and Sahyadri Hills)
I felt I had come to the home of my childhood. My ‘maiher’ (Parental home)!
Really, that is the first impression Kauai made on me. At every turn, I was reminded of something familiar, something I have seen before, had a sense of Déjà vu!
The coconut groves, the pineapple orchards, the sugarcane plantations, we have them all, but where are the ‘supari’( areca nut ) trees? Where are the mango trees and jackfruit trees? There is something funny about that tree there. Never seen fruits of that shape hanging from a tree before! Oh! These are avocado trees? What are those doing here in our Konkan?
Yes, there are a few differences also, but most of the times I had to pinch myself to remember that I was
Waimea canyon-2
Waimea canyon, Kauai on Kauai, the ‘Garden Isle’ of Hawaii and not in the Konkan region. Even the hens and chickens running about with a regal cock lording it over them, was a familiar sight.
It certainly looks like the Garden of Eden when you see the aforementioned hens and chickens running about “wild” (they were not owned by someone or cooped up), or you see a seal having a peaceful siesta on a beach peopled by tourists of every color.
That is because, of all the islands of Hawaii, Kauai alone has no predators. No snakes, no crocodiles, no tigers or bears etc. and no mongooses either. (However, the seas around are infested with sharks.)
All the other islands of Hawaii also do not have snakes or crocodiles or tigers or bears etc. but mongooses were introduced on them to control rat population.
All islands of Hawaii have sugarcane plantations, and rats are a bane of the sugarcane plantations. So, the plantation owners, in their infinite wisdom, decided to bring mongooses from India to curb the rat menace.
One tiny detail was overlooked in this scheme. The rats come out during the night and mongooses hunt during
Wailua river
Is this Wailua river, Kauai ot is this the backwater of Kerala? the daytime.
Mongooses were introduced on all the other islands of Hawaii. They have not killed any rats as yet, but have finished off all the poultry.
Kauai too had received a crate of mongooses. The mongooses DO look rather cute. Somebody put a hand in the crate to pet one of them and the mongoose bit him on the finger. The chap was so angry that he just pushed the whole crate off the dock into the sea. Thus perished all the mongooses and thus was the poultry of Kauai was saved.
Moral of the story: Do your homework before you start interfering with the ecology. After all, you cannot blame everything on El Nino.
In the famous Fern Grotto of Kauai, hardly any ferns are dangling from the roof. We were surprised, because we had seen the photos of the Grotto where the roof of the Grotto was choked with ferns, whereas what we were witnessing now was a new growth struggling to put down roots ( I should say rather put UP their roots since the ferns were dangling from the roof of the Grotto).
When I asked the reason for the
Tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforest at Fern Grotto, Kauai--A familiar sight lack of ferns, they unanimously said “El Nino’. Looks like El Nino caused a hurricane which uprooted all the ferns.
Poor El Nino!!! Just because it (he?) cannot answer back, all sorts of allegations are being made against it (him?).
That reminds me. When we were viewing the corals through the glass-bottom of a boat at Hikkaduwa (in Ceylon), all the coral was dead and dark with fungus. The boat was leaking diesel in the water, making a lot of noise and churning the water all around. No wonder that the delicate coral was dead. It would have been a miracle if it were living with this sort of treatment.
However, when I asked why the coral is dead, they said succinctly ‘El Nino!’ (They claimed that El Nino warmed the seas at Hikkaduwa and killed all the coral)
How come the same El Nino did not affect the coral at Phuket, Maldives, Lakshadweep, Andaman Islands etc?
People of Mauritius were more honest. They did not blame the Dodo’s extinction on El Nino. They owned that the dogs and pigs introduced by the sailors led to the bird’s extinction, because Dodo was a flightless bird
The Fern Grotto
The ferns struggling to put up roots again and laid eggs on the ground, and the dogs and pigs could easily prey upon the poor Dodo.
The people of Hawaii Islands may be right in blaming El Nino for ‘no Fern’ but they (excepting Kauai) cannot blame El Nino for the ecological disaster of ‘no poultry’ on their islands.
Now that I have raised my voice in support of poor old defenseless El Nino, I feel better.
The Fern Grotto may not have many ferns, but it still is a beautiful place deep in a rainforest. The approach is also very lovely because you go there cruising lazily on the Wailua river. It somehow reminds you of the Kerala backwaters.
Kauai not only has the ‘Konkan’ part of our native Maharashtra, but also the ‘Ghat’ part. When we visited the Waimea canyon, we felt as though we were visiting Mahabaleshwar. Immediately we renamed the ‘Waimea canyon lookout’ as ‘Arthur seat Point’, the waterfall as ‘Lingmala falls’ and the cliff opposite as ‘Konkankada’.
The blowhole at Poipu was something altogether new to us. We had not seen anything like it along the Konkan coast.
My husband had been cribbing throughout the trip about
Waterfall
Waterfall, Kauai the money we had spent to see similar familiar sights, but now I got my chance. So, triumphantly I turned to my husband and said “See! Wasn’t it well worth the money to come this far to see this sight?”
He did not answer, just grimaced.
That is maturity?
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