Advertisement
Published: July 21st 2005
Edit Blog Post
Aloha everyone! I hope that things are going well for you all. I am thinking of you all.....well...sometimes anyway. Just going to share a few things that I have been doing - I am not going to put every little detail or day down because that wont make you want to come and visit the places, it will just bore you!
24/05/05: On the day that I left for Hawaii someone asked me in the afternoon at what time I would arrive in Hawaii. I thought for a moment and found it very unusual saying "This morning". The 9 hr flight on a newish 747 was very pleasant and arriving in Honolulu in the morning of the night that I left Sydney was a little confusing. Now here is a question, if I stayed in the US for the rest of my life would I have an extra half day to live?
If you haven’t been to Hawaii then images of 'Hula girls wiggling in grass skirts right before they place a necklace of flowers (a lei) over your head' probably come to mind. And being one of the states of the U.S.A, I’m sure you could have this
as part of your fantasy. No such luck for me! I arrived at the airport to wait 1.5 hrs in line at immigration....the conversation with the Hawaiian immigration officer who looked like he spent far too much time at Taco Bell and not enough time chillin on the beach can be paraphrased like this:
Immigration Officer "Hello. Why are you coming in the US?"
Excited traveller (Me) "I plan to travel around and see your wonderful country. Kak kak"
Immigration Officer "What do you normally do in Australia?"
Excited traveller "I’m unemployed but normally I’m an engineer."
Immigration Officer "I see that you have 3 Pakistani Visas in your passports. What did you do there? What other countries have you been to since?"
Defiant Traveller "I worked as an engineer in Pakistan. Singapore, Malayasia, Thailand, Indonesia"
Immigration Officer "All of these countries are terrorist related. Are you a terrorist?"
Sheepish Traveller "mmm...No"
[Nearly laughed when he said this but restrained myself as I had seen
signs coming into immigration that read "Joking about Terrorism is no laughing matter" and I really didn’t want the full body search.]
I had my photos taken, my left and right index fingerprint scanned and went to Customs as a high risk traveller where everything was ripped out of my bags and checked. I thought that they were going to interrogate the fluffy little toys that I brought over as novelty souvenirs but fortunately they left skippy and caramello koala alone - otherwise it would have gotten personal!
Hawaii really is a beautiful string of volcanic islands and you can see why 7 million people visit here each year. Just think of Bali, remove all the pollution, replace the Indonesians and Chinese with Americans, Polynesians and Japanese, double the prices, add in a few tips, add 4.5% tax on everything and you have Hawaii!
25/05/05: At the time of writing this I had not left O'ahu, the most populated (0.9 million here, 0.3 million on the other islands combined) inhabited islands. One of the things that is really cheap here is transportation. $2 can get you all around the island on a very good bus system (4
hr trip). I opted for a tour run by the hostel ($35) which was an awesome way to go because our loud American tour guide knew his stuff! Stuff like "What happens when all the big Hawaiian waves wash all the sand out to sea? Ans: They replace it with sand shipped over from Newcastle, Australia." Go figure?! All the people on the tour were cool (2 Australians, 1 American and 1 English guy, 1 Mexican French girl and 2 Brazilian chemical engineers). We had a look around Honolulu, looked along some volcanic cliffs (See Photo) and did the usual sightseeing stuff. The great thing about Hawaii is the climate. Hawaii sits nearly smack bang in the middle of the Pacific and as a result the vast surrounding ocean insulates the islands from large temperature differences. The maximum daily temperature in Honolulu has never been above 32 deg C or below 25 deg C. The really strange thing is that you can drive from an arid, dry location that receives about 50mm of rain/year to a tropical rainforest which receives about 500mm rain/year within 10 minutes! Because some areas are so dry and sunny they make the perfect environment to
grow pineapples (See Photo) - the more sun, the sweeter mmmmm. It used to be a big export industry but now Hawaii only produces for its own population.
The highlight of the tour was the North Shore - true surf country, home of the infamous Banzai Pipeline and Sunset beach where waves of up to 20m have been recorded. Boo hoo....when we where there it was literally like a lake! Nov-Jan is surf season. You can’t body surf there because you’ll break your neck on the reef (and some of the boardriders have) but I had a go anyway. No one seemed to want to join in when I went out far snorkelling or body surfing.
26/06/05: If there was a reason that you wouldn’t come to Hawaii it would be to experience the traditional food. I guess it closely resembles Polynesian food but I was struggling to find any taste in the Bread Fruit (a carbohydrate fruit that they eat, which has the consistency of bread) or Poi, a purple paste pounded from cooked taro corms which tastes more like rolled oats soaked in detergent. Other things you will see in the photo attached are raw onions,
tomato, beef jerky and plain rice.....mmmm. Traditional Hawaii food is not all that popular here anyway but American food is 😊
In many ways, staying in shared dorms at a hostel is far better than staying at the Hyatt because of the people that you meet. If you don’t mind skimping a bit on comfort (don't get me wrong, this will be more comfortable than sleeping in the back of a car - to be continued) then I would recommend this way of travelling to anyone. The people in this hostel are more keen on doing things and sharing information than they are in drinking every night away or rubbing oil on their bellies and lying on the beach all day. Having said that I went to this really cool pub last night called the Nashville with a couple of English travellers - cultural experience. I’ve never seen jeans so tight and what’s with those funny cowboy hats? I thought about joining in with the line dancing but thought I’d look funny without one of those hats.
27/05/05: Went to a marine park called Hanauma Bay with Ian (the English guy), which is actually an underwater crater. I went on a tour van to get there and felt like a dolop of vegemite on a plate of pancakes but fortunately their were some South Africans there to keep me focused on the cricket and rugby. Hanauma Bay is extremely popular and the marine conservation department on the mainland threatened to shut it down for 4 years after some 10000 people were visiting the park every day and ruining the coral by standing on it. Numbers have dropped to about 1000 now and just after you pay the $5 admission fee you are herded into a theatre pen like cattle to watch a mandatory video. The place is spectacular though (See photo) especially if you go further out (as most people don’t) and there were green sea turtles, trevally, barracuda, wrasse etc etc to swim with.
28/05/05: Got up at 7am and went for a run to the top of an old volcano called Diamond Head with a great American guy. Great views of Honolulu from up there. (See photo)
Had a go at surfing. I know, I feel shamed when I tell the English that I don’t actually know how to surf. If you want a great place to learn how to surf then come to Hawaii - no dumpers at Waikiki, small rolling waves. Just don’t ask me to teach you!
Anyway, I leave for the Big Island (the largest of the islands and the only one with an active volcano) in a few hours so have to make it to the airport.
Make sure that you keep me up-to-date with the latest news,
Mike
Advertisement
Tot: 0.152s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0496s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ignat
non-member comment
Oahu
Hello, I am a student from Hawaii, but I go to American U. in Washington DC. I really enjoyed your pictures. Especially the one of Honolulu from Diamond Head. I'm pretty sure I can see the house where my parents live :) I'm excited that you enjoyed Hawaii. I just started a blog at http://hawaiistreets.com/hawaiistreets and I will be posting a new picture from Hawaii everyday. I have so many of them! If you ever feel like you're missing Hawaii, stop by! Aloha, Ignat