Wow, what a day, what a day.
First off, I have to kick myself for not following my own advice and not putting my camera battery on charge the night before as I got the message of low battery about 10am in the morning and was paraoid all day that it was seconds away from totally dying on me and not taking any photos. As it was it took another 30, but I was picking my shots, setting it up and then only switching my camera on at the last second before snapping away and then switching it off again as soon as possible.
I was due to be picked up from the hotel along the road at 8:25am, so I had plenty of time to go along to the end of the road and have a quick breakfast, which was tasty but the waiters were too helpful and refilled my tea with fresh coffee before I could stop them, thus the tip I left was less than the 15% expected as after that he walked away before I could correct his error and thus lost half my drink.
The directions I had been given to pick up the bus were a little bit off and I ended up waiting at one end of the hotel while the bus was waiting at the other end of the hotel, although on my part I was also told that it would be a big luxury coach and it ended up being a tiny mini bus that seated no more than twenty people.
When we made our first stop and switched to the other mini-bus it was no bigger than the first but the driver and guide called Rongo, was a very friendly local who knew everything there was to know about everything and was able to keep up a monologue from 9am right through to 6pm when we got back to the bus.
He was all smiles, a dark tan rather than dark skin, and had a bit of a weird lisping accent that meant whenever he said "to day", "to do" or "to the" it always sounded like "titty", no matter how many times I tried to catch it, it always sounded the same.
His information ran from just about everything to do with the islands, the people, the history, world war II, food, culture and everything in between and it would take me a week to write up everything he told me as it was always short, informative and never on the same subject twice. I am not 100% sure of all his facts, but this is what he told me.
Honolulu is not actually on the Island of Hawaii at all, and they pronouce it very different to what you hear in most movies, sounding each vowel seperately with audible pauses between each letter.
Some of the highlights of his chat was that the bird of paradise is actually a flower, from the banana family and is so called because of its wild and vibrant coloured flower.
The pineapple is not actuall a fruit at all, instead it is a collection of fused berries growing from the stalk and each plant has up to three of these clumps rippen at once per season.
Over 90% of the vegetation is not native to the island, most brough originally by the Polynesian settlers from Fiji, Samoa, Patagonia and other nearby island, and they found it Hawaii after following short distance migrating birds.
The population of O'ahu is around 900,000 people, and almost all of them live in the southern half of the island, the north having only one main town, a leftover from the islands early whaling history days.
The Islands originally started up serious diplomatic links with with mainland America only so that it did not have to pay extortive taxes when trading with California, and it was only many years later that it became an official state.
The waves are biggest in the south of the island during the summer, in the north during the winter and major surfing contests will only be held if the wave crests are over 25 feet tall on the main beaches, although anything above 3 feet is technically surfable ( its just not dangerous or exciting enough to watch ).
Every beach on the island of O'ahu is fully public and no hotel chain, resort, mall or restaurant has any claim to the any beaches, with the same restriction to roads which lead everywhere over the Island. This means that anyone can drive just about anywhere and go to any beach ( except of course for the small military bases that are still in use today, and with the level of terrorist activities in the world they are still strict with who let onto and off their bases ).
Almost all of the Island was covered with thousands of sugar plantations before they became not cost efficient, so most were replaced with pineapple farms, many of which are still evident today, the biggest being the Dole plantation in the middle of the island, which also houses the officially recognised worlds largest maze.
The Hawaiian islands are the most remote islands in the world, being made not from an uprising of continental shelf but from a hot spot area of volcanic activity in the middle of the oceas, miles away from any plate boundaries and as such is one of the newest land masses on the planet, and this probably also explains why there were no original people evolving and originating from the island, not until it was found by travelling Polynesians.
The main island of Hawaii, locally called the big island, is also the site of the worlds most active volcano.
For the tour of the Island we set off from the hotel district in Waikiki and in a large loop toured the south east coast, all along the east coast and across the north coast to the centre before cutting straight down through the middle of the island, ignoring most of the uninhabited north and far west side of the Island.
Rongo, our guide, not only liked to talk ( a lot ) but he also liked to stop off and let us take photos of the beaches right along the coast and although I never once heard anyone actually ask to stop at any of them, we must have paused more than a dozen times so that he could give us chances to take our "national geographic" shots as it were.
I would have been happier if my camera battery was more full, as without it I did not feel confident that I could leave it switched on long enough to set up shots of have many taken of me, instead I shot off only a few when I saw something that realy caught my eye more than most.
Just before we were planned to stop for lunch we passed by and made a stop at a fabulous replica Japanese Temple just near the east coast and its bright red colours, authentic ( if a tiny but more basic than I was expecting ) designs including wood carvings, a great big buddha statue and a clensing bell with rope held bong that you were allowed to chime.
Most of the people of the bus stopped for photos on the very photogenic bridge leading up to it, which was a pain as I really wanted to take a photo of the whole place without too many tourists in the foreground, but soon enough they went off to ring the bell.
I am not sure if any of them actually stopped to read the signs, but you were not just meant to bang the bell and walk off but instead make a silent prayer and then offer a donatoin to buddha and his followers before you were clensed, but all of them just wanted to ring it and have their photo taken.
Just before I took my turn, being last by choice, this couple of middle aged American guys tried to big themselves up by ringing it as loud as they could, but I could tell by their stance that they had no idea of how, which was amusing in itself and although their chime was loud it was not defening. After their attempt, and failure to pray or donate, I could not help myself giving it a much louder and clearer ring than they did and even as they walked away I could hear them mutter dark curses to each other, totally against the whole nature of the clensing bell.
As we were only given fifteen minutes at the temple ( I would have much preferred to spend an hour and miss some of the "extra" beach stops that Rongo had added for us on our behalf ) and so I could not see more, but the place also had live fish swimming around that were so huge it was nice just to watch them for a few minutes.
My own personal souveneir was a coin reshaping / engraving machine that for 50 cents would allow you to turn a normal 1 cent copper coin into a stretched and flattened plate with one of four images engraved onto it. I chose an image identical to the temple itself and after giving the machine handle a few cranks got my shiny coin.
I was a bit surprised when we stopped to have dinner about half way through the day, surprised as we were not given free meals as I was had thought, but rather a US $2 discount voucher for the buffet if we chose it, but nothing else if not.
Up in the north we pretty much just drove around and made one or two stops for toilet breaks, and we learned that the locals have chosen not to include sidewalks for the roads in the only city in the north and also that they are not allowed to build anything with more than two levels there, as they are trying to discourage too many tourists or developers from taking an interest and destroying any more of the wildlife and nature than they already have.
By the time we were leaving out last beach only about three of us even bothered to get out of the bus to walk down to the coast for yet another photo opportunity, which was why I decided to take the opportunity of this virgin beach and using an bit of flotsome that I found I wrote out my name in the sand and smiled happily as I walked back to the bus, knowing that the sign would last a few hours before the tide washed it away.
After the beach we loved down to the inner part of the Island as we drove down from north to south, and midway we stopped off and spent an hour here in the Dole Plantation. I was keen to come here and run around the worlds largest maze, not to mention riding the train that I had seen on the brochure and was more than a bit miffed when Rongo told me that these two are no longer part of the inclusive tour package and instead he wanted to walk us round the plantatoin for an hour talking about Pineapples.
This was very much not on my agenda, so I made my exit early enough to still have an attempt at the maze and agreed to meet them back at the bus before it was due to leave. Over 3 miles of natural maze, all built with walls made of live pineapple trees was great, but instead of just having to get in or out, it was like a treasure hunt as you had to find little metal stations where you could then use the stensil to mark your maze card, collect all 8 before finally heading off towards the exit.
There is a map if you want it, but by accepting one you are forbidden from getting your time card marked and of course you are not meant to run or cut corners either, but I am sure you can if you want. I had a lot of fun and found 4 of the 8, but time prevented it and I personally feel that large families should be banned, as often the way would be narrow and I ended up having to wait for slow moving adults and OAP's in bottlenecks more than a few occasions.
The other thing that surprised me was the the other seekers were not very friendly or helpful, often allowing me to go past them to dead ends without even a hint that I was wasting my time or that I should just turn back and try another route.
With its record of about 14 minutes safe from my attempts, after almost the full hour I came back and had barely enough time to turn another 1 cent coin into a smiling pineapple person before then jumping back on the bus.
There was only one more stop before we were back in Waikiki and it was nice to get off the bus, collect my thoughts and tell my brain that it could stop trying to take in rambling monologue, which was a relief and then I walked back to my hostel.
After updating my blog and scanning in the photos I took myself off for a walk around the place, found a nice place for a fabulous lomi lomi massage, that felt great but was almost identical to many of the other oil massages I have had in my life ... is there meant to be a difference, I am not sure ) and then after stopping for a bite to eat went back and ignoring the noise from outside settled in for an early nights sleep ( around 10:50pm ).
