Maui Day 1 and Day 2
Day 1:
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* Submarine Dive:
Good Experience. It is just like watching fish in an aquarium (you have better chances of seeing colorful fish in an aquarium) but the whole submarine experience is worth doing once. If not for anything, the instruction over the speaker that your submarine gets "DIVE DIVE DIVE" sounds cool. Our guide had a lot of jokes up her sleeve and I mean lot, people stopped believing her even when she was serious kind of lot.
* Luau:
This is the Hula dance show with a dinner buffet. Nice way to spend an evening enjoying a cool breeze from the ocean. Again, this is not something you would do more than once, mainly because of the ticket cost, just like most other things in Maui. I wore an 'England' jersey that I have and coincidentally we sat next to a British couple. It was their 4th trip to Hawaii. We had a nice time discussing Rooney's injury and Flintoff's Ashes. Next day we met them at three different landmarks on our road to Hana.
Here is a pic from Luau.
We have lots of video of our stay in Maui and when I get time, I will upload short clips. Video editing is a very time consuming thing but the last clip I uploaded got a huge response (115,000+ hits) but then it was related to cricket :).
That was the end of our first full day in Hawaii.
Day 2
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* Road to Hana
This was the only activity we did on this day. At Luau the British guy told us to first imagine how much time we would take to do this 57 mile one way drive and then he told us that we should then triple it and he was spot on. This drive is so beautiful that you cannot help but stop and spend time at various scenic spots. Google(images) for "Road to Hana" to get an idea what I mean. Imagine how nice it is and then triple it. You have to pack your lunch as there are no Burger Kings on the way. The only things that you are sure to find are hairpin bends and one lane bridges. And yes, you have ocean on one side, mountains on the other and these mountains have a bonus of rainforests, other than the waterfalls that you see on the way ofcourse.
Let me summarize this drive in bullet points as it is almost 2:15 am.
o We wanted to leave at 7:00am. We left at 8:00am.
o We took a turn to fill up the Jeep and as a pleasant surprise found a cafe, Cafe Des Amis, that had Indian veg wraps. There was no Indian in that restaurant, not even the chef. So why were they selling "authentic" Indian food? As we all know, Kohinoor is not the only thing British liked about India. The owner of this restaurant is British. The food(btw, I had some chicken crepe), I must add, was better than some of the Indian restaurants I have been to. This type worked out great as there was no danger of getting charged for spilled curry on the back seat.
o The next stop was at twin falls. The highlight was not the mango/guava/papaya trees or even the falls. The highlight was the sugarcane juice with lemon juice that put me right back in late 80s and early 90s, a period when I have enjoyed 90% of the total sugarcane juice I have had so far. *exact* *same* *taste*. And I stress this as we had it at another place where it was somewhat different. Anyway, I will give this juicewala bhaiyya at twin falls a 9/10. He loses that 1 mark to extra-cleanliness and using a machine to squeeze the lemon.
o Garden of Eden is where we relaxed, had our lunch, relaxed more, interacted with most colorful parrots I have ever seen in my life. $10 per person entry fee was totally worth it as we saw the part of the ocean and rainforest that featured in the opening sequence of Jurassic Park and they had clean restrooms.
You can check this out at Maui Garden Of Eden. And yes, don't forget to triple what you see.
o Then we drove, stopped, drove and drove back. Also the remotest gas-station that we saw had the cheapest gas for $4.29.
The first picture is just before we started the road to Hana, first scenic point. And the next two were somewhere on the way.
I doubt any drive can beat this one. We reached back to Kahului at 7 pm. Spending 11 hrs driving, walking, taking pictures, looking for restrooms etc and and not feeling tired at the end of the day is the best thing about Hawaii!!
Day 3 coming up
------
* Submarine Dive:
Good Experience. It is just like watching fish in an aquarium (you have better chances of seeing colorful fish in an aquarium) but the whole submarine experience is worth doing once. If not for anything, the instruction over the speaker that your submarine gets "DIVE DIVE DIVE" sounds cool. Our guide had a lot of jokes up her sleeve and I mean lot, people stopped believing her even when she was serious kind of lot.
* Luau:
This is the Hula dance show with a dinner buffet. Nice way to spend an evening enjoying a cool breeze from the ocean. Again, this is not something you would do more than once, mainly because of the ticket cost, just like most other things in Maui. I wore an 'England' jersey that I have and coincidentally we sat next to a British couple. It was their 4th trip to Hawaii. We had a nice time discussing Rooney's injury and Flintoff's Ashes. Next day we met them at three different landmarks on our road to Hana.
Here is a pic from Luau.
We have lots of video of our stay in Maui and when I get time, I will upload short clips. Video editing is a very time consuming thing but the last clip I uploaded got a huge response (115,000+ hits) but then it was related to cricket :).
That was the end of our first full day in Hawaii.
Day 2
------
* Road to Hana
This was the only activity we did on this day. At Luau the British guy told us to first imagine how much time we would take to do this 57 mile one way drive and then he told us that we should then triple it and he was spot on. This drive is so beautiful that you cannot help but stop and spend time at various scenic spots. Google(images) for "Road to Hana" to get an idea what I mean. Imagine how nice it is and then triple it. You have to pack your lunch as there are no Burger Kings on the way. The only things that you are sure to find are hairpin bends and one lane bridges. And yes, you have ocean on one side, mountains on the other and these mountains have a bonus of rainforests, other than the waterfalls that you see on the way ofcourse.
Let me summarize this drive in bullet points as it is almost 2:15 am.
o We wanted to leave at 7:00am. We left at 8:00am.
o We took a turn to fill up the Jeep and as a pleasant surprise found a cafe, Cafe Des Amis, that had Indian veg wraps. There was no Indian in that restaurant, not even the chef. So why were they selling "authentic" Indian food? As we all know, Kohinoor is not the only thing British liked about India. The owner of this restaurant is British. The food(btw, I had some chicken crepe), I must add, was better than some of the Indian restaurants I have been to. This type worked out great as there was no danger of getting charged for spilled curry on the back seat.
o The next stop was at twin falls. The highlight was not the mango/guava/papaya trees or even the falls. The highlight was the sugarcane juice with lemon juice that put me right back in late 80s and early 90s, a period when I have enjoyed 90% of the total sugarcane juice I have had so far. *exact* *same* *taste*. And I stress this as we had it at another place where it was somewhat different. Anyway, I will give this juicewala bhaiyya at twin falls a 9/10. He loses that 1 mark to extra-cleanliness and using a machine to squeeze the lemon.
o Garden of Eden is where we relaxed, had our lunch, relaxed more, interacted with most colorful parrots I have ever seen in my life. $10 per person entry fee was totally worth it as we saw the part of the ocean and rainforest that featured in the opening sequence of Jurassic Park and they had clean restrooms.
You can check this out at Maui Garden Of Eden. And yes, don't forget to triple what you see.
o Then we drove, stopped, drove and drove back. Also the remotest gas-station that we saw had the cheapest gas for $4.29.
The first picture is just before we started the road to Hana, first scenic point. And the next two were somewhere on the way.
I doubt any drive can beat this one. We reached back to Kahului at 7 pm. Spending 11 hrs driving, walking, taking pictures, looking for restrooms etc and and not feeling tired at the end of the day is the best thing about Hawaii!!
Day 3 coming up
posted by Nikhil at 1:55 AM
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