Hawaii - A Paradise in Pandemic

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think that the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth - Thich Nhat Hanh

The Idea

It was May, 2021. It was during the second year of pandemic as the world had been emerging out of the dark clutches of Corona virus. With the help of great researchers and vaccine programs, we started to observe the light of optimism at the end of a dark tunnel of despair. We can at last meet people we had not met in an year. Finally, we could gradually resume our life of social interactions, travel and entertainment.

Naveen and I were running errands in Bellevue. We decided to casually drop by at Krupal's apartment to hangout with Sahiti & Krupal. As it happened, Hari and Swathi were in the area furniture shopping for their new house. So, they joined us at the apartment. Since this was an impromptu meetup, Sharika couldn't join us.

Whenever we friends meet, we talk about a diversified set of topics ranging from movies to investments to travel. Swathi brought up the vacation idea they had been considering. To travel to Hawaii. She proposed we all go together.

It was an exciting idea indeed as we had not travelled anywhere outside of Seattle for more than an year due to pandemic restrictions. We desperately needed that Reset. Hawaii was the best choice as it's only a 6 hours flight from Seattle. It's surrounded by a beautiful ocean and lush green mountains with a pleasant weather year round. The proposal was to stay in Hawaii for 2 weeks, work from there during day while exploring the island on evenings and weekends.

Though it was a terrific idea, I told them I couldn't join due to affordability as Hawaii could get very expensive. Also, I was unsure of the pandemic risks even though the restrictions were being lifted.

Naveen declined it as well as he just returned from another vacation.

When I came back home and told Sharika about the plan, her immediate response was "Why did you say No? I know 2 weeks seem like a long time but we have never travelled far with our Seattle friends. It would really be a fun and memorable trip with everyone. We should consider it."

I was easily convinced. It's Hawaii indeed. A true paradise. The plan was set in motion.

Island of Choice - Maui

Hawaii is made up of 137 islands. However only 7 islands are habitable. Among those, best tourist attractions are Kauai, Maui, Oahu and Big Island. Each island is uniquely beautiful and offers different attractions. Rather than island hopping, we decided to spend whole 2 weeks of quality time at one island.

With process of elimination, we ruled out Oahu right away. Oahu is a big city, and the purpose of our vacation is to in-fact break away from our city life to walk into the nature.

Kauai is known for it's beauty but it has just one long road going around the island. 2 weeks would be an overkill to explore all the touristy attractions of the island.

That left us with Big Island and Maui. Big Island's main attraction is it's active volcano. Beyond that, there are only a few other interesting things to do.

Hence, Maui it is. A best balance of urban life amidst the gorgeous mountains and oceans. Maui offers a ton of activities and gorgeous hikes. Best island of choice for a 2 weeks vacation.

Finding an accommodation was an adventure by itself. Tourism was picking up steam as people had been coming out of pandemic lockdowns. Demand surged to all time high levels. Every hotel and airbnb had a premium of thousands of dollars.

A lot of online searching and phone calls later, Sharika managed to find an affordable accommodation.

It was a two level condo with 3 beds. Perfect for 6 people. The best part? It's right next to the beach.

Arriving at the Paradise

On June 17th, we landed in Maui. We breathed in the fresh ocean breeze as we stepped out of the airport. The excitement going through our veins. We quickly picked up our rented vehicles: one 6 seater SUV and one sedan.

While imbibing the beautiful mountains around the road from airport, we drove to our condo, located in Kihei.

We had to check-in, quickly freshen up and head out as we had a reservation for Luau event starting in an hour.

Indeed, no resting. No flight fatigue.

It's Hawaii. Staying indoors beyond food and sleep is a sacrilege.

"Opening the vacation with high note", Swathi said as we drove off to the Luau venue.

Luau (lūʻau) - Traditional Hawaiian Feast & Entertainment

We arrived at Mariott resort at Wailea beach, which hosts the best Luau on the island. Luau is a traditional Hawaiian feast accompanied by entertainment. If you want to experience the authentic indigenous Polynesian culture of Hawaiian people, this is the event you must attend.

We were checked in and seated at a table as we grabbed our first Hawaiian drinks.

Luau started with music and dances in Hawaiian language while an English translator narrated the theme for audience.

Native Hawaiians do not have scriptures like Indian traditions. The knowledge and wisdom have been passed down through the generations in the form of story telling. These stories are usually accompanied by dances and rituals. It's a beautiful rendition of artistic expression.

As part of Luau, natives got on the stage, performed singing and hula dancing. Through dances, they showed us their fishing methods, sailing, farming, hunting and worshipping. They showed us the way they worship moon goddess Hina, also considered as the mother of Maui.

Hula dance at Luau

Lady in the white played Hina, the moon goddess

Feast consisted of several delicacies but the main highlight of Luau feast was the iconic kalua pua'a (pig), a slow roasted and underground cooked Hawaiian special. Though this was a special dish, it was bland to our taste. Among the items served, we preferred chicken and fish more than kalua pua'a.

As the Luau ended, we walked through the private sandy beach sinking in the astronomical twilight across the horizon.

Private Beach walk after Luau, Mariott resort at Wailea Beach

Road to Hana - Crown Jewel of Maui

Among all the allure Maui has to offer, there's one crown jewel that's peerless. It's Road to Hana. If you visited Maui but didn't get to experience the Road to Hana, then you missed out on the greatest captivating phenomena the island had to offer.

Hana is a small town located on the East of Maui. It has a population of about 1500. It's considered the most isolated community of the island.

What's so great about the town you might wonder?

Have you ever heard of the adage: "It's not about the destination, It's the journey"? I can't think of any place, other than Road to Hana, on the earth where this unequivocally holds true in reality.

It's not about the town, Hana. It's about the road that leads to it.

The 52 miles road is a magical land through lush green rain forests with a tremendous amount of charm, secret pathways, plenty of uniquely characteristic waterfalls, plunge pools, rainbow trees, bamboo forests and several breathtaking vista points.

We would have missed all these great points if we didn't have the audio guide from Shaka Guide. It's a mobile app that tracks your GPS location along the road while the audio guide narrates the history of Maui, it's culture and guiding us through the hidden gems of tourist attractions. The narrator had an amusing sense of humor but trust me it's not one of those boring audio guides. It was absolutely worth it.

We started our journey at mile 0 of the road, Paia town, with a delicious fruit ice cream.

Fruit ice cream at Paia town, Mile 0 of Road to Hana

Road to Hana consists of several waterfall points.

Among us, only Hari, Sharika and I knew how to swim.

Sahiti could swim as long as she didn't have to stop in between two points.

Krupal and Swathi didn't know how to float. Plunge pools, at the bottom of the Waterfalls, were the best places to learn swimming. So, Krupal and Swathi decided to conquer swimming before our snorkeling adventures in a few days.

We were like a bunch of kids whenever we saw water. With an intense joyful urge, we jump into every pool and stay in with no focus of time. All worldly thoughts disappear as you sink into the water. It's an ethereal experience.

We were indeed aware of this imbroglio and hence promised ourselves not to spend more than a few minutes at each pool as it's paramount for us to complete all the attractions across the road in a single day.

Once it gets dark, it's impossible to go off the road.

As soon as we visited the first waterfall point and got into the pool, our promises evaded our senses. The joy of being in water outpowered the sense of time. 1.5 hours were gone in what felt like an instant.

Somehow we managed to force ourselves to leave the first waterfall point to continue our journey as there's still too much left to explore along the road to Hana.

Whenever we felt like we found the best waterfall of the trip, the subsequent one would prove us wrong with it's spell bounding characteristics. Everything continued to get better and better as the journey continued. Larger plunge pools, better cliff jumps, deeper water, higher waterfalls.

Waterfalls with plunge pool on Road to Hana

We stopped by the rainbow eucalyptus trees. It's a eucalyptus family tree with naturally occurring rainbow colors along the trunk.

Next we walked through the bamboo grove and then through a few terrific vista points with phenomenal views of East ocean of Maui.

Pipiwai trail through Bamboo Forest on Road to Hana

Towards the end of the road, right before Hana, we visited Waianapanapa reservation, which has Black sand beach. Black sand was formed from the erosion of volcanic rock as the water flows down the side of a volcano. Probably occurred centuries ago. It's visually fascinating to observe a beach full of vigorous black sand.

Black Sand beach at Waianapanapa reservation on Road to Hana

By this point it was already twilight. We quickly grabbed some food at Hana and drove around the town. There was nothing much to do there. It's an isolated town after all. Remember, it's not about the destination.

We dined at the Bamboo Hale restaurant. It was a beautiful restaurant built just with gigantic bamboo sticks.

After dinner, we started our return journey. It was absolutely dark and taking the road back was like a mini adventure. We almost dodged running into a few animals on the way. Makes sense when you realize the road has 620 sharp turns and 59 bridges with absolutely no street lights.

Krupal's Bravery

One of the plunge pools on the way to Hana started shallow but got deep really quick. Remember I mentioned Swathi was learning to swim? Shallow part of this pool was the best place to learn. Hari was teaching her the float techniques on the shallow water. She was kicking her legs to float while Hari was holding her hands teaching her to move forward.

During this training, subconsciously, Hari and Swathi ended up on the deep water side of the pool. As soon as Swathi realized the water was too deep for her to stand, her fear kicked in and screaming for help ensued. It was hard for Hari alone to help Swathi back to the shore. Especially as Swathi appeared to be tensed in an attempt to float. Neither Hari nor I were professionals at rescuing but another pair of hands certainly help.

So, I jumped into the water and swam towards them.

As I reached them, and about to start our rescue mission, I realized someone was pushing me down into to the water from the surface. I was fighting to breath as I was trying to swim up to the surface while being pushed down. After drinking a few gulps of water during my effort, I realized what was going on.

It was Krupal pushing me into the water.

No, he wasn't trying to kill me heh. When Swathi called for help, I wasn't the only one who rushed to them. As soon as Swathi's plea was heard, Krupal jumped into the water. He wanted to lend his helping hand as well.

However, there's just one problem. Krupal didn't know how to swim. He started learning only a few hours ago.

His sheer bravery and the intensity to rescue Swathi moved his body without a thought. He managed to successfully swim to Swathi's point only to realize he neither knew how to float nor to swim back. While struggling to stay afloat, he grabbed on to the closest thing next to him for support. Yes, my head.

Well after a little bit of struggle we all made it back to shallow water. Had a good laugh.

Krupal's bravery, however, was entrenched in to our minds forever.

Snorkeling at Molokini Crater

We snorkeled at a couple of beaches before our main snorkeling tour to Molokini Crater. I realized snorkeling was one of the most peaceful water activities.

You dip your head into water. You breath through mouth through the tube, which opens up to the surface. You could just float with zero effort, stay buoyant for hours. It's meditative.

For Molokini crater tour, we boarded a speed boat that took us through 3 different snorkel locations.

At every location, Sharika, Hari and I would jump first into the water without life jackets as we were comfortable swimming while Swathi, Sahiti and Krupal were using life jackets on and off based on the water condition.

First location was beautiful with full of coral reefs. It's about 40 feet deep. Through bright sun light, the bottom was clearly visible. A rich, vibrant and colorful marine life. Some sea urchins with their spikes looked intimidating. Since they don't swim to surface, we safely admired them from a distance.

Second location was at Molokini Crater. It was 150 feet deep. If you look into the water, it's vastness of darkness. You cannot see what's underneath. If you have Thalassophobia (fear of deep water), you would probably experience a panic attack. It's intimidating yet beautiful in a weird way. We were hoping to see sharks but none showed up. Nevertheless we swam around the crater for a while and got back to the boat.

Third location was a turtle cleaning station. Cleaning stations are locations underwater where Turtles go to seek out fish to eat algae off their shells. You would generally find plenty of turtles at such locations. The ones we saw were humongous. They were about 3 feet (1 meter) and weigh about 300 lbs. Even though they rarely attack humans, seeing such a giant creature approaching, I felt like I should run (or swim) for my life.

While snorkeling at this station, I looked down and noticed a giant turtle was swimming upwards in my direction from deep water. Sharika and I quickly swam to about 20 feet away to ensure our safety. I sighed a relief. Turned back to look underwater to re-assess the turtle location. Right above the giant turtle I noticed someone's feet were dangling. I looked above the surface. It's Krupal.

I alerted Krupal of the turtle right beneath his feet. His adrenaline kicked in. He started frantic swimming maneuvers to move away. Unfortunately, he didn't move much. The frantic maneuver failed him and lead him nowhere. Probably that's why professionals say we must remain calm in water and assess. Anyhow, the turtle seemed like it had it's moment of fun teasing us as it swam away slowly in to a different direction.

We survived. Thankfully we didn't have to experience a turtle attack.

We rode back on speed boat to the starting point. Water got rough.

We enjoyed a thrill filled bumpy ride.

Scuba - An Eventful Experience

Maui is famous for Scuba diving adventures. Tons of diversified, beautiful marine life and ship wrecks. None of us was Scuba certified.

Sharika booked a "Scuba with Sharks" 30 minutes session for all of us. We were really excited for this. Imagine diving close to sharks. Fascinating.

The institute gave us a quick classroom training on how to breath underwater, hooking up the cylinder, checking oxygen levels and a few other safety instructions.

Next part of training was to dive in the shallow water of 10 feet depth. Once everyone successfully performs these instructions underwater, we would then be taken to the spot with sharks.

However, we all performed miserably. Some of us felt uncomfortable breathing through mouth and gave up while others, including me, struggled with actions such as purging water from goggles.

Instructors eventually gave up on us and they cancelled our session. Dejected we couldn't dive with sharks, we headed back from the beach to the scuba center to take off the gear and change back into our clothes.

For me, after this experience, it was hard to accept that we couldn't master Scuba. So I proposed we take this to the next step to conquer the dive procedure and get Scuba PADI Open Water Certified. This is the first level of scuba certification, which gives you the ability to scuba dive at any location across the world. It's like a car drivers license but for scuba. It's a 2 days course.

Only Hari showed interest. Sharika wanted to join but she couldn't take an off day as she already took a few off days.

Hari and I signed up for the certification course.

Scuba training from Fun to Dread to Accomplishment

Day 1 of training was incredible. Hari and I completed the online course work before the first day. We were ready and super excited to start our training.

After a short class room instruction, we both were taken by the instructor to the Kanapali beach. Instructor took us under the water. One after the other, Hari & I were asked to perform the basic instructions underwater. This was a practical execution of what we learned in the online theory course. Overall we both did great albeit some hiccups. Day 1 was a success.

On Day 2, we were taken to the Olawalu beach. It was terrific weather, pleasant water and less crowd. So many corals underwater. We told ourselves, "What a beautiful day. We are gonna ace this and get certified by this evening". Or so we thought but the day had something else planned for us.

As we were doing great in the first half of Day 2, our instructor thought of taking us to Mala boat ramp dive point to perform the final underwater test maneuver. She wanted to show us pier wreck, sharks and turtles. It's a popular dive spot.

At Mala ramp, we walked a little from shore and then swam to the pier wreck point. Then we deflated our scuba kit to drop to 25 feet below. Suddenly the water started getting rough. Tidal force was getting stronger that it was hard to anchor to one spot at the bottom. We were drifting apart from each other. As if that wasn't enough, the water force stirred the bottom sand. Suddenly the visibility turned poor.

With sand particles, poor visibility and tidal force, it was a painstaking effort to stay together. We barely had time to perform the final actions to pass certification criteria.

May be it was this sudden change of water pattern and ambience, I got some sort of a stomach cramp. It was hard to describe. I felt uncomfortable and signaled my instructor that I needed to go to the surface. At the surface I took a deep breath. After a few attempts, I thought I couldn't continue diving today. I almost gave up but Hari and the instructor were supportive.

There were just 4 more underwater maneuvers to perform to get certified. We came a long way in two days but giving up at that point was hard to accept.

We decided to swim back to the shore, relax for some time and resume the dive.

However, the tides have turned (irony). Tidal force got worse. We swam hard incessantly for 10 minutes towards the shore. When we stopped for a few seconds to recuperate the energy, the tides would have pulled us back to our starting point in the ocean. Farther away from the shore. We tried again and again but as soon as we stopped kicking, we were pulled back.

After about 30 minutes of intense effort, we were exhausted. Our instructor was cheering us not to give up. She was exhausted too but she was trying to be optimistic. She told us she had never experienced such a pull-back force in her years of diving at Hawaii.

There was another scuba team struggling as well to get back to the shore. Their instructors appeared to be more experienced than ours. They instructed their students to follow a certain pattern to succeed against tides.

Following their strategy, I managed to somehow end up amidst this other Scuba group. Their instructor was helping each of his students to the shore one after the other. He was a great swimmer. He helped me too by holding my tank and pulling me towards him while I kicked stronger against the tides. Alas! I made it back to the shore. I survived.

I turned around to give a high five to Hari to celebrate we made through this dreadful event. My jaw dropped as I could see neither Hari nor my instructor. I waited desperately at the shore hoping they would somehow find their way back.

The other scuba instructor rescued all his students. While leaving the shore, he told me "As long as you are here at the shore, its okay. Wait for a few more minutes and if you don't see them, call 911 for help". That gave me shivers.

After about 10 minutes, I saw Hari and the instructor walking on the rocks located at the opposite side of the pier.

I ran to Hari. Apparently they couldn't make it to the shore the same way as I did. So they first tried to go underwater and tried to swim underwater back to the shore. The water was too rough even underwater they got pulled back into the ocean. With a lot of trial and error they somehow made it to an area at the edge of the pier with rocks. Instructor's scuba kit got punctured as she got slammed into the rocks by the water. She couldn't dive anymore with that kit. She managed to climb the rock to lend a hand to Hari but Hari got pulled into the water again. After several attempts, Hari managed to reach the instructor. They climbed the rocks and safely made it back to the shore, where I was standing like a clueless puppy.

The instructor was distressed from this ordeal. She didn't want to give up on us as we were so close to getting certified. We drove back to scuba center. She picked up a new scuba kit as hers was punctured.

We drove back to Kanapali beach. Water was pleasant. We dived deep. Aced the final instructions. High five.

We thanked the instructor for her patience. Started our return drive to condo. On the way back, we picked up fresh mango, pineapple with spices and a hot chicken pie. Ofcourse, we were famished. We probably burned 1500 calories fighting our way back to shore.

Yes, we made it out alive although with some bruises.

And yes, we got certified.

Evenings at Maui

Through out the day, we did office work. Or whatever work we managed to do laboriously. Every day, we eagerly awaited the evening.

At 3pm, we head out. 3pm at Hawaii means 6pm pacific time. So, living in Hawaii means you get to quit work early.

Every evening, we either drive to a new snorkel point, a new beach to explore, a new restaurant or just jump into the beach right across our condo.

There's just no end to fun. Not a single evening on the island were we home. We were always exploring something new. There wasn't a single place we visited and regretted.

Maui, truly a paradise on earth.

Worthy Mentions

This post doesn't do justice to write about everything we experienced. A plenty of places worth reminiscing are left out. How can I write about every moment, for each moment was special.

Local fruits we ate, special drinks we had, obsession over finding Lilikoi induced delicacies at every restaurant. Much more.

In addition to what's written above, following places deserve a mention. They were no less awesome than the other ones I wrote about.