Hawaii: Up and Down

After sleeping in the tent with the cacophony of weird night sounds, we woke up to the melody of early morning bird sounds and immediately hit the road to go past Hana. When she told me that our first stop was Laulima farms, I was like "meh, maybe we will get done with the farm or whatever soon and get back to the awesome road again". Fast forward two hours later, I had drag myself out of the farm and I was very scared my feet will refuse to obey me!

In fact, Laulima farms is the closest thing I have seen to the mythical concept of garden of Eden. This organic farm is situated on a 13-acre land and if I were to design a motto for it, it would have been "anything grows". It grows anything and everything in-between coffee, chocolate, papaya, bananas, avocado, papaya, scary-looking soursop, custard-apple, coconuts, a multitude of flowers including bird of paradise. We walked a brief loop through the farm and it was so crazy that we walked that loop again immediately. Afterwards, we were treated to a delicious fruit plate including papaya, cacao (chocolate fruit), mulberries, bananas, coconut and a kind of edible flower that we could eat. The effect of that atmosphere and fresh fruits was so profound that I continued eating a variety of fruits even after returning from Hawaii (I was not a big fan of fruits). For those who would want to know, cacao or chocolate-fruit is a cousin of custard apple, except that its seed a bit bitter-sour.

Laulima farms: The garden of Eden lies behind this demure entrance

Breakfast at Laulima farms

After finally managing to leave Laulima farms, we went to the nearby Oheogulch or Seven Sacred Pools waterfall. The view was so pristine: a series of waterfalls merging into the ocean. There were hardly any tourists in this remote part. We just had a huge ocean crashing against cliffs with mountains on the backside. I will let the photos do some talking here.

Place where water from the seven sacred waterfalls meets the ocean

Ocean crashing against cliffs in a never-ending battle

We pressed ahead with our road-trip, by this time our aesthetic sensibilities were already saturated. The road was tough with many spots having either one-lane road and/or non-paved road. After negotiating with a difficult patch, we were again slowly introduced to ocean-view. All of a sudden within ten minutes, this gave a way to one of the most insane landscapes we have ever seen. Vast and very gentle slopes of mountains were slowly merging into the sea. Both of us went completely silent soaking in the view. Really, that place more than deserved silent admiration (perhaps it deserved silent delirium if there exists such a thing).

Road past Hana: Mountains sloping gently into the ocean

Raod past Hana: A stark beauty along the way

Road past Hana: She didn't want to leave this place

Road past Hana: Seven sisters dancing on the hills against the backdrop of the ocean merging into the sky

The road passed through Manawainui valley and the landscape changed again within a few minutes! Now instead of grassy mountains and oceans, we were going through a hillstation-like terrain with mist, gentle rain and characteristic trees. Soon, we were looking down on the west side of island (which happens to be dry) from rainy hills up in the mountains.

We were to stay at a place called Haiku for next three days. Our host was Dr. Bonnie Marsh, a naturopath by profession. Her house is one of the most distinct ones I have seen. The whole house had a vibe of tranquility and had an eclectic collection artifacts from all over the world. This was the first place I saw a Gamelan which a musical instrument from Java, Indonesia. I was thrilled since I had read that one of my favorite classical (european) composers, Debussy, was inspired from Gamelan for some of his famous compositions. I had seen this instrument only in pictures but now I got to try playing a bit - our host knew it is played. The instrument has a different kind of musical scale than the usual 12-note octave in Indian or European music. It sounds really different to our ears, probably like how a different language would sound. Apart from Gamelan, we also got to see Quartz crystal bowls which produce reverberating musical sounds, which my better half could play great. We crashed early as next day we had this grand sunrise time planned at Haleakala.

Haleakala is a mountain ten thousand feet high on the same small island of Maui. Really, sometimes I think Maui is like a museum of the Earth with tall mountains, desert, ocean, grassland, rainforest-like-climate: everything existing on the same island. This was a mountain-day. We boarded the bus at 4 am in the morning and reached the mountain top (10k feet) around 5:30. As the dawn lights started spreading about, we saw this huge crater in front of us hugged by clouds in several spots. It was so vast that it was difficult to get a sense of proportion of how huge it really was. Soon, we were graced with a beautiful sunrise above the clouds and the crater.

Sunrise from Haleakala mountain ~10k feet high

Haleakala crater

Biking down Haleakala mountain

Biking down Haleakala mountain: Most beautiful bicycle ride ever for myself

If the sunrise was a beautifully serene time then now an adventure awaited us. From the visitor center about seven thousand feet high, we were going to ride a bicycle to sea-shore level where we had boarded the bus. We were given motorcyclist-style helmets and a couple of sturdy bikes. In the beginning it was zoom-zoom down the slopes. Soon enough, we were cycling down green mountains through the clouds with valleys overlooking the ocean on our side. Just when we reached close to the shore level, we came across "Lavender cafe". After freshening ourselves with lavender flavored coffees, we had about fifteen more miles to ride. We started pedaling down the road enjoying the view but soon enough the variety of climates gave us a nice jolt. It started raining cats and dogs! By the time we returned our bikes, we were completely (and happily) soaked in mud and water. We spent rest of the day in a relatively relaxed way, with some shopping around in the evening.

Local bamboo art

Next day, we woke up early (I guess we never woke up late during the vacation) and after some heavy breakfast at Grandma's coffee house (exactly 100 year old), we went to nearby Ulupalakua winery. Since pineapple has been a specialty of Hawaii, here a lot of varieties of wines are made from pineapples instead of grapes. A wine-induced buzz on top of Hawaii-induced elation made for some great (and forgotten) chat, going around on walkways surrounded by lavender flowers overlooking the pacific ocean down the hills.

Ulupalakua winery: Love among lavenders

Having spent a good deal of time going up and down the slopes of Southeast Maui and Haleakala, it was now a time to dive deeper in Maui.