Hawaii: Mana to Hana

We: What would you suggest about how much time each of these places could take?

A Hana resident: We don't really worry about time here. You go someplace. You stay there as long as you feel like. Then you go to the next one. Come back end of the day. 

Fight-or-flight is said to be one of the survival strategies of living beings in the face of a threat. In the face of imminent travel, our strategy normally is fight-and-flight. Before flight, we are always in some fight-kind-of-a-situation and this trip was no different. Five days before we left, one of us realized that there is a deadline within next five days which had been totally forgotten earlier. This was a big fight with a truckload of work. As a result, we did not start packing before the midnight of our 5 am flight. It is kind of a miracle that we managed to pack stuff without losing our tempers (and this miracle also includes not forgetting our toothbrushes!)

The flight was just like any 12+ hours flight you may have taken (and probably doesn't need more description than that). We landed at Kahului airport of Maui island around noon and rented a car. One of the great tips she had read while planning the trip was about buying some groceries to last for 4-5 days before we begin exploring. Thanks to a great soul called Jonathan she had met during her Mexico trip, we went to a shop called Mana foods. Three things stood out in Mana Foods:

1. Very fresh local food as well as all the usual grocery items, with most of the prices less than mainland US (how?)!
2. A board saying "Keep your hugs limited to one minute". We came to know later that the town has a huge hippie-like culture.
3. Ah, beautiful free-spirited girls wearing dresses that say a lot of things without printed slogans. Both of us objectively decided that Mana Foods supermarket was the place to recommend to our bachelor friends visiting that town instead of any other joint. This observation was confirmed after our second visit later during the trip.

Having bought groceries, we drove to "Peace of Maui" airbnb in nearby Makawao town via a road with lush greenery on both sides. We checked in there, and we immediately started falling in love with Hawaii. Who wouldn't after seeing Mango, Orange, Banana, Lime trees and an open offer from the caretaker that "take and eat whatever you like"?

Mango tree at Peace of Maui: She doing what she does

Beginning to feel Aloha at Peace of Maui

We woke up the next day to birds' songs at 5 am and hit the Road To Hana.

Road To Hana needs to be capitalized.

• The vegetation on the way is so dense that you actually feel like an intruder. At many places, the road is actually one-lane where one of the drivers might need to wait or go back to let the other vehicle pass. Plenty of hairpin bends. Plenty of places with 16 kmph (10 mph) speed limit.
• Waterfalls on the way!
• Ocean! After a while, you drive on curvy road cliffs with deep blue ocean on one side and the crazy vegetation on the other side.

Road To Hana: one of the waterfalls

If Road To Hana doesn't make you delirious, probably very few things will. We reached the remote Hana village and immediately headed to Red Sands Beach. It is a beach where a natural stone barrier separates blue turbulent ocean and serene, clean sea-water. Hana being a really remote place, you don't see much touristy-crowd.

Red Sands Beach at Hana: The beach, the barrier and red sand

After bathing at Red Sands Beach, it was our turn to go to "Thai Food by Pranee", which is probably one of the three places to eat in the town and looks like a mere shelter. Unexpectedly, great home-made Thai food! But what knocked me down was Hibiscus juice! Blessed is the place where people drink Hibiscus juice. By the way, in Maui you see Hibiscus everywhere of every size and color, it is the state flower of Hawaii.

The Man Who Thought He Knew Infinity While Drinking Hibiscus Juice

After a spiritual glass of Hibiscus juice, we went to check in at our place-to-stay. It was a time to panic. Well, see, since all the places in Hana were above 500 dollars a night (there are like two hotels in the town), we had booked a relatively inexpensive cabin in the farm via airbnb. This turned out to be a mosquito-net tent with a steel roof on the top and absolutely no trace of lights or electricity around. We debated for a while whether we should sleep in the car but decided (thanks to you-know-who) to take the leap into the unknown. We explored Hana a bit and at night we slept in that mosquito-net pitch dark tent with mosquitos humming outside and weird unknown sounds for the company. Soon it started raining cats and dogs so the steel shelter added a rhythm to the polyphony of sounds. However, we were so tired that we slept like stones... only to wake up to a cool breeze and a multitude of bird sounds (which I have to say is one of the most pleasant things ever).

Having been knocked head-over-heels so far by Road To Hana, Red Sands beach and the pitch-dark tent, we were only wondering about what lies ahead when we hit to road again to go past Hana.