Really. I must stop.
No one goes to Hawaii every 5 months…but I can’t stop.
I really can’t afford this. But I can’t stop.
Here I am, again, on a very purple Hawaiian Airlines jet, drinking champagne, listening to the new Aimee Mann on my i-Pod, reading the new Wallpaper magazine that I just bought at Sea-Tac, drinking more champagne. This so does not suck. No wonder I can’t stop.
Did I mention yet that I am flying first class? Let’s repeat that. I am flying first class. This is my first time flying first class to Hawaii. Let me explain. If you go to the Hawaiian Airlines web site exactly (and I mean exactly) 24 hours before your flight you can buy an upgrade for $250. This is significantly less expensive that just buying a first class ticket (thanks to fellow Hawaii junkie Christa McBryan for this life changing info). So now I am on my second glass of champagne, adjusting the lumbar support in my giant chair, and tentatively trying out the foot rest. I have discovered that if you smile and make that droopy Princess Diana eye contact with the flight attendant she will keep filling up your wine glass.
The crowd in first class in so totally different than on a regular flight. They all seem to be famous women that I am fond of. Strange.
Soon it’s time for lunch. Beverly Gannon, the chef from The Hali’imaile General Store on Maui (one of my favorite restaurants) does the food on first class for Hawaiian Airlines. As I expected the food is fantastic. Coconut chicken skewers on a bed of greens and ginger. Then seafood curry on fresh noodles with cilantro. I would be happy eating this in a restaurant. I can’t believe this is airplane food. I clean my hands with a warm citrus scented towel and then the flight attendant offers me some macadamia nut ice cream, Kona coffee, and more champagne!
As I fly towards Maui time starts to move backwards. It’s 10am Pacific time then 7am Hawaii time, then it’s 11am Pacific time and 8am Hawaii time, then I get confused and fall asleep. 5 hours later it is 1pm Hawaii time and we are landing. Maui!
The plan. Land in Kahului. Get some provisions (rum, Mai Tai mix, Portuguese sausage, Kona coffee, bug spray, Hawaiian potato chips…just the essentials…) then hit The Road To Hana. The first two nights in Hana then around the dry side of Haleakala, through upcountry and Kula, back and around down to Kihei and Wailea.
There is always that first wonderful breath of the warm thick Hawaiian air when you get off the plane. This is good…but it’s not a religious experience like last time I was here. It’s more like comfort food. More like Macaroni and Cheese than Crab Dip. Really good Macaroni and Cheese certainly, but Macaroni and Cheese.
We get a car and drive into Wailuku to find a store. It takes us 30 minutes to find bug spray, but I know we will need it so we keep looking. This was a wise move on my part.
We start the road to Hana. Hi Pa’ia. Hi Mama’s Fish House. Hi Ho’okipa Beach and little surfer shark snacks. Soon we are in the jungle.
We drive though a wall of bamboo just like in “Crouching Tiger”. There are beautiful flowers everywhere, including pink ones that drop vibrant fuchsia colored pollen on the highway.
The road twists and turns, but it’s really beautiful and fun. Why would anyone ever be afraid to go on this road? It’s not at all scary like the road that goes around the top end of Maui.
Everyone around us is driving either a red jeep or a cream colored PT Cruiser convertible. I feel so uncool.
Finally after a couple hours of lush green tropical beautiness we arrive in Hana.
Hana. I’ve always thought of Hana as one of those mythical places like Avalon or Shangri-la. A place no one goes to. But here I am -- in a tiny town in the jungle at the end of the road in the world’s most remotest place.
No cellular service. No radio. No TV. No wi-fi!
I have been warned not to check email or voice mail or even to think about work, but I didn’t think those options would …would not be options.
Hana. They have electricity. But I’m not sure what for.
Green. Humid. Like Hanalei. Or Hilo. These other Hawaii "H" towns are also famous for their giant bugs. Hmmm.
The condo is fine. It’s the top floor of a 2 story building right on a black sand beach.
We go to both of the two small local stores to try to buy dinner. They seem to only sell packages of recently killed beef, kimchee, and dried noodles. As such, we decide not to cook this night but to eat in the bar at the nearby Hotel Hana Maui.
The Hotel Hana Maui. This is an amazing and beautiful hotel. Rooms start around $500 and go up to $3000 a night, but if you want total seclusion and luxury this is the place for you.
Here’s the lobby
Here's the view:
The bar is fine. We ear fresh poke made not of tuna but of some mystery fish named onaga. Bartender gives us free Mai Tais. She must know we went to the store and saw the kimchee selection. Thank you nice bartender.
As we leave we see famous Knots Landing nighttime soap opera star Ted Shackleford.
Didn’t we just see famous Knots Landing nighttime soap opera star William Devane shopping for watches at Sears in Vancouver a couple weeks ago? How odd.
I feel compelled to point out that I never saw Knots Landing. Not even once.
We go back to the condo and try to sleep. As we are right on the beach, I am haunted by tsunami nightmares and strange dreams of green aprons.
At 5:30 AM the goddamn sun comes up and loud tropical birds are singing.
We get up, make coffee, and head down to the black sand beach. I mean the black boulder beach. After some time out on the boulders I make my standard Hawaii breakfast: eggs, Portuguese sausage, and Kona coffee. Then I try to go take a shower while Mark sits out on the deck reading.
This shower was made by the Menehune. In case you don’t know, the Menehune were the small hairy people who lived in Hawaii prior to the Polynesians. When the Polynesians arrived they chased the Menehune up into the hills where they survived by building showers at night.
I cannot fit into this shower. Mark has limited success also. With clean toes and shampoo in our ears we set out to explore Hana.
Driving around we notice that Hana has a lot of churches. More churches than people. And there are these weird scary Christian crosses sitting ominously on the hills around town. Big black scary crosses that look down on you. Personally I would much prefer to see some goddamn cell phone towers, but that’s just me. Mark suggests we should buy some lighter fluid and matches on our way out of town tomorrow.
We drive up to Hamoa beach. White sand. Turquoise water. Very beautiful. Oprah owns this area.
We then drive up to the “7 Sacred Pools” also known as “Oheo Gulch”. This is a series of stream fed pools, waterfalls, more pools, more waterfalls emptying into the ocean. We hike in. It’s hot. It’s humid. We are fat. We sweat. A lot. The pools are very pretty. German tourists are scattered about everywhere.
We drive right on past Lindbergh’s grave. Weird Nazi supporter.
Back to town and lunch at the Hotel Hana Maui. As we are drinking Mat Tai’s and eating $17 hamburgers, the monthly Tsunami warning test goes off.
I will sleep better tonight. The Tsunami warnings are rather loud and leave little room for confusion about what is going on. Our $17 hamburgers do not come with French Fries, but we order some anyway. They are sprinkled with this wonderful mix of seaweed and sesame seeds called furikake(?). I was not aware of this before, but as the week went on I realized Hawaiians put this on everything instead of ketchup.
Going back to the condo we decide to sit out on the deck, look at the ocean, play cards, and get drunk on Mai Tais. While I am kicking Mark’s ass on cards we hear a scary buzzing sound. We look up to see what appears to be a giant flying turd.
It starts to drive bomb us so we scream and run inside. The flying turd follows us inside! We run into the bathroom and lock the door. After several moments of abject terror we come to our senses and decide we need to deal with this. It’s up against a window so we try to catch it by putting a large glass against the window and trapping the flying turd inside.
This does not work well and the turd keeps escaping. Mark keeps making these loud not-quite-screaming sounds, “GNYAA! GNYAA!” I scream at him to be quiet. Eventually we capture the damn thing and let it go outside. This was a mistake.
Soon we calm down, have more Mai Tais, and play cards again. Tonight we are having a dinner of beef, noodles, and kimchee – because, as you’ll recall, that is the only food you can find at the store in Hana. As I start to open the jar of kimchee it explodes all over me, my clothes, and the condo. It was some sort of pent up fermented Korean cabbage time bomb. I am convinced that this time bomb is also laced with botulism. While I would not mind a little botox induced wrinkle reduction, I really need to get the kimchee off me.
I clean up, cook dinner, and then we crash in this land of no TV’s, no phones, no wi-fi, and flying turds. Strangely I actually sleep this night and do not worry about tsunamis or work.
The next day I get up with the sun, make sure I am not paralyzed from botulism poisoning. Then I make coffee and go out on the deck. Out on the deck there are 2 of the world’s most gigantic cockroaches laying on their backs dying. As I gasp in horror at the giant cockroaches, the flying turd shows back up and follows me as I run screaming inside. It heads in to the bathroom where Mark is taking a shower. I am sure it will sting him and he will die as he breaks his neck as he falls down in the shower trying to get away. But I do not hear any screaming. Soon the turd flies back out of the shower and lands on the window. This time I trap it between window panes. It can sit in there and die painfully, slowly, and alone. Damn flying turd.
I try to make breakfast, but a Portuguese Sausage squirts a bunch of paprika infused liquid all over my Kauai Coffee T-shirt. What is it with the exploding food in this town?
With the return of the flying turd and the giant cockroaches it’s clearly time to leave Hana.
We decide to take the road to Hana back from Hana rather than going around the south side of the island. Part of that road isn’t paved and you really are not supposed to take your rental car that way.
Goodbye Hana. Bugville. ‘Splody food town. Scary crosses town.
The return trip is almost more beautiful since we get the morning light. There are lots of flowers. I think about these poor flowers growing up here in lush tropical Hawaii. They will never know what its like to be a mainland flower.
The Happy Flower of Maui
After a couple hours we are out of the jungle and back in regular non-buggy Maui. The radio works and our cell phones suddenly get several bars. Hi stinky old molasses factory!
I am excited to get back to Wailea and the condo. We take the long way through Kihei so we can drive by some of our favorite restaurants and grocery stores and wave. Hi Foodland! Hi ABC store in the gas station!
Soon we are in the condo. I have stayed here so many times this feels a bit like coming home. Our room is on the top floor. The view is amazing! Ample wi-fi networks are available.
We have lunch down the beach at the Maui Onion. It’s outside. Good fish burgers, good onions rings, OK Mai Tais.
Back at the condo I do some laundry. The Portuguese Sausage squirt will not come out of my Kauai Coffee T-Shirt.
We spend some time walking on lovely Keawakapu Beach and then we get ready for dinner at Roy’s.
As we walk up the hostess holds the door open for us. We are seated immediately by a friendly woman. Everyone who works here is half my age and very, very beautiful.
11 year old waiter boy comes over. He is new and can only talk to us if he is giving a memorized speech. He bugs me. We order sake martinis and he goes away.
I was hesitant to come back here. It’s pretty expensive and I was not all that impressed with the food last time. But what the hell – when in Hawaii, eat at Roy’s. Tonight the food is really good. We start with a “Canoe of Dim Sum”. Ahi Poke with seaweed, spareribs, shrimp sticks, pot stickers, edamame, and some sushi rolls. Very good – especially the pot stickers and the ribs.
I get Butterfish as an entrée and Mark gets Scallops. Both are outstanding. We are drinking some unpronounceable very dry German white wine that goes well with both. I should explain that there really is no such thing as Butterfish. It’s really cod that has been marinated in miso, sake, and sugar overnight. The sugar caramelizes when the fish is grilled making this wonderful sweet fish that is swimming in a salty spicy broth of tiny chopped tomatoes and hot chilis. This is really very good, but Roy’s is problematic for me. As I said everyone who works here is very young, very nice, and very beautiful, but the service always seems rushed. It’s very corporate. We have the requisite molten chocolate soufflé thing, coffee, and stagger back to the condo.
As soon as we get back to the condo we change clothes and head down for a nighttime walk on the beach. There are no stars out. It’s really warm. The water is nice. We see the little blue glowy things in the sand again! Hi Little Blue Glowy things!
When I get back to the condo I Google the blue glowy things again. They remain unexplained phenomena. I like that.
I wake up at 4am. It 7am Seattle time, but it’s still dark out. The waves are loud and are pissing me off. I go out on the deck and there is the big dipper, big as life and upside down as usual here.
A few hours later we drive down to Big Beach before it gets hot out. We are the only ones there. The sun is just starting to hit Kaho’olawe and Molokini. Pretty! There are giant cacti down here.
Soon it’s getting hot and we are getting sunburned. We go back to the condo and guess what? That flying turd is buzzing around on our 8th floor balcony. Fucker must have followed us all the way from Hana. GNYAA! GNYAA
Today we go to upcountry. We visit some galleries in Makawao, take pictures of these really beautiful trees that have purple flowers in the spring, and then head to The Hali’imaile General Store for lunch.
Much like arriving at the condo, coming back here again feels a lot like coming home. What is this, my 6th time here? A really lovely waitress comes to greet us. They have great foofy drinks here so Mark has a Lava Flow and I get a Mango Margarita.
I have no intention of messing around trying anything new here. I want Crab Dip and I want it now, followed by the Sashimi Napoleon…and probably some more Crab Dip. The drinks come, we order Crab Dip. My right foot is twitching out of control. Hurry...hurry...!
Soon it arrives.
Yes, hello lover, I am back, how are you, you are so beautiful and you smell great, I am going to eat you in three seconds, go away waitress I have to commune with the Crab Dib, oh pretty Crab Dip.
I’m shaking. My world begins to zoom in. I can’t really hear now or see much. I am mostly all tongue with a slight bit of nose right now.
Out of the corner of my mind I hear some mosquito noise. It’s Waitress saying they can’t do the Sashimi Napoleon today because “the fish has not come in yet”. My hearts stops. I lift my right arm, make a fist, and slam it into my chest as hard as I can. This seems to have restarted my heart, but I really have hurt myself.
I don’t want to deal with this right now. Go away Waitress! There is Crab Dip in front of me woman! Be gone!
All I recall is that first taste. Again, that perfect mixture of sea and salt, a creamy texture with a bit of chunkiness. This is the best thing on earth in the best place in the world.
Later Mark told me that I had my eyes closed and I moaned.
I open my eyes and have some more. What was I supposed to remember? Something bad. Earthquake? Nuclear War?…what was it…oh yes, they don’t have the Sashimi Napoleon. We’ll this is pretty fucking annoying. Hmmm….what can I do. I see something on the menu called an Ahi Wrap. A piece of Ahi wrapped in rice, little orange fish eggs, and then a tortilla made with seaweed. This might work. I ask Waitress if she can get me some of that wasabi vinaigrette that goes on the Napoleon to use on this Ahi Wrap thing. She smiles knowingly and says of course she can.
I have my goodbye bite of Crab Dip and order another drink. My life so does not suck. Where do I work again?
The Ahi wrap shows up soon and it is huge. This is like a three inch round by 5 inch long piece of raw tuna, wrapped in sticky rice, those yummy orange fish eggs (tobiko?), and then a bright green tortilla. God this woman can cook.
I slowly pour the wasabi vinaigrette onto the wrap and dive in. This is really great – just as good as the Napoleon. It occurs to me that I could get rich if I could find a way to sell those little orange fish eggs by the tub like ice cream. I would eat them by the spoonful. Wouldn’t you?
Soon it’s time to go. We buy T-Shirts that spell out Hali’imaile phonetically and have little pineapples on the sleeves.
We are up high here so we listen to the NPR news station from Honolulu. A cat has gotten stuck in a coconut tree in Kailua and they are covering it live. Some things never change.
We go back to the condo and play cards on the deck. The view is so amazing up here. Mark kicks my ass on cards this time.
We go to dinner at Sansei for sushi. Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas waits on us. She is not into us. The entire dinner is just OK. Nothing tastes special, the service is half assed, even the sake is boring. Hard to compete with Hali’imaile the same day.
We go back to the condo, find Alias on TV, and then crash.
The next day the sunrise over Haleakala is pretty spectacular. There are no clouds at all. The surf is high so big loud waves are crashing on the beach. From the deck Upcountry Maui really looks like the Kona area on the Big Island where they grow coffee. I wonder why they don’t grow coffee up here. They grow crappy wine instead.
We go walk on the beach. Soon we see some cute mo’s holding hands. One is an older kind of black guy and one is the hippy guy with a pony tail. Hawaii is so tolerant. At home someone would have beat that one up for having a pony tail.
Earlier this hot guy and his two ordinary looking friends jogged by us on the beach. We tried to take pictures but they were gone before we could get a good butt shot. As we head back down the beach the hot jogger guy suddenly emerges from the sea.
It was like a miracle, really.
We get back to the hotel and see these very hot pool boys are working on the pool. One is this blond surfer dude with a good chest and floppy blond hair. The other is Italian looking and really cute. Suffice to say we take pictures, so it will last longer. Then we get caught. The Italian one catches me taking a picture of his butt. He tells the blond one and they both start laughing. Now they are posing and trying to look all buff.
I love Hawaii.
We are off to Lahaina today to buy art at the Universal Church of the Life Force. This is this hilarious store on the second floor of one of those horrible arcade places on the main street in this vampire town. We park and run to the shop without looking at the T-shirt shops around us. We will not be here long enough to have the life sucked out of us.
I love this store. It’s part head shop (bongs and stuff like that), which is so not my deal, weird penis art (which is moderately interesting), and mostly just a really good import shop with a lot of masks. The owner is here this time too – Becky. She has just adopted a very baby kitten and is feeding it with an eye dropper. I love this woman. She is smart, funny, likes penises, and is just full of life. Maybe that is why she runs her own church. She kind of remembers me from before and is going to make sure I buy something. I only came to Lahaina to come to this shop, so I am vested in buying things here too. She tried to sell me several death masks, but she makes the mistake of having me smell the masks and pointing out that you can still smell the fire from the funeral pyre. That is not a selling point. I settle on a couple of non-descript masks just because I want to buy something from her again. I tell her that I will see her in 5 months and she says “Thank you Troy. See you soon.”
Against my better judgment we got to Ka’anapali for lunch. I am not fond of West Maui in general, but this whole overdeveloped strip of super resorts and mosquitoes kind of scares me. Knowing that lunch up here was inevitable I doused my body in bug spray with Deet before leaving. We head to the Hula Grill right near the Whaler’s Village mall. Last time the crab rolls here were amazing, but this time they are just OK. We have good service here however – Marcia Brady is now a waitress here. Molokai’i and Lanai’i are both really pretty up here. We walk on the beach a bit and have to admit that this is really a beautiful location.
There are just too many people here and, well, it’s not our beach. Back down to Wailea. We do a bit of gift shopping then head back to the condo.
We drinks Mai Tais, play cards some more. Then get ready for dinner.
Tonight we are just walking across the lawn to have dinner in Sarrento’s. This is a big time formal restaurant. 7 or 8 waiters per table. Usually the food is good, but it’s expensive and too formal for Hawai’i. Plus they have these really awful paintings on the walls that seem to be variations on a theme in very colorful vaginas.
We decide to just have dinner in the bar. I start off with a martini, Mark has wine like a grown up. The waitress in the bar – the only woman who works in this place besides the hostesses, is great. Pretty, nice, helpful. Soon we order a bottle of wine and some mussels. Mussels baked in balsamic vinegar. The mussels show up. They are bad. Dry. Hard. Stupid. We then order a salad of Kula tomatoes and local greens. Wet, squishy, stupid. I have never had bad food here before. I look up at a painting of a prostate gland on the wall. It’s time to leave. We go back to the condo and change so we can walk on the beach. I am very drunk – I never should have had a martini. As we walk on the beach and look at the stars I stub my toe on a rock and hardly notice. I am bleeding, a lot. Soon I see several dozen evil looking eyes staring at me from the surf. Come in for a dip, Troy. Just a quick cooling dip, Troy. Come into the water, Troy. Stupid sharks.
The next day is our last full day here. I am hung over and missing quite a bit of blood. We drive down to the Shops at Wailea and go to the ABC store to look for ABC store T-shirts. They don’t sell them here. You have to buy them on the internet or on Oahu.
Then we drive to the lava fields south of Makena at La Peruse. I take more pictures of boys here...
...and the beautiful water.
We decide to have lunch at A Saigon Café in Wailuku. We get the same goofy Gilligan looking waiter as before, and he is funny, but the food is just OK and it takes forever to get our bill. This makes me sad. I really like this place so it’s disappointing to have a negative experience here. Maybe it’s me. The whole time I have been here I have been reading Ruth Reichl’s new book “Garlic and Sapphires”. Ruth Reichl used to be the food critic for The New York Times and now she is the editor of Gourmet. This book is about her time as a food critic in New York and the disguises she had to wear to be able to eat without getting special service. I must have bad dining experiences on the brain. It can’t be that every restaurant in Maui with the exception of Hali’imaile has suddenly gone bad.
We get back to the condo just in time for me to log on to the Hawaiian Airlines web site and try to get an upgrade to First Class flying home. I do! I win! I’ll be flying first class on my birthday.
Now it’s sinking in that we are going home tomorrow. I am ready, but I’m sad. I look at the view from the deck for a long time so it will sink in.
Mark is taking me dinner at Mama’s Fish House tonight for my birthday. Before dinner though we go back to Ho’okipa Beach to take more pictures and check out more surfers boys.
We show up at Mama’s and give the car to the little valet boy. We walk down the path made of Escher-painting like gecko tiles.
As we approach the hostess stand the woman makes eye contact with us and then she turns around and walks away! No! No! I can’t have bad service here! This is my birthday dinner. Hostess comes back in a second and pretends she wasn’t just mean to us. She tells us to go have a seat and she will seat us in a second. As soon as we sit down she comes to get us. Hostess is evil.
We are seated and then greeted by the world’s nicest water pouring girl. Then we wait. And wait. Finally this dufus waiter named Kipo…or Ipok…or more appropriately Poki shows up. We order glasses of champagne and then he leaves. In the 15 minutes it takes him to bring our drinks out he manages to greet a table seated after us and tell them the specials and tell them that he is out of Moi tonight.
Now I feel bad bitching about my birthday dinner given Mark spent a fortune on this and he agreed to be the designated driver, but indulge me, I am on a roll here.
Poki shows up with our champagne and tells us about the special and then remembers to mention the Moi outage as I am slowly lifting my butter knife to slit his throat.
We order appetizers of Ahi poke and crab cakes. Poki snorts at us. When the table next to us orders the same thing he compliments them on their fine choices.
The appetizers are good and the water girl is very supportive. Suddenly Robert Conrad circa 1961 in very tight pants shows up to see if we want to order wine. Well we do now! We get a bottle of Sonoma Cutrer. Poki suddently shows up and looks all hurt.
We order salads. Mark gets this awful sounding salad of ahi, won tons, orange fish eggs, goat cheese, seaweed, and wasabi vinaigrette. I get this lobster and calamari salad.
Mark’s salad is amazing. Everything just kind of flows together is this perfect mixture of fish and crunch and salt and spice. I get undressed greens with a log of old lobster and a fish stick on the side. I consider hunting down Poki with my butter knife but suddenly Robert Conrad shows back up so I order a half bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse.
Poki appears again and we order entrées. Mark gets Ono with caramelized Maui onions. It is good. I get some kind of Hawaiian Luau platter with Mahi Mahi, Ono, orange and purple sweet potatoes, a coconut, some fried bananas, and Kahlua pig. This was actually pretty fun and good too. At some point I have forgotten to be mad at Poki.
We get plunger pots of Kona coffee and lilikoi crème brulee for dessert. OK, this was actually a very lovely meal, pokiness aside.
As we leave the restaurant it is dark and I see another upsidedown big dipper lighting up the sky. Ah. All is well. Thank you for the car valet boy who has been listening to heavy metal on our radio very loudly.
-------------------------
Awake. The last few hours. We have breakfast in the Five Palms Restaurant in the condo. The people sitting next to us are each eating a giant bag of vitamins that they are chugging down with guava juice. Then they each order omelets of eggs. Eggs only. No cheese. No onions, no mushrooms, egg only. I hate these people.
I loudly order an omelet with Kalua pig, Maui Onions, and Kula tomatoes. So does Mark.
We check out and drive through Kihei. Bye Foodland. Bye ABC store in the gas-station. Bye Sansei with evil Michelle Phillips waitress.
We drop off the car and check in – to First Class.
Soon we are on the plane. Lumbar support adjusted, I look up to see the same flight attendant as before. Before I can even make my droopy eyed Princess Diana look at her, she hands me a glass of champagne and says welcome back. The lunch from Hali’imaile is just as good as before. This piece of shrimp is surrounded by some kind of seafood mousse, then deep fried. It’s resting on a bed of greens with some kind of spicy vinaigrette. Then I get fresh snapper in a cilantro pesto. Strawberry Trifle for dessert. After lunch I have some more champagne, fall asleep, and suddenly we are home.
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