USA - Hawaii (Oahu)

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Our flight from Sydney to Honolulu was quite eventful, as flights go. To start with, we had some problems checking in to the flight, because we did not have a booking for a hotel in Hawaii, so telling the lady 'we don´t know... we will find something when we get there...' did not wash! We had to pretend to make a booking on the phone at some place and give her that address.
The actual flight was very different to any other, since we were crossing the date line! This meant that we left Sydney on the 4th of July at 7:45pm, and arrived at Honolulu on the same day at 9:30am... travelling back in time! (and this was a 9 hour flight).
Honolulu
We arrived in Honolulu without any problems, and the views from the plane were just amazing. As soon as we got off the place, we could just hear all the 'Alohas' coming from all the people welcoming the tourists... no flower necklaces though.
The next task was to find a hotel/hostal, and right outside the airport, they had these freephone facilities to various different hotels in Honolulu, so we called a couple of the cheapest ones (the hostels were all booked up when we checked on the internet) and found a really good apartment for a reasonable price, and since Ivan was also coming to meet us, it was perfect for the three of us, and it meant we could cook at home too. So we took the shuttle bus direct to 'Big Surf Apartments' on the west end of Waikiki Beach.
On the day we arrived I was still not feeling completely recovered from my cold, but we went for a little walk along the beach. We were still waiting for Ivan to arrive that afternoon, so we needed to stay around the apartment. We managed to speak to him at 2pm but he was stuck in L.A. so we stayed at the flat in the afternoon and had a good sleep.
At 8pm we watched the 4th of July fireworks from the balcony, and Ivan arrived at about 10pm, so we cooked some food and stayed in talking and catching up on old days.
The next morning I was feeling much worse, and had a bit of a fever and swollen glands, so I started to take some antibiotics that we had with us (following doctor's advice of course). We went for a walk in Waikiki Beach, and it was full of people sunbathing and surfing. We lied down on the beach for a while until we decided we needed to hit the waves, so we hired a couple of long boards and got on with it!
The waves were not really very big, just good enough for a couple of beginners like us. After an hour we were totally exhausted from swimming on the board against the waves, but we did manage to ride a few waves quite nicely. Ivan was really excited and he was ready to hit the big Banzai Pipeline of Waimea on the north shore of Oahu.
Our plan was to leave the next day for Waimea, but were having a good time in Waikiki, so we decided to stay one more day. We also still needed to find out where to stay there and to organize a car rental. Honolulu is quite a large city, and the Wikiki area is very touristic, full of large hotels, and american type restaurants and fast food places as well as shopping centres and shopping streets. Things were also quite expensive, not too far from prices in Australia.
On Sunday we woke up quite late and took off to Diamond head, a dead volcanic crater next to Honolulu, which was once used as an army barracks, and is now some sort of tourist park. We got a bus to the side of the crater, and then walked through a tunnel to the centre, where you then hike up the sides of the mountain to get to the edge of the crater, where the views of Honoulu and the surrounding area are stunning. The heat and the sun were at full blast, and the 40 minute walk was quite exhausting, but it was worth it. We took the easy way back, and got a taxi from the centre of the crater back to Waikiki Beach for another surfing session after lunch. I was not feeling too good from all the heat and had a little headache from the cold I was trying to get rid of, and I was still on antibiotics. So I didn´t stay too long in the water, but Ivan was there until the sun went down. At night we had some dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant (to remember old days in our travels) and then organised the car rental on the internet to set off to Waimea the next day. We also managed to book a place at the only hostel we managed to find in the whole of the north shore of Oahu.
North Shore - Waimea
In the morning we went to get our rental car... fortunately we got quite a big one so we could fit all our bags. The plan was to go and stay two nights at the north shore, and ride the huge waves in the Banzai Pipe, Waimea and Sunset Beach. We went off around the east side of the island, and first stopped at Hanauma Bay, a small round bay which is part of a nature reserve, and was reputedly a great place for snorkling. We had to pay to get in, but the beach, the bay and the snorkling were amazing. We did not pay for snorkling gear though, and went off with our trusty swimming goggles (not quite the same, but we could still see). We floated over the coral beds, and over to the other side of the reef, where we saw an amazing variety of fish, and even a couple of turtles swimming back and forth with the easy waves, it was beautiful, and they did not even get scared off.
We also stopped at some strange lava rock formations at the edge of the sea, where we just walked off the road onto the rocks. Further up the route we stopped at the Pali lookout, where the mountain landscape in front of the sea provided an amazing view. We stopped at Lanikai Beach, which was in front of a neighbourhood of really nice houses, and perfect white sand and blue sea... the perfect place to retire after winning the lottery.
We continued up the east coast towards the north, and stopped at the Polynesian Cultural Centre, where we decided it was pretty much a tourist trap for bus hoards, the tickets to see the evening show were pretty expensive, so that was just not for us.
We finally got to the north shore at about 8pm and started looking for our 'Backpackers Inn & Plantation Village' which had no sign and we had no fixed address. So after asking at three different places, and trying another three, we found our hostal. We stayed in a little cabin for six people with two rooms, bathroom, kitchen and lounge. Our room was a four person room with two bunkbeds. The cabins were pretty run down, old and even dirty, but the beds were spanking clean, and it was pretty cheerful. The others staying at the cabin were a Danish couple and an Italian guy, Alessio, who was traveling with his friend Simona. That night we got chatting with the people at the hostel and had some beers (I was still on antibiotics, so no drinking), we then went for a walk on the beach at night and went to Waimea bay, where there was this rock on the beach where people jumped from (about 7m high). There was a Swiss guy who was drunk, and he convinced Simona to jump off the rock in the middle of the night... crazy!
The puzzling thing was that the sea was completely still with hardly a ripple on the surface and we were wondering where the huge waves we heard about would be. When we asked about the waves, we were told that it was summer, and that in summer there were no waves... only on winter. We knew about the winter big wave season, but we did not think the waves in summer would be completely non existent.
So that was the end of out plans to ride some big waves... probably a good thing!
On Tuesday morning we had some breakfast we went in the car with Simona and Alessio to visit the western point on the north shore, there was only a good road up to a certain point, so we had to continue very slowly further along a terrible path full of rocks. But there was absolutely nobody there. We kept on walking a bit further on the scorching heat up to the point where we could resist no longer and decided to jump in the water at one of the many deserted rocky coves. It was almost like paradise, with transparent clear water and not a soul in sight.
The north shore is a much more rural and low key area compared to Honolulu. There are no large towns or large buildings or hotels, and everything is much more relaxed. The little town of Haleiwa is where most things are, and then everything is centred around the many beaches that you can find all along the north shore. This is more of the kind of place we would have liked to spend more time, and there are also good bus services from Honolulu to take you there, but we had to return our car rental, and we had a flight to catch from Honolulu.
On the way back form our little cove, we stopped at another beautiful empty beach, and had the chance to see some turtles feeding off the sea grass by the shore, and we also managed to get in a swim with them from a distance. We then stopped at Waimea Bay for a quick splash and to jump of the rock that Simona had jumped from at night. That afternoon we finished up at Sunset Beach, for what else but a beautiful sunset... we though we would be able to catch it there.
That evening back at the cabin, we cooked some really good seafood rice and vegetables, and had a few drinks (that day I finished my antibiotics, so I had some too) and stayed chatting for a while. Unfortunately the drinks did not seem to go down very well with me, and the next morning I was quite dizzy, with my head all over the place... I ended up throwing up twice within 30 minutes, and the whole breakfast went straight out. Later on during the day I started feeling a bit better.
We headed back to Honolulu down the middle of the island, and it was much quicker than on the way up. By about 11am we were at Pearl Harbour and had a look around the place and the museum. We also went to the Byodo-In temple across the mountains in the Valley of the Temples. It was a pure Japanese temple, a replica of one in Japan (which we did not see when we were there), with zen garden, pond and all the traditional Japanese trees and surroundings. We got back to our 'Big Surf' Apartment, this time on the 15th floor, with a much nicer view. We were totally shattered, so we had a good rest and in the evening we went out in Waikiki to meet up with Simona and Alessio. I was lucky with the Honolulu Police, who stopped me for not stopping at a stop sign (they also stopped about 50 others at that same spot that night, I am sure), they had pity on the tourists (they probably though we would not pay the fine anyway) and let us go with a warning. Here we started learning about the US Police attitude of being out there just checking out who to stop for any minuscule offence in order to give them a ticket.
On our last day, we returned the car in the morning, and went to a beach nearby the apartment. We had some lunch there with Simona and Alessio, and then we went to hit the beach at Waikiki, we got there a bit late, but we still managed to surf for a good two hours, from 5pm until the sun went down. In the evening we went back to the apartment for some food, and had some wine too, and stayed late just chatting away. I actually fell asleep before Simona and Alessio left.
The next morning it was time to leave Hawaii, so we shared a taxi with Ivan, and said goodbye at the airport... he was on a flight to LA, and we were off to San Francisco. At this point I had a bit of a shock when I found out that our American Airlines flight, which was about 6 hours long, would not have any food or drinks provided... we had to buy our own! Even the earphones had to be paid for!!!... this was quite a way down from the brilliant internal flights we had with Quantas in Australia.
We had a great time in Hawaii (Oahu), and it was a shame we only allowed one week to visit, because we actually wanted to visit other islands such as Maui and Hawaii (the big island), but it was pretty expensive to get there for just 2-3 days, and it would have been too much of a rush... maybe next time!

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Comments

[Simona]

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Hi guys! Reading your adventure in the blue Hawaiian ocean brought back beautiful memories...I am glad I was part of that, thank you for all the moments we shared! I look forward to see you again, someday. A big hug! love Simo