Day 2 of Hawaii - Big Island!

Hmm.. we landed at Big Island groggy, jet lagged, tired and sleepy at the Hilo airport at 9:00 PM on Day 1... And we had a 4 hour drive to look forward to reach our resort.. And just to make sure we did not have the slightest notion of enjoying the drive, we were warned by the scary-yet-helpful-Avis-lady as to how winding/tricky/teachorous/the roads were... And it was imperative we stay awake since we were unfamiliar to the area/roads.. yup, that's why we needed to stay awake!

The giving soul that I am, I engaged Krishna, the driver, in a conversation hoping to keep him awake long enough to reach our destination alive. Apparently the conversation was far from scintillating since I was apparently giggling, snapping, snoring, babbling, echoing the GPS in various accents and sometimes just staring at him.. whatever!

Anyway, we reached the Outrigger Keauhou Resort close to 1 PM and thought we heard some ocean-y sounds. But priority people.. check-in and sleeeeeeeeeeep.

And we woke up to this.. a glorious, sunny day... perfect for the beach! We headed down to the continental breakfast lounge and filled up on the usual veggie suspects.. pancakes, toast etc. But the fresh fruit is something else! I am a fruit-hater  (yes, we exist) but I couldn't stop gorging on the pineapple.

Then, we moved onto a presentation by an "Expedia local expert" who gives us the insider info about the local must-sees. Apparently this presentation happens on most resorts in this area. This is something I would recommend.. they do give you enough gyaan to plan an itinerary. But the emphasis is on signing up on one of their many organized tours.

Anyhoo, our next stop was at the Outrigger beach. Apparently this resort is one of the few on this part of the island which has its own beach. Well... this beach is not of the soft-sandy-clear variety. It is rocky, full of stones and impossible to wade through. But apprently that's what makes it perfect for snorkelling!! There were scores of snorkellers in this really small 30 feet stretch of sand.

Krishna immediately rented some equipment from an extremely drunk and extremely happy man and paddled off to see him some fish. Unable to willingly put my head underwater "to see some fish" I declined and instead chose to gingerly step over rocks, wade in the water and just enjoy the view... Till a turtle emerged on a rock a few feet away from me.. I just stared mesmerized and a little scared. And then, through the super clear waters I saw another turtle and multiple schools of fish. Kish emerged beaming ecstatically from seeing "an entire mini ecosystem underwater". Apparently, I wasn't seeing even 10% of what he's seeing. But I was shivering at this point and we headed back to the resort to embark on our next activity - a culture tour of the resort (C'mon, you know you want to know more...)



This resort resides on a heritage site and so, they have Hawaiian guides from the heritage center offering a 2 hour free culture tour. This includes a leh-making class, offering it with a chant to the Higher Spirit, an explanation of the fish ponds which draws in the first, a first hand experience of the erstwhile Hawaiian Olympics and culminates in the planting of saplings - a gesture to preserve the ecosystem. Interesting, informative and fun when the games were on! :) This resort has a bunch of arts 'n crafts classes on the weekdays - leh making, hula dancing - all free!

Alright, seeing that we skipped lunch, away and onwards to dinner then..  the person at the concierge desk recommended Hilton Waikoloa Village - "It is the adult disneyland of Hawaii... they have indoor gardens filled with exotic plants, birds and animals, dolphin shows, indoor canals with boat tours. I actually made quite a bit of money selling fully grown coconut trees at $1000 apiece to the resort developers... Its not geniune Hawaiian by any means but an entertaining evening for sure. And it has a beach perfect for viewing the sunset".. We were sold!

We were late... Well, I was late! And by the time we were out, the sun was already setting and we were about 30 minutes from the Hilton. But just then, we spied the sign to the Veteran's cemetery/also the landmark to the Kua Bay Beach Park - one of the best beaches ever as per the Expedia guide. We drove in and man, were the sights beautiful... It finally hit us.. we were actually in Hawaii :)



Alright then, off to the Hilton. Ok, first impressions - it is HUGE! They actually have a train inside to transport people through the resort. The resort is extravagant, luxurious and completely artificial. You can get day passes to use the many luxurious pools. You can avail the beach facilities, apparently the beach here is pretty nice, however the parking for the beach fills up really soon. And you can also indulge in shopping, dolphin watching, dine in one of the 7-8 restaurants all within the cosy air conditioned enclaves of the the resort. In other words, you can spend your complete vacation here without setting a foot outside.

Right then.. dinner for us. After consulting with the extremely friendly lady at the concierge we opted for the "kamuela provision company" restaurant. There were no vegetarian options on the menu but we were told that the chef could make some of the options vegetarian on request.

The Verdict:

• Setting is just spectacular, its right by the ocean and its super romantic with all the candlelit tables. Just aaaahhhhhh!


• Food was extremely passable - our pesto was made of sweet potato, too sweet for our palates. Onion rings were greasy and lukewarm. Don't remember the other order.


• Service - I want to say good. But he did forget to make my pesto vegetarian and I realized the mistake only after a couple of bites. But he was extremely apologetic and offered us free dessert which we declined.

All in all, a very pleasant, relaxed dinner to cap off a great day. Can't wait for tomorrow!

** Umm.. if this post sounds girly, its coz Krishna's wife as a guest writer (ahem!) has posted this **

Off to Hawaii, Day 1 in Waikiki beach

After having planned several vacations and having had to cancel them all, I took the risk of planning yet another one. This time, I had some miles, a travel cert from united.com telling me I need to book a trip - so, I went ahead, looked for tickets about a week before the actual departure date, to Hawaii!! We have, like many Indians always thought about Hawaii, sighed about it & dismissed it as far away from the path to India & hence, an unlikely choice for a vacation destination. The miles came in handy - and here, I have to give kudos to united - they do advertise that they make it easy to redeem their miles and they did make it easy - a week before the trip, I was able to book a round trip ticket to Hawaii from Minneapolis on united using 40K miles - which I think is excellent!!

Having had no clue about Hawaii, except that there was a 5 hr difference in time zone, I had booked the tickets to Honolulu. After the impulse purchase was done, I set about the arduous task of planning the activity. For some reason, I was struck by brilliance and chose the Waikiki area to stay - which, in hindsight turned out to be an excellent decision. If you are new to Honolulu, the Waikiki beach is the most popular beach areas with a fantastic stretch of beach resorts and walkways. After a lot of research (for the cheapest place to stay), I decided to book us in to the Outrigger Luana Waikiki for the night, which again turned out to be excellent!!

By the way, if you plan to stay in the waikiki area, you don't need to rent a car - there is a shuttle service called "Robert's Hawaii" that operates round-trip shuttles from the airport to almost all hotels in the Waikiki area for $15. It is better if you reserve it ahead of time though. (We didn't & were able to book the return pick-up after we reached HNL).

Almost all Hawaii islands are brimming with Outrigger resorts - in general, we found these to be of excellent location, reasonable price and good service! The place where we stayed was about a mile from the beach, but close to all the great resorts and the "Beach Walk" area of Waikiki. The Hilton has built a humungous resort & named it the "Hilton village" in Waikiki - having had a recommendation, we went over to the Hilton the first evening we landed and were disappointed by the lack of vegetarian fare in their resort. We weren't hungry and ended up having veggie spring rolls at the "Tropics" bar by the ocean. In the night, we walked along the roads over to the "Outrigger reef" hotel, which is right on the beach and is probably one of the best located hotels with one of the best accesses to the Waikiki beach. The restaurant there had absolutely no vegetarian options either - but, the views are incredible and they do boast an excellent breakfast buffet (which we didn't try).

The next morning, Charan decided she wasn't just going to be able to enjoy the beach alone & needed some more activity and with her ability to digest words quickly, she determined that we were to make the trek over to Diamond head.

A little bit of geographical knowledge needs to be inserted here - Hawaii, if you do not know is largely made of dormant volcanoes. All of the islands have volcanoes - the diamond head is a huge dormant crater that sits right on Waikiki beach. It is a great view from the air and the perspective from air shows diamond head looking like a mountain with its peak sawed off and a big lake in the center. Apparently, we overheard some military type person saying that diamond head used to be a military outpost years ago - sure enough, it seems to be such even now - with parts of the crater cordoned off.

We took public transport (bus) to Diamond head - the bus takes about 15-20 min and costs about $2. We trekked up the hill - Hint: start early if you don't like getting toasted. Being an adventure in the US, this trek is dumbed down with paved paths and steps all the way to the top - it is still a good walk to the top and the view of Waikiki from the top is incredible! For those who aren't very adventure prone, they sell certificates at the top for $2 which commemorates your trek to the top. Charan wasn't very excited about getting that, given she has trekked 8 KM on the great wall.



We made our way down & now started looking for something to eat - here is the troublesome part. Finding vegetarian food in Honolulu is a bit hard. The majority of the places in Waikiki are standard american fare, with the steak, potatoes, etc. I had also decided I wanted to taste the fresh fruits of the islands - the guy at the Outrigger had recommended Henry's place in the "beack walk" street - a little hole in the wall place manned by a really old Hawaiian/ Chinese person who cuts the fruits himself - I convinced Charan this was going to be good. So, we trudged over there as we passed the "luxury walk" with the Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's etc and despite the relatively seedy appearances found the pineapples, papayas, water melon incredibly to our liking. After having devoured a couple cups, Charan decided she needed real food.

So, we started our search for real food - the restaurant in Outrigger Reef serves breakfast till 11 & then, switched to lunch at noon - both the buffet's apparently have tons of salads - unfortunately, we were at the place at 11 AM and hungry. So, we walked out to the trump tower to find nothing vegetarian there either and didn't get the veggie burger at Denny's either, all of which are in the same intersection. Finally, we found the "subway" a block down and decided to get the sandwich there.

We returned back to the hotel, checked out of it, decided to head over to the beach - the guys in the hotel (Outrigger Luana Waikiki) were happy to hold the luggage & let us use the showers at the pool once we returned from the beach. they were incredibly helpful. As we checked our luggage in, it started to pour outside!!! that was disappointing. Although Hawaii is undergoing a drought, we apparently brought rain to the place - it rained for an hour and let up. We walked to the Hilton village & decided to walk along the beach and did so for a couple hours enjoying the ocean, the clear blue waters and the various resorts along the beach.

 

[caption id="attachment_67" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Charan in the Outrigger Reef"]
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[caption id="attachment_55" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Charan & I on the Waikiki beach"][/caption]

 

 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="view of the waikiki area up to diamond head"][/caption]

 

One of the other things about Hawaii is that the state law dictates that all beach resorts need to have public access to the beaches. In other words, almost all beaches are public in Hawaii. Even if there is a fancy resort, you can still access the beach without having to shell boat loads of cash. We walked all along the Waikiki beach, found a bunch more restaurants (that we didn't try) along the beach and then, finally returned to pack up and board our inter-island flight to Big Island.

One of my colleagues told me there wasn't much to do in Oahu but, it was better in the other islands - so, with the brief research, I decided we were to spend most time on beaches and also, visit the volcanoes in Big Island. So, we had booked to stay in Big Island for 3 nights.

So, off we go to Big Island -