Paradise Regained

Kaua’i could not be more different from Honolulu. 

The best reason not to swim on some beaches on Kaua'i

Where Honolulu is big-city America with high rises, high crime and high prices - Kaua’i is small-town America with low buildings, low crime and regular prices.  I have not seen a building here that is above 2 stories high. Kaua’i is sleepy, quiet and even slightly dusty like something you forgot about in the back of the closet.  They have a Costco here and a Wal-Mart – but that is the extent of the fashionable high-end shopping you will find.  If you want to spend money you can go to one of the myriad souvenir shops that will gladly sell you something you don’t need and won’t believe you bought when you get back home.

We like it.

The place we are staying is on the east coast of Kaua’i.  Being on the east coast means that you get the trade winds all the time and that makes the sea fairly bumpy.  These are 1 – 2 meter bumps.  Great surfing - rotten swimming.  The ocean here has a bit of a bad rep – so far this year there have been seven tourist fatalities due to things like rogue waves, floods, and foolishness.  There may be eight as the coast guard is currently searching for a missing surfer.  The trade winds do keep the temperature much more manageable – none of this laying in bed dripping perspiration while trying to sleep.

The beaches are quite a bit smaller than those on Oahu and Maui and much rockier.  I don’t think the sand has much chance to form a beach what with the ocean barging in all the time and washing it away.

Telen demonstrating how to avoid drowning in Kaua'i.  Stay OUT of the water

There are warnings everywhere about not swimming in unguarded beaches.  I know we are in the U.S. but these guards are LIFEguards – not someone from Homeland Security.  The guarded beaches we have seen all seem to have an area that is protected by dikes of lava rock.  I suspect these are not natural but they do have openings to the ocean.  That means that fish can swim in and out of these pools.  There are two of these beaches within easy reach of where we are staying but the beach in front of our accommodation is treacherous.  We have spent some time there dabbling our feet in the water and fabricating some Vitamin D. 

Snorkeling has been a bit of a challenge.  I have this hair that grows between my nose and my upper lip.  This prevents me from getting a proper seal with the facemask.  I snorkel for a bit and my mask slowly fills up with water.  When it is about half full it is like looking through a broken window.  Everything is quite distorted.  Telen (and many other people) have been telling me for quite some time that my outlook is quite distorted but I don’t know how they knew this before we went snorkeling.  I suggested shaving my mustache off but Telen screamed and hid in the closet and wouldn’t come out until I promised not to.  Earlier on this trip I did shave my beard and mustache off and every time I would walk in the door Telen would call the police, start throwing things at me and scream something about “Friday the 13^th”.  I guess she prefers me with bits of my face concealed.

We took a drive down to Po’ipu.  I know, I know, the name sounds like something that would make a 12 year old break up into gales of laughter.  (They call snacks here pu-pu’s - another one for the kids.)  Po’ipu is on the south coast and therefore much more protected from the winds and is supposed to have the best beaches. The waves were marginally less but not so much that you felt like you wanted to just jump into the ocean.  They did have an area that had a breakwater around it - sort of like a gigantic kiddie’s pool.  So, we swam there.   What we did not know was that this kiddie’s pool was a turtle pool.   There were huge sea turtles swimming there munching on the algae growing on the rocks.   We managed to see two only about a meter off shore casually swimming around having a pu-pu.  They did not seem even aware of all the people yelling and splashing into the water to try to get their photo.  If I were them I would have thought I was being attacked by a herd of multi-hued walruses.

The light brown spot in the upper right corner of the picture is the turtle.  Really!

Telen was thrilled to see the turtle.  She did not have that privilege as I did at the Great Barrier Reef.  She would still like to see one while snorkeling and it is something we will try to accomplish while we are in Hawai’i.

A friend of an acquaintance told us that there were lots of sea turtles at a beach called Anini on the north end of the island.  So we headed off to see the turtles at Anini.  What I did forget was to bring was our snorkeling equipment.  When we got to Anini the waves were thrashing on the shore like an ex-wife.  We thought it best not to get between them and guessed that the turtles probably had the same idea.  So we walked around a bit and headed off to Hanalei.  We felt that if we could not see turtles we would settle for a dragon.

Hanalei is a very funky little town.  Where the other towns on Kaua’I are your sleepy old grandpa who you love very much - Hanalei is the cousin that still wears tie-dyed shirts, multi-coloured headbands and overuses the term “groovy”.  The town is eclectic, has energy and is very picturesque.  Alas, no dragon.  Apparently “Puff the Magic Dragon” has sadly slipped into his cave and is no longer seen in Hanalei.  Part of that is due, I suspect, to the reduction in hallucinogenic drug use since the ‘60’s.  When I asked about Puff the locals usually answered, “Cha, right, man. Uh, Dragons, man? Far out! I, like, haven’t seen one in, like, decades, man.  I don’t do that sh_t anymore.”  I presumed that I was not going to get any joy there. 

This is where Puff the Magic Dragon used to hang out.

 The film “South Pacific” was filmed in Hanalei.  I guess Hanalei was a “body double” for Tahiti.  Kaua’i is very tropical looking with remarkably blue water but it is not the South Pacific.  This is typical of Hollywood – getting the important details completely wrong.  Look at the movie “Argo” as an example of getting things completely haywire.  Apparently there were a lot of movies that were filmed or partly filmed here on Kaua’i.  I can see why – it is a very exotic looking locale.

The Taro fields at Hanalei.  See any dragons?

An interesting thing about Kaua’I is the wild chicken.  Everywhere you look there are chickens running around.  It gives the whole island the feel of an Asian village.  These chickens came from domestic chickens that got loose during a hurricane and refused to come home for dinner.  They are everywhere, as I said, and I suspect it has to do with the lack of their natural predators – the feral Chinese.  I cannot imagine any of these birds surviving an influx of these voracious predators.  They would quickly become soup.   As it is I have caught Telen sneaking out the door with a soup pot and a cleaver hidden behind her back.

The Kaua'i feral chickens.  Smart and almost inedible. 

Telen writes:

I have to admit that being a person of Chinese descent, I have been busy coming up with various strategies to capture these “free range chickens” for the dinner table.  They are literally everywhere!  The little chicks are sure cute so they would be spared from my cleaver.

So far, I have caught none.  They always seem to stray just far enough to taunt me.

I asked a sales lady the other day if people hunt these chickens for consumption.  She looked at me with such horror on her face so I stopped pursuing the topic.  I then searched the internet.  Yes, these chickens are edible.  One recipe said that “put the cleaned chicken into a pot of boiling water, add a rock.  Cook until the rock is tender”. 

Telen demonstrating the "Tree Pose".  Notice that the tree is doing it wrong...

Paradise Lost

We crossed the International Date Line and the Equator and ended up in Honolulu the day before we left.

Honolulu - a tropical paradise...

It was a bit like moving from Middle Earth to the Twilight Zone. The move from New Zealand to Honolulu is like moving from one dream state to another.  The difference is the type of dream.  New Zealand is one of those wish fulfillment dreams where all your worries are resolved or your fondest desire is realized.  Honolulu is one of those bizarre dreams where things are disjointed, don’t make any sense and you wake up from it and think, “Where did THAT come from?”

I love Hawaii.

I love the sunshine, the beaches, the warmth and the scenery.  Honolulu is not Hawaii.  Honolulu is just a big American city attempting to project the image of a tropical paradise.  It ain’t successful.  There is a constant background noise of police sirens, construction and car horns.  The streets are lined with shops that only the rich and famous dare enter.  People strut down the street in their swankiest tropical clothing trying to look high and mighty and there are limousines cruising everywhere.  The staff in all the businesses look cranky and stressed.  I can find that in any American city – why would I come here?

Waikiki? 

Waikiki is the most famous stretch of sand in the world.  This should be the reason to come to Honolulu.  Waikiki is a beach with delusions of grandeur.  The only reason it is famous is because it is in Honolulu and the only reason Honolulu is famous is because it has Waikiki.  Sounds a bit incestuous, doesn’t it?  Don’t get me wrong – Waikiki is a nice beach, albeit a bit crowded, but there is nothing extraordinary about it.  We have beaches back in Canada that make Waikiki look like an after-thought. 

Waikiki beach 

The difference is the temperature.  About 15^oC difference.  At home you get about five minutes in the water and you start to shut down – here you can spend an hour in the water and only get a bit shivery and slightly blue.  So, maybe that is a good reason to come here – especially when the weather back home is grey, wet and cold.  The other reason is the amount of clothing required.  Shorts, sandals and t-shirts are all that is necessary here as compared to…. well, I won’t get into what is required back home.

The weather has been windy and rainy - but sometimes that can give you Rainbows!

Honolulu is a place you have to see.   Like most famous cities you have to see what it is that makes them famous.  We don’t plan to spend a lot of time here and I cannot imagine we would voluntarily return but we plan to make the most of our time. 

What do you do in Honolulu?  You go to the beach and expose yourself to copious amounts of sunshine in order to get a tan and, possibly, malignant melanoma - always fun.  You can go shopping and spent vast amounts of earnings for exclusive brands of Italian clothing hand-made in Cambodia – an effortless way to aid the wealthy.  You can go to Pearl Harbour, see a tribute to war and get a nourishing dose of propaganda – always beneficial for the sanity.

We decided to do all three.

Because the weather has been very windy and showery we felt that the beach was not going to be too crowded.  What we did not count on was the fact that it was an American holiday called “President’s Day”.  The other thing we did not think of was that all these tourists had spent an inordinate amount of money to come here on their holidays and, damn it, they were going to spend their beach holidays on the beach! 

I understand that completely.  Me too!

It was peculiar to see all these people stretched out on their beach towels with another beach towel wrapped around them to keep warm.  It was not cold and the rain came in little spurts that lasted about 5 – 10 minutes but North American instinct says if it rains – its cold.  If they took the towels off and allowed the sun to warm them up they would be fine but they kept the damp cold towel wrapped around them insulating themselves from the warmth. The beach appeared to be a haul-out for some peculiar species of multi-coloured sea lions.

We wandered along the beach for a while enjoying the sun when it came out but did not stay a long time there.  It was just caution.  I spent the summers of my childhood and youth at the beach getting sunburn after sunburn.  My default skin colour was red and I peeled off more skin than a sack of potatoes every year.  Sun damage?  Most assuredly! I felt that more sunburns were, at best, a very bad idea.  So we lathered up with high SPF sunscreen and limited our exposure time.   This was not my idea – I am nowhere near that intelligent.  Telen figured that one out and, in spite of whining and stomping my feet, I did as I was told.

It has been fairly windy here and Telen was complaining about her hair blowing in her face.  I thought that was a bit insensitive.  I suggested we go to the Ala Moana mall and she could get a haircut at one of the salons.  Little did we know what awaited us at the Ala Moana Shopping Centre. We blundered on in to the mall in our MEC shorts and Southeast Asian t-shirts. I have heard the names Prada, Armani, Neiman-Marcus, and the like but I have never seen a store with those names on it.  To say we were under-dressed might be a bit of an understatement. 

Telen did find a small hair-salon tucked into a corner of the basement behind a pillar that would cut her hair as long as the fat hairy man in the cheap t-shirt left IMMEDIATELY.  So, I poked around the mall for a while looking at electronics and marveling at skill that could crowd that many numbers onto a small price tag.  Some, I guess, couldn’t fit the numbers on so they left the price tags off completely.

When I retrieved Telen from the hair-salon we wandered around the Mall.  Telen thought it would be fun to go into the Prada store.  The moment we walked into the store the security guard was onto us.  He did not say anything but he made it obvious that he was watching by standing right behind us. Telen saw a little black skirt for $695.00.  I saw a white cotton t-shirt.  It was the cheapest thing in the store at a bargain $275.00.  I looked at it, puzzled over it and even touched it (the security guy got apoplectic at that) and I could not figure out why it was $275.00.  Why was the skirt $695.00?  I assumed they were made in the same factory in Cambodia that my $6.00 t-shirt was made and they all cost 5 cents to make.  It is amazing that people will pay that much money for a t-shirt or a skirt because it has a brand name on it.  Does it make them feel better than everyone else because they spent that much money on clothes?  Are they that desperate for status?  It seems to me as if they have been swindled by their own snootiness.  I can just hear Prada chortling, giggling and shrieking as they roll around in the cash.

Pearl Harbour and the Arizona memorial was as expected.  Actually it was a little more subtle than I expected.  In contrast to the blatant propaganda and loaded words we experienced in Vietnam the message was stealthier.  The information they presented about the Japanese attack on Oahu was good and they did present quite an involved section on why they attacked.  However, the Americans were presented as selfless, courageous and disciplined victims of an unprovoked strike by a ruthless enemy.  I have no doubt there was courage and cowardice on both sides.  People are people.  Once again we see the incredible loss of life (over 2000 people in 4 hours) brought on by a bunch of old men in positions of power who are playing the “Game of Thrones”. 

American war machine.  Nice to see on a tropical holiday...

They had a twenty-minute film about the attack on Oahu with actual film footage of the battle.  The narrator went on to explain how the Americans rebuilt the fleet and went to war against the Japanese.  He explained about the millions of lives lost in the war and how the Americans managed to sink five of the Japanese aircraft carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbour.  At that point a woman a couple of rows up from me pumped her fist in the air.  As the house lights came up she started clapping loudly and looking around the room urging everyone else to clap.

I don’t think she got it.

It is not a football game where your team wins.  Those 5 aircraft carriers that the Americans sank were full of young men and women who died horribly and in terror by burning or drowning.  All those parents back home would never see their children again and would know that they died horrible deaths.  All the young wives and husbands would never see their beloved again and all the children would never see their moms or dads. It is the same as the Americans that died at Pearl Harbour and every combatant in every battle in every war.  Revenge, vengeance, justice – whatever you want to call it – it all boils down to people killing and dying for the fancies of power-hungry old men.

The memorial was to the courage and valor of the combatants in the War of the Pacific.  I have no doubt those people showed great courage and should be remembered for it.  But they were all victims.  Both sides.  I guess it makes it easier to bear if you believe that they died for a noble cause.

Either the latest "Star Wars" technology or testing lab for "Double Bubble"

Oahu and Waikiki did not feel like Hawaii.  Telen and I had to keep reminding ourselves that we were, in fact, in Hawaii.  If nightlife and big spending are what you go to the tropics for then Honolulu is the place for you!  If beautiful beaches, warm water and relaxation are why you go the tropics – go somewhere else. 

We will!

Telen writes:

I was told before that Honolulu is a big city of over 900,000 people and, yes, it is indeed a city full of high rises, limousines, Hummers and obese people in electric scooters.  I keep having to remind myself that this is the tropical paradise called Hawaii.  The main reason that we ended up in Honolulu is that it is one of the stops for our Circle Pacific plane ticket.

I am more of an optimist compared to Rand.  I try to see the positives wherever I go.  What do I find appealing in Honolulu?  The act of people watching, I would say.  Rand and I found ourselves repeatedly comparing the people here to those in New Zealand.  In general, the pace of life in Honolulu is typical of America:  fast pace and consumer oriented as reflected by the huge number of expensive stores and gas guzzling vehicles.  We often reminisced about our experience with the people in the New Zealand, seeing fields and fields of sheep and cattle grazing and the gentle humor of the locals.  I do not recall seeing a single limousine or a Hummer there.

We are continuing our search for the authentic Hawaii.

Sunset from Waikiki

 

    

 

Good-bye to Middle Earth

Kiwi Traffic jam: It's TOTAL gridlock out here!

What do you do after Milford Sound?

Pretty much anything you do after that has to be an anticlimax.  However, we soldiered on in the knowledge of inevitable disappointment.  And disappointment we found – we were disappointed in our surety of disappointment.  Does that sound convoluted?  All this touring around at the bottom of the world where the blood is constantly rushing to your head has probably done some damage to my already somewhat shaky intellect.

We hopped off the bus at Te Anau just outside of Fjordland National Park to spend the night before travelling to Dunedin.  We just had a brief stopover and decided that, rather than make our own breaky (which has been our habit up to now), we would have one of the famous venison pies made at the local pie shop.  We had been told that the meat pies in New Zealand were wonderful – but the person that told us that is a Kiwi and probably just homesick for comfort food. 

So, we decided to “bit the bullet”.  Since it was a venison pie a bullet was a possibility but we were hoping the term was metaphorical.

It was an interesting experience.  The meat pies were very large, very warm and very fresh.  I was expecting there to be something other than just venison in the pie.  You know – some peas or carrots or whatever.  In the pie were just large chunks of meat and a bit of gravy.  My stomach found that to be a somewhat unexpected breakfast and was not entirely sure how to deal with it.  After a bit though it settled in and decided it was a good thing.  Since then we have been periodically eating the local meat pies and spending some time after periodically checking our heart rates awaiting the inevitable myocardial infarction.  So far – so good.   I don’t want a cholesterol test done for a while - I know I will fail. 

Dunedin is the oldest city in New Zealand and is the furthest south that we went.  We noticed a definite difference in climate between the north end of south island and Dunedin.  It felt more like September back home than mid-summer – cooler and a bit crisp.  No one was wearing jackets but you could see them itching to put them on.  Since they are made from wool the itching bit is included at no extra charge.

Dunedin is famous for its architecture.  The buildings were certainly ornate but not enough to make one gasp in awe.  What we found interesting was the boat tour that took you out to see the albatross.  Dunedin has the only known albatross-nesting site that is on the mainland and is easily accessible.  Seeing the albatross gliding in against the wind with their three-meter wingspan was worth the trip.

Albatross!

From Dunedin to Christchurch.  It was a long and tedious bus ride.  The east side of the south island is fairly flat and more given over to agriculture than the west side.  That meant more sheep and more cattle.  Yawn.   The dairy industry in New Zealand is now the largest industry there – surpassing the sheep raising.  I guess the high tech fabrics have replaced wool as the textile of choice these days.  I did buy some Merino wool socks, though.  When you put them on it almost feels as if they have been pre-warmed.  But I know they are not THAT fresh.

Christchurch looked pretty good.

That is like saying to someone who is recovering from a horrible car accident that they look pretty good.  The earthquake did a lot of damage to property and people’s sense of security.  About fifty thousand people decided to move out of the city.  In spite of the inevitable bureaucratic nonsense that happens when government and insurance hacks try to figure out how to get out of paying the city is doing pretty well at putting itself back together.  Certainly the trade’s people are doing well by it.

Some of the damage caused by the earthquake in Christchurch

We took an “Alpine Safari” while we were in Christchurch.  That entailed heading into the mountains in a four-wheel drive, a jet-boat ride up the river and then a train ride back to Christchurch in the world-famous Transalpine Express. 

Thank goodness for Telen and her magic.  The four-wheel drive bit went up into the mountains and along barely discernible tracks on the edges of precipices.  Strangely I handled it well – although the fact that we were up in the clouds and the drop-offs simply dropped into the fog may have helped.  Going along a ridge that was about 10 cm wider than the truck and dropped off on both sides into the abyss did make me feel somewhat uncomfortable, though. 

The 4-wheel drive vehicle we climbed the mountains in

I know, I know – I said riding in a jet boat was puerile, juvenile, and senseless – but did I happen to mention that it is fun?  Part of the Safari included a jet-boat ride up the river.  The jet-boat was invented in New Zealand to navigate the very shallow rivers they have.  They only draw about 6 cm of water and they have no keel.  What this means is that they can zoom along on water that only comes up to your ankles.  I swear we were going to rip the bottom out of the boat a number of times and I know I felt rocks touching the bottom.  I mentioned this to the pilot but he just looked at me with psychotic eyes and did the maniac laugh.  I didn’t think I was going to get any satisfaction from him.

riding the jet boat

After the jet boat we ended up on the Transalpine Express train back to Christchurch.  This was supposed to be a spectacular train ride through the mountains.  It was more serene than breath taking.  It was enjoyable (especially because we had warm meat-pies) but not something to write home about – so I will say no more.

Telen and one of the deadly meat pies

We flew back to Auckland and from there we took the bus to the Bay of Islands.  The town of Puhia is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the English and the Maori allowing the English to cheat the Maori out of their land.  The settlement across the bay, now known as Russell, was the first settlement in New Zealand and earned the name of “Hell Hole of the Pacific”.  It had been a hangout for whalers, seal hunters, escaped prisoners, smugglers, pirates and prostitutes.  Now it is just a slightly boring little town with a few quaint restaurants and souvenir shops.  I was quite disappointed when we went there and saw hardly any drunken brawls or shootings.  I guess I will have wait until I get to America for that – for the shootings anyway…

We took a bus up to Cape Rienga – the most northerly point in New Zealand.  The interesting thing about the bus ride is that it went along 90 Mile beach (which is actually 64 miles long).   I don’t mean on a road beside 90 Mile beach I mean ON 90 Mile beach.  Such a bizarre experience to ride along at 90 km/hour on a sand beach with the water lapping at the wheels of the bus and seagulls taking off from the beach in front of us to get out of the way. The driver stopped for us to take some pictures.     

That would probably best be described as “unfortunate”.

We came to halt and the bus sank in the sand up to the axles.  When I say bus I am not referring to an over sized van – this was a full sized Greyhound type bus full of people.  Needless to say we were not going to be able to push this thing out by brute force.  Brute force is something I am good at but, in spite of my Neanderthal tendencies, there was no way I was going to move that thing.  The tide was coming in.

Our attempts to pull the bus out of the sand

Every guy on the bus had some advice for the driver.  I am sure he took it all into account but chose not to go with it and we waited until two more busses showed up.  They attached the two busses to the front of our bus and tried to pull it out.  Interestingly enough the two new busses had their rear wheels in the ocean as they attempted to get our bus out.  After a number of tries during which one of the cables did a spectacular break they managed to get our bus onto relatively firm sand.

 Because the tide was now very close to the busses we high-tailed it along until we came to a river.  The busses all turned and we drove up the river.

 As weird as that sounds it actually happened.   To make matters stranger we stopped at the bottom of some huge sand dunes and the driver got out and started handing wake boards to everyone.  We all went sand boarding.  You have seen nothing weirder than some old granny in a pink cardigan and flowered dress riding down the sand dunes on a wake board and shrieking with delight.  I thought I had inadvertently wandered into the twilight zone.

Me Sandboarding

We made it to Cape Rienga albeit somewhat late.  We could see where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean met.  It was a beautiful spot with unbelievably blue ocean and sky.  Again, you cannot explain it with words or show it with photos.  You gotta go there.

Telen at Cape Rienga. You can see the white-caps where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean

The next day we took a cruise into the Bay of Island.  The point of the cruise was to take us through the “Hole in the Wall” which is sea cave on one of the islands.  We were underwhelmed by the whole experience.  However, to make up for it, some dolphins came for a visit followed shortly by about six little Blue Penguins. 

The little Blue Penguins

Then Telen and I had a guided walk on one of the islands given by a Maori man named Rua.  We did not learn so much about the island as about the Maori.  It was fascinating!

Telen and Rua

The trip to Cape Reinga and the cruise on the Bay of Islands was a great way to finish our stay in New Zealand.  I would prefer to call New Zealand by its Maori name Aotearoa – which means, “Land of the Long White Cloud”.  Aotearoa is a wonderful place with spectacular scenery and down-to-earth, unpretentious people who would take you into their own homes given the opportunity.  It is a place that has its problems – particularly between the Europeans and Maori – but nothing that is not resolvable.  We met many wonderful people and ate too many meat pies.  I don’t think I have ever been to a place where I felt more welcome.  Although New Zealand is not Tolkien’s Middle Earth – there are no Elves, Wizards, or Goblins, there is a kind of magic here.

Check this out:

Telen writes:

I am sad to have reached the end of our one-month tour of New Zealand.  The pace of life here seems more laid back and the people in general are very hospitable.  We have taken numerous coaches and shuttles during our tour.  Every single driver has been friendly and welcoming.  Each of the places we stayed at always offered us some complimentary delicious New Zealand milk to have with our tea. 

Such a welcoming gesture! Haere Mai!

The Maori people have achieved a much stronger economic progress than the aboriginals in Canada.  It was an inspiring experience to have a Maori captain and crew on our cruise in the Bay of Islands.

New Zealand is definitely a place worth returning to for more exploration.  The next trip would be to try some of the hiking trails scattered throughout the country.