Our family is not into too many electronic gadgets, but we do have our share. In fact, if I ask my kids, where we do rank in terms of coolness among their peers and friends, they simply reply, "Last!". Any ways, even with what we have, as we were getting ready to pack for travel, I looked at the stuff we wanted to carry
Nintendo DS (two for two girls) and the chargers
My cell phone charger
Wife cell phone charger
Digital camera charger
Camcorder charger
iPod charger
Laptop charger
And there were other gadgets I used my veto power to exclude. If we took one look at the gadgets, their chargers and the wires that go with them, it was just shocking -- what our lives have become. Things havent become simple ... When we made the Rameshwaram trip with my grandma when I was 10, I dont think we had any of these devices and the trip is still fresh in my memory! But the problem is not the gadgets (may be to some extent), but the incompatible chargers they require. Even if you use USB to charge, the laptop is needed and the wire-ends are not uniform. So, you will end up carrying multiple wires. In fact, different Canon cameras require different batteries and different chargers, and you cannot use USB to charge the batteries. I wonder about their business model ... Just drives me mad.
Regulation is the answer and I hope the Government steps up. The companies are not changing their products to make it easier. Luckily Europe is leading the way and I read this news recently ...
We planned around November of last year (2009) to take a vacation in a warm place during Christmas break. With school going kids and both of us working, it is tough to plan six months (or earlier) ahead. I looked at Hawaii (which island?), Mexico and Florida. I also considered cruise. Quickly I eliminated all but Hawaii. I had to learn a about different islands quickly. Thanks to Foder's travel books on Hawaii, things got easier. Maui seemed to be perfect choice as there are plenty of activities for adults and kids. Big island is remote, quite isolated and one can get to see active volcanoe. Honolulu and Oahu would have been great, it is little too commericialized, but you can visit the famous waikiki beach and also Pearl Harbor. We decided to go to Maui as it offers a combination of great beaches, tropical rain forests, hiking trails, and big mountains. We wanted to spend 5 to 6 days there and I used Priceline to book my flight tickets. This was my first time at priceline and I used their bid-your-own-price feature. It worked out great, but I had to be patient for a week. I didnt opt for a package deal as I wanted to book a resort room with cooking facilities. In Maui, you MUST have car and you cannot have a good vacation otherwise. But, I didnt book rental car in advance and when I decided to book one week before the trip, it wasnt available -- all cars were booked. I kept calling and tried for looong hours. It was frustrating and finally found something for $180 (!) a day. But it kept reducing as the travel day approached. When I left, I had a reservation for $135 a day. At the airport, I got cars for $85. As you can see, rental car companies really try to make the most during the christmas period. Since we returned it is annoying to see email updates and deals from travel websites -- rental for just $8 a day. So, one might consider traveling during spring break to reduce the cost.
Place of Stay
We stayed in Makena beach and golf resort, which is one of the best places I have ever stayed in. The resort facilities are awesome, their beach is wonderful, the resort is full of green trees and flowers, and the staff very nice and accomadating. The resort is little south of most activities, but if you have a car it doesnt matter. I strongly recommend this place. The rooms are large, they all overlook the beach, they have a balcony, but they dont have a kitchen. They do provide fridge and you could manage some cooking with an electric stove. We needed vegetarian food; we were warned that there werent many vegetarian places in Maui and one mostly gets sea food. It is not true, and there are plenty of vegetarian restaurants; it is little expensive however -- 25% more compared to mainland. The resort has a nice swimming pool, spa, and also provide facilities for yoga, table tennis, crocket, and volleyball. The beach is private, it is clean and the waves are quite safe. We spent many hours at the beach. The water temperature was around 80 degrees and that was just perfect. You could rent boogie boards or snorkeling gears from the hotel. If you are adventerous, you could go on a canoe and also try out scuba diving further into the water. The sun gets really hot in the middle of the day, and that was just great for a winter getaway. Just be ready with plenty of sun lotion. This beach at the resort had no rocks in the water and one could walk close to 50 feet inside at around 5 feet. We were able to swim and could float on the waves in the boogie board. The resort is close to the city of Wailea, which is a very nice, but an expensive area to stay. There is a mall and many 5-star hotels in the town of Wailea. The other town close by is Kihei, which is quite crowded, but has nice beaches, many shops and many restaurants (Chinese, Thai, Pizza and diners).
Getting Oriented
Most of the activities happen around the west side of the island. You will be arriving at the Kahului airport, which is located in the north east side of the island.
The popular areas for tourists are Kaanapali, Lahaina, and Kapalua and they are located along the west side. Makena, where we stayed is in the south and it is close to the big beach. The big beach is a state park, really big, quite isolated, not well-developed, not commercialized, has no rest rooms or water to wash off sand, but has a very long and beautiful sandy beach. The waves are huge and it is definitely not a place for kids and beginners. The drive from Makena to the airport takes about 30 minutes when there is no traffic. The drive from Makena to Kaanapali takes about 45 minutes, and it is a beautiful drive. Lahaina, Kaanapali, and Kapalua are towns adjacent to each other. Lahaina is a nice little town similar to many California beach towns and there are many shopping places for souveniers and also for food. One of the attractions in Lahaina is the big banyan tree. Under the banyan tree, you will see many local artisans doing painting, weaving, and sculpting. The tree is very old and has spawned many trunks. Along the drive to Kaanapali, you will see many small road side stalls selling fruits and coconut candies (dry coconut dipped in jaggery -- great taste and dont miss it!). Pineapple, mango and sugarcane are the common fruits and they are delicious. Unlike pineapple you get in the mainland, these are very sweet and do not leave a scratchy feeling in your throat. My guess is that they cut the fruits early so they can ship to mainland and let it ripe during travel, whereas they keep it for longer time in the tree if they sell it locally.
Activities
In Maui, the popular activities are the following:
Snorkeling in the Molokini crater.
Drive to Hana
Driving to Haleakala peak early morning to see sun rise.
Iao Valley
All beach activities
Snorkeling
Maui beaches offer lots of snorkeling oppurtunities. But for best snorkeling experience, one must visit Molokini crater. Also, I recommend to take the earliest boat and do snorkeling in the morning. This is because as the days go by it gets crowded with lots of boats and also the water is quite disturbed by early snorkelers. They do control number of trips to the crater per day, but no matter how much they try to control, if you go late, you wont get as clear a view of the ocean bottom and reef as in the morning. During the ride to the crater, you will have a good chance to see whales. We saw three of them and two of them were mother and baby. The picture to the right shows the tip of whale. Only a portion of the body comes above water and we were lucky to see the whales. It was our first snorkeling experience and the instructors were very helpful. My kids got it very quickly, and for the first few minutes I struggled to breath through the mouth. You feel that you are suffocating, but you have to tell yourself that it is fine to breath through the mouth as your nose is fully covered by the snorkeling gear. Once you get used to it was fun. The view was spectacular and we could see the bottom of the sea as well as the reef very clearly. Though it was very early in the morning -- we took first boat to Molokini at 6:30AM -- the water was not cold. We saw lots of colorful fish and the whole family had a great time and we wished we could have stayed there for much longer. After Molokini crater, the boat took us to Turtle town for more snorkeling swimming and diving. Unfortunately we got to see only two turtles, and they were sleeping deep at the bottom. After a while one of them started moving and things became interesting. The visibility is quite poor at this place and it is not as clear as the crater. It is not worth taking a special trip just for this place and similarly it is not worth taking a whale watching trip just for whale watching.
Drive to Hana
This is one of the activities I was looking forward to, and was also quite nervous about. All the books and articles scared me about the difficulty of driving, narrow lanes, slippery roads in the rain forest areas because of frequent rains, and close to 320 sharp turns along the way. The books also told me that there is not much at the town of Hana, but it is the drive itself that is interesting. It is completely true and it is important that one takes plenty of breaks to enjoy the viewpoints, the waterfalls, take a dip in few waterfalls, eat leisurely lunch and also stop at few of the road side stalls for snacks and local fruits. The total distance is only 50 miles, but it can easily take 3 hours to reach. Also, it is important that you leave early in the morning so you dont end up driving along the curves in the night. I was quite nervous in the beginning and was very defensive in my driving, but after some time really got used it. It will be tough if any of the passengers have motion sickness. I would recommend that be a nice driver, be defensive and slow, give way in the one lane bridges, and take it easy. After all it is vacation and there is nothing much to do in Hana once you get there.
Along the drive, the first town you see is Pa‘ia (Pah-ee-ah) town. It is the last place you can get gas before you reach Hana. So, fill up your tank and also pack your lunch. This is a nice little town with good coffee shops, fancy art shops and souvenier shops. This town has plenty of sugar cane fields. Right outside the town is the Ho‘okipa Beach Park . This beach is well known for windsurfing and it hosts two major world-class competitions. . It is important to get hold of the mile marker guide that tells you about various mile markers and worthwhile spots to stop and wander around. If you have kids, after couple of stops you might get tired as they might not show that much interest in all the natural scenaries and activities. If you include jumping in the waterfalls, they might like it more. Our first stop was at a road side stall where we bought some fruits and also enjoyed their local farmhouse. Afterwards we stopped at the popular twin falls, where it is difficult to find a parking. The hike to the falls is about 10 minutes from the road; the hike, the greenery and the falls are quite nice.
We stopped at another falls along the way and took a dip in the water. The water was very cold, but it was lots of fun. The tropical rain forest surrounding was breathtaking. The trees were extremely tall with lots of vines wrapped around them.
We took about 3 hours to reach Hana and kids got really tired by the end. When we reached Hana, as expected, we found out that there is not much to do in the town. We wanted to see the black sand beach, however. We first stopped at the Hana beach and we had our lunch there. The kids then played in the beach for a while and it was beginning to get dark. As you can see in the pictures, the vegetation completely changed. There were number of pine trees and it was beautiful, and looked like Seattle or Vancouver. Also, I saw number of Badaam trees (dont know the english name and we call it Ba-daam in Tamil) and I broke open the seeds to eat the nuts inside. The Badaam nuts are like cousins of Almond nuts. It brought back lots of summer time memories of growing up in India, where I spent lots of time sitting on these trees.
Black Sand Beach
Another attraction close to the town of Hana is the black sand beach. It is part of the Wainapanapa State Park. There is a cave close to the beach and the waves are really strong. This black sand beach has shining block pebbles, which I was told came from lava. Long time back, lave entered this ocean and the beach and it became rock. Over the years, the waves smashed the rocks and broken them into polished black pebbles. It is amazing to a beach with black sand and black pebbles.
Haleakala National Park and Sunrise
Haleakala national park is at the top of a mountain and the summit is about 10,000 feet. There is a huge crater at the summit and the volcano is dormant. It is an amazing experience to watch the sun rise at the summit. It is quite cold at the summit in the early morning (around 45 deg) and it is important to carry enough warm cloths. Also remember to carry some food and a torch light. The drive from Maui takes about 2 hours if there is no traffic and it is better to leave early to avoid late arriving visitors. We left Makena around 3:30 in the morning and it was a nervous ride up to the peak, and it is more nervous when you are driving down. It is essential you use the lowest gear to avoid brake failure. We reached in two hours and had to wait till 6:50 (almost 90 minutes) for the sun rise. There were lot of people waiting in the cold for a long time. I attached pictures and the video below.
The video that I shot below is quite interesting. I was waiting for a long time (90 minutes) for this. As I was shooting the sunrise, and it was beautiful and quite a spiritual experience, a man behind us started singing a native American song. It seems that the natives used to sing that song to sun God. It was a surprise and added something extra to the whole experience.
Iao Valley
Another attraction that is close to the airport and easily accessible from the center of the city is Iao Valley. It is a state park and has stunning views of mountains. The main attraction is the Iao Needle which is a very tall monolithic rock similar to the ones you find in Yosemite valley.
Souveniers
The common ones you find are Lei, sea shell bracelets and necklaces, fridge magnet, etc. I would strongly recommend buying some coconut candies and also Kona coffee.
