Hawaii

Loved Hawaii!!

Oahu (pronounced o wa who)
We stayed at the Polynesian Beach Club hostel which is about 100 metres from Waikiki beach. Not the nicest of hostels on first impressions but the people really make it.

Our first day we went up to Diamond Head which was a WW2 look out post and it's built on the side of a huge volcanoe crater. This is where they had the radar system that spotted the Japanese planes that bombed Pearl Harbour (they thought they were American planes so didn't raise the alarm...) It was a really hot day (as it has been every day!) so we were sweating buckets by the time we got to the top. Nice. An interesting trip though and you get a great view of Waikiki and Honolulu.

Laura says:-
J9s version of the views from Diamond Head should actualy focus more on our tour guide, Josh, from Tenerife - she wont disclose that sort of informaion but I can!

Laura says:-
Day one actually happened twice as we crossed the date line. We have decided that this has made no impact to our ages, meaning everyone should continue to estimate our ages at about 24-25 & not 24-25 + 1 day.
Having the same day twice does make you tired but also has many, many advantages... for instance:
2 breakfasts, one being a rather large American one complete with pancackes & hash browns (& optional RICE?? - what's that all about).
2 Dinners, one of which was instantly decided upon when walking down Waikiki beach & seeing the massive que outside Cheesburger in Paradise.
No it's not all about fast food here, or is it?

I think Waikiki is really nice. There's loads to do here and the nightlife is pretty good. It's really touristy but still cool. Very American though, with loads of fast food restaurants everywhere and everything is BIG.

We spent an afternoon at Hawaii's biggest shopping centre. We were there about 8 hours and only covered one floor, it was MASSIVE. You can get anything and everything here. Except a cheap US sim card....

Laura says:-
Not a good place for those with no sense of direction.. yeah like me! luckily J9 seemed to know which side of the complex we needed to be on to catch our bus back..... I say 'seemed', turned out she didn't.

I think you'll find I did, in the end... When it comes to directions do not believe a word Laura says - after spending long painful minutes looking at maps she still manages to take us the wrong way. This has happened many times. Poor J9 has to grin and bear it as Laura can get quite cross when I point out the right way in mere seconds...!!!

The first few days we spent some time on the beach, but seriously, it was just too hot to sunbathe, the sand was too hot to lie on! We also had a night out that the hostel organised, we went to a bar where the vodka was only a dollar, awesome!! Paid for it the next day though!.

The next day we went to the North Shore to relax a little bit but partied even harder there with some crazy Dutch and some crazier Canadians, hanging out on the beach until 5am most nights.

We went snorkelling and saw some turtles. The water was a bit murky so we were a bit worried the pictures wouldn't come out but then 2 of the turtles decided to come out onto the beach for a kip so we got loads of cool photos!!!

Back to Waikiki for a couple of nights - Sunday night we watched the Inside Man on the beach on a massive screen for free and then Monday we flew to Maui (almost missed the flight too!)

Maui
We decided to spend a week in Maui. We met an irish guy and girl in Fiji who recommended staying at the Banana Bungalows on Maui as they did daily tours around the island so it would save on renting a car.

We booked it all and then heard a rumour that they Bungalows had had a case of bed bugs. Now, you all know how I react to bed bugs after receiving +500 bites from the little critters whilst sailing around the Whitsundays, so you can imagine I wasn't looking forward to staying there. But, with not a lot of other options we went anyway. I asked the woman on reception and she confirmed they had had them and put us in a room that had been cleaned and treated. Unfortunately, as I got into bed that night I spotted a bug and obviously didn't sleep a wink that night.

Luckily it must have been the last remaining bug alive as we were bite free the next morning.

Our first trip was the road to Hana. A long day spent driving along the twisty turny coast road, stopping off at a black beach, a red beach, some caves that we could swim in and seeing one of Oprah Winfrey's many houses. We also did a 2 hour trek up through a bamboo forest to a really bigh waterfall. It was so nice to get under the waterfall as the heat was pretty extreme and most of us had had to run most of the hike as our guide was walking so fast. It was a good day though and we were all pretty shattered when we got back.

We also decided to spend a few days in Lahaina on the other side of the island. There's a new bus service that's just started in Maui so it was only a dollar.

Lahaina is really nice. More touristy than Wailuku (which is where we were staying) and very pretty. We found the one hostel only to be told that they were full so we found a hotel and spent $116 on a night there. It was nice though, sooooo good to have your own bathroom and nice white clean sheets and no bunk beds, pure luxury!!!

We had a walk around the town, saw some of the sights and then had a lovely fish dinner on the front. We were really treating ourselves!!

The next morning the manageress phoned early to say that if we wanted to stay another night she would only charge us $80! Well, I was well up for this. I mean, 8 months staying in shitty places, sharing rooms with 6 or more strangers, etc. etc., I deserved a second night of luxury.

Sensible Laura pointed out that it was too expensive to stay here and that we might risk losing our money on our reservation at the Banana Bungalow, as we had heard this happen to another girl.

However, I was not going to be deterred so we made a plan where I would ring them up and lie. Obviously I had no problem doing this and explained that Laura was a little unwell and didn't want to risk the bus journey (a polite way of saying she had the s**ts and couldn' stray far from the loo!). They beleived us (awesome acting skills that I have!) and we stayed another night. We spent the day seeing more sights and then went to Bubba Gumps restaurant for fish and chips!

Laura says:-
sensible Laura lasted all of 30 seconds then Mai Tai & sunset Laura kicked in & allowed J9 to lie through her teeth... she really is quite good at it you know.

We got up the next morning bright and early ready to take the bus back to Wailuku so that we could put our name down on the Volcanoe tour for the following day. Unfortunately the Good Lord had been watching and felt that my lies had to be punished and so started a massive bush fire between Laihana and Wailuku and the police closed the road....

This being Labor Day weekend, all the hotels in Lahaina were now full and so we spent an interesting 8 hours waiting to see if the bus would ever leave. This is after getting on the wrong bus and ending up at a shopping centre somewhere random, that was Laura's fault.

So, we sat around with probably some of the weirdest people that I've ever encountered. No offense to the people of Hawaii as I know you get odd people everywhere, but that night we definitely met some people whose family trees wouldn't be that extensive, if you know what I mean, small gene pools...

Laura says:-
Not only did we have to spend the day sitting around with these nutters they were waiting for the same bus & when I say bus I mean MINI bus... there was no escaping these guys, it was possibly the longest day of my life (& that includes the one I had twice!)

The bus finally went at 8pm and it took us 2.5 hours to make it across the island. The bush fire was pretty big and was still raging when we drove past.

We were dropped off in the middle of nowhere but a kindly woman gave us a lift back to the hostel and warned us not walk around late at night as this was where the druggies liked to hang out. Nice.

The next day we were up early to try and get in on the volcanoe crater walk. It was all full (no thanks to an annoying older lady we were sharing a room with who was taking a place despite having no intention of actually doing the walk). Luckily, a random Swiss guy rented a car and 8 of us piled in that. We dropped everybody off at the top and then me and Swiss man took the car back to the car park where we would finish the hike and hitched back up - my first (and probably last) attempt at hitch hiking!

It was a good day and a really long walk - 6 hours in total. We hiked right across the crater and then right up the steep cliff out of it which for me was a bit hairy. Not too keen on high mountain ledges. But we did it and then we all jumped back into the car and drove to the top to watch the sunset. Cool.

Laura says:-
It was a SOLID 6 hour walk - we stopped for lunch for literally 10 mins. Had it been left up to the French couple in our group it would've been an hour & 1/2 + coffee + cigarette!

The next day we flew back to Waikiki and spent a few more days chilling there.

We went to Pearl Harbour which was interesting, and saw the Arizona ship which is still under the water with all the people on it that went down with it.

Laura did a surf lesson and going by the pictures looked pretty much like a natural, I'll see if she'll let me put one on.

Laura says:-
Oh go on then, will have to wait a little longer though as I need to airbrush my stomach 1st, in keeping with the rest of Hawaii you understand!
Despite the fast food joints, Hawaii, Waikiki especially, has a real athletic feel to it - I even went jogging in the mornings!!! I know!! - what's going on there!!! I was in real good company too - everyone is at it (except J9 who doesn't need to jog, she has that Hawaiian bikini body already, my european hips need a little help :-)

Next stop, San Francisco

Laura & J9 footnote:-
You know you've hit America when being asked the following questions:
"Ah England - 'Top of the mornin' to ya'" ???
"London?" - "where abouts in the states is that?"
"England" - "Is that near the United Kingdom"
"Do you ever get to see King Charles?"

Will add more as we get them - I'm sure there'll be more ;-)