First night in the city that never sleeps (New York). Sat in the basement of the ‘Jazz in the Park’ hostel, a vibrant, music-filled place of confusing proportions and hip-and-they-know-it staff, just off the north-west corner of Central Park (I can see it beckoning me just metres away at the end of 106th West Street). I arrived in the big city by train from New Jersey - my first double decker, very fancy too - during the early evening hours, taking a locally known, subsidised route from Philadelphia (saving myself $40 in the process - thanks Courtney and Kenada). Have a lot to thank those two for: they played the excellent hosts, allowing me use of their sofa for several nights, driving me around their wonderful city, showing me the sights, taking me to their friends’ parties and even making me breakfast. The smell of maple syrup bacon is still fresh in my nostrils. Courtney really can cook: her boyfriend Kenada’s a very lucky boy.
‘Philly’ was a nice city: much older architecture than anything I saw on or near the west coast (stands to reason, really), which a mix of Victorian and Georgian houses (lots of bricked terraces - not something I’m used to seeing in this country), open-air markets, large, trimmed parks, a Thames-like river lined with University owned boat houses (they have a regatta here) and many large, impressive government buildings. The city has a well known and celebrated history, being the birthplace of the constitution as well as home to Benjamin Franklin and, more recently, the setting for the Rocky films (there’s even a scarily popular - though understandably so - Rocky statue, located right by the steps he slogs his way up whilst training in the first film).
Whilst there, we went to a whopping three parties (two of those on Saturday night) and attended July 4th (Independence Day) celebrations on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (a large, international flag lined road that runs through parkland from the centre, where sits a tall and slender, peaked, whitewashed stone city hall, bunched up amidst multiple skyscrapers, to a grand and ancient museum of art (the steps of which featured in Rocky). For the latter, the street was closed off to cars, busy with food stalls, thousands of people and giant TV screens, providing close-ups of the action on the stage, which was set up in front of the museum. Things were going on all day, but we caught up with it late in the evening, just as the R’n’B’ singer John Legend was performing his encore, which lead onto an enormous firework and music display. The crowds were absolutely lapping it up: it was an event for everyone - parties, couples, families and the like - and despite the huge numbers of people, the atmosphere was friendly and exciting, buzzing with catching enthusiasm. Those that weren’t present in the park were having their own parties in their homes, some of which spilled out into the streets, even taking over entire streets (with granted permission to close them off to traffic). Amazingly, I received next to no jibes for my nationality, despite being the enemy. As I like to look at it - they’ve got us to thank for that day, otherwise what would they have to celebrate? ;)
Thursday night was a trip to Courtney and Kenada’s local: a brewery bar right on a canal where, thanks to Kenada’s connections, we were granted free entry (they were charging $5 on the door) and an unlimited tab for next to no cost (even though it did cost a small amount, I wasn’t allowed to contribute). Like I said, fantastic hosts. It was great to see Courtney again, especially in her element showing me around her home town, and I had a top time getting to know her boyfriend Kenada, who apart from being an all round great bloke and incredibly easy to get on with, spoke like a true movie star. Fritzy’s definitely onto a winner there.
My last night, Saturday, involved a trip to a couple of house parties in New Jersey, the second having a Christmas in July theme. We stopped off at an enormous Target superstore on the way there - think Matalan, only slightly more upmarket and much larger - where I got myself a steal of a deal in a $2 red t-shirt as well as a quality trilby hat. Plenty of party games, some truly excellent vodka jelly (or ‘jello’ as they say here) and my first taste of a home keg and margarita machine lead to a memorable night, where I met a load of Courtney and Kenada’s good friends and family, as well as several they didn’t know. Special nod, winks and more go out to Shannon Murphy, a stunning red-head who I wish I’d had more time to get to know. Facebook, don’t fail me now.
First night in the Big Apple and time to hit the sack. Three nights on the razz and I’m done for. I’m getting too old for this ;)
p.s. Philly Cheese Steaks. Jaw dropping. Glad I waited (rather than buying one on the west coast; so famous, they’re even available three thousand miles away).
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
USA: The West and the Rest
22.5.08
Arrived in SF and met Lucie - all going swimmingly so far, except that the hostel is a bit of a party place, with ‘kids’ whooping, hollering, shouting and playing various instruments (like a loud horn) late into the early hours of the morning. Means no sleep and a grumpy Jake today. Glad I finally managed to find the hostel: it was scary going, not getting into town (via the BART sky rail system into the city) until near 11PM, then getting lost in scary neighbourhoods, hulking my bulging bags around streets laden with bums and druggies (people bent over in odd positions in doorways or in the middle of the sidewalk, lots of them black; police crawling the curbs, forcing tramps and beggars to move on). Such a relief to finally find the place - the directions were a bit weak and I’d forgotten to take a note of the exact address of the hostel (doh) - but on doing so, I said a quick hello to the extremely jet-lagged Lucie and grabbed myself some freakily enormous slices of pizza from a local Italian around the corner.
27.5.08
Ok, so the blog has taken a real backseat to enjoying my high life living crossing the States in a red shiny convertible (a fuel guzzling Ford Mustang) with Lucie. Unfortunate, but true: traveling with someone else is in most ways preferable to traveling alone - it’s definitely revitalised my love of sight-seeing, having someone to share it with - but at the same time is a distraction, meaning less time devoted to writing and more to doing. Speaking of doing, we’ve done plenty, barely stopping to rest until now, having reached the glamourous sights and sounds of Las Vegas. In the two full days we spent in ‘cisco, we fitted in a couple of cable car rides (amazing how many people can squeeze into the cramped, aged carriages, operated by a lever-pulling driver overly and hopelessly enthusiastic about clearing people out of his way and forcing everyone to the back), a trip to Fisherman’s Wharf (multiple piers, the most famous and touristy being Pier 39, brimming with cafes, restaurants and tourist shops: have been in more of these with Lucie during the week she’s been here than during the entire rest of my trip) and a boat ride out to a tour of ALCATRAZ (need I say more; well I COULD say that it once imprisoned some of America’s most notorious criminals under one roof, we partook of an excellent included audio tour, walked around and got a feel for the inside of the cells, the exercise yard, offices, kitchens, library, behind the walls - where several criminals escaped to the roof, having burrowed their way through their cells’ rear walls using handmade equipment and spoons! - and finally took in an awe inspiring view of the city and bridge).
We met a couple in the noisy hostel (it appears as good as USA Hostels are, with their free pancakes and wifi, they don’t have a curfew and they do play home to many under-21s, who are forced to party inside rather than out) called Josh and Leah (or ‘Ross’ and ‘Laya’ as I jokingly and absentmindedly called them, to Lucie’s utter despair), who we went out for some drinks with and accompanied on an organised tour of San Francisco: ‘Dylan’s Tours’. It was a great half day out in a van, taking in the business and government districts, as well as different parts of the cities belonging to different ethnic groups - Salvadorans, Latinos, Italians, Chinese (enormous Chinatown) - and a huge, dedicated homosexual neighbourhood (where the colourful stripy flag was invented and is still proudly displayed on many houses) and downtown hippy-ville (the corner of Haight and Ashbury, home of the swinging sixties, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead). The cumulation of all this was a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge (so called because of the look of the land across the bay from the city and also presumably a reference to the gold mining that formed California’s beginnings), swinging by the ‘bay’ that Otis Reading famously wrote a song about, a hilltop viewpoint offering the most staggering views of the city and suburbs yet (San Francisco is possibly the most picturesque city I’ve ever seen, thanks to its sometimes impossibly staggered blocks of streets comprising of a multitude of brightly coloured, wooden Victorian buildings - these, by the way, go up and down at forty five degree plus angles seemingly arbitrarily). Before finishing the tour, we travelled a little way out into ‘the valley’ to see the Muir Woods, home to some neck craning-ly tall, massive Californian redwood trees. It was quite a day.
29.5.08
About to hit ‘the Strip’ on our last full day in Vegas, having spent the morning burning in the thirty degree sun.
15.6.08
Sat on one of two humongous beds in a motel in the swish town of Jackson - Wyoming’s most trendy residence - just south of the Grand Teton National Park (containing mountains that Teddy Roosevelt once said looked how mountains should).
30.6.08
It’s 10.22 AM and I’ve just had my first lie in since Vegas (over a month ago). Feel particularly good as I was terribly hungover yesterday, after spending my first night alone in six weeks at McMenamin’s ‘Edgefield’ hotel/winery/bar/brewery/concert resort, drinking an exorbitant amount of their excellent IPA (not to mention a couple of ‘Maker’s’ Bourbons) and chatting with as many random people as time would allow. I had dropped Dad off at Seattle Airport just prior, and after a three hour journey of nothing but highways and incredible heat brought on by a sudden heat wave (the journey we shared during our last few days in NW USA has been more on the bleaker side: grey, cool and cloudy, with the occasional few hours of blue sky and mild sunshine), I was more than ready to cool off.
Whilst at Edgefield, I managed to take in a couple of sights that Dad and I missed there during our stay a week ago, including a Jerry Garcia statue (very surreal monument, easily missed amongst the trees it lay situated amongst on the edge of a golf course, it looked like ‘Barnacle Bill’ from the latter Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and the distillery (a dimly lit, smokey, entirely wooden ‘shed’ of a bar, host to plenty of liquors - as they call spirits here - and, fortunately, beers too, a groovy, bearded hippy of a bartender, and a small television showing old reruns of Woodstock). Whilst there, I also took in a wedding reception party on the edge of a grassy, picnic tabled clearing, into which a fiddler and his band piped merry music until the wee hours (sitting there also had the advantage of being near a large, central bonfire, which wasn’t really needed until after midnight). I got chatting with many Americans - some staying the nights, others braving it with taxis or by driving - and even an English bloke, there on a working holiday.
Have just spent the night in the cheapest US motel I’ve ever stayed in: $38.50 for a decent, clean, pretty large room, right on the corner of the Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. Am trying to eat the cold pizza remains from last night’s tea for breakfast, but it’s not working as the in-room fridge has turned it into a huge, pizza flavoured ‘popsicle’. Yuck. Got to pack up now as its nearly kicking out time.
2.7.08
Sat in the cafe of the H.I. Fisherman’s Wharf Hostel in San Francisco, looking out of a window that overlooks the currently very foggy bay. It’s been a busy day today. I dropped off the car - said a weepy goodbye to the beautiful V8 driving deity the has been my trusty steed these last six weeks, in both red and white guises, clocking up 5,400 miles with Dad and almost 2,000 miles with Lucie. It was incredibly dirty both inside and out after such a magnum opus of a journey, having wrestled with so many hills and mountains, as well as the occasional dirt, stoney track: I gave it a once over with a hostel loaned towel and plenty of tissues, but it was all a waste of time in the end, as the Budget Rental people didn’t even bother leaving their desks to look at it. Had a heck of a time getting to the Hyatt Hotel (where this particular Budget office is based) to drop the damn thing off: I’ve never seen such a maze of one-way streets. Fortunately got it there with minutes to spare.
I spent a lot of time walking to and fro between the hostel, which is located on a state owned ‘national park’ campus called ‘Fort Mason’ (looks like an old fashioned army campus, sitting on a hill, between the wharf and a marina), and ‘North Beach’, San Francisco’s cafe-filled Little Italy. There I had lunch, took in the warmth of the sun and blue skies - what little of it there was, flitting between heavy bouts of California’s infamous creeping, coastal fog - and got a hair cut (at last!). I also confirmed my flights to Philadelphia for tomorrow, sorted out an early minibus collection to the airport (5AM: yawn!), mailed Courtney to arrange meeting her at the airport, booked myself into a hostel in New York for next week and contacted Qantas to bring my final flight home forward. I’m set to fly out of New York’s JFK Airport at 6PM on Friday 11th July, nine days from now. Decided I couldn’t wait another week for the original date, I’m wrapped up with this trip, very much ready to come home and besides, out of money!
Last few days traveling south, I’ve covered a heck of a lot of miles as well as a tonne of sights. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride, with me barely having time to assess what I’ve seen before flying onto the next attraction. Southern Oregon was awesome: having left the busy and boring Interstate-5 a hundred miles south of Portland, I entered the ever thickening woods of Willamette National Forest. To the south, these turned out to be on a larger scale and denser than even those I saw with Dad, lush with deep greens and rising as high as five thousand feet, where the forest fell away to reveal America’s, now, trademark snow-topped peaks (that of ‘Diamond Peak’, to name but one). Then it was a steady descent back to a hot, dry, sandy dust bowl close to Crater Lake, where I spent the night in the aforementioned cheapest motel I’ve ever been in. That same day though, even having driven over four hours with a hangover, I simply had to go see Crater Lake.
The drive to it was completely bonkers: a super straight road that would make the Romans proud, barrens gave way to yet more thick forest, sprawling for miles in ever direction. Though the road bobbled up and down over the fourteen miles to the northern entrance to the park, I don’t remember climbing a significant way up, but on entering it, all of a sudden there was snow everywhere. A heavy cloud also appeared out of nowhere, blocking the sun and sending the hot, steamy temperature I’d been experiencing yet minutes before plummeting to freezing. Madness. The park surrounding Crater Lake was almost as stunning as the lake: great snowy vistas, trees dotting the landscape and rocky jaggies protruding regularly to force the road off course. The snow was almost as thick as it was on the ‘Beartooth Pass’ in Montana, in fact the scenery was very similar. Leaving the park, and for what must have been hundreds of square miles surrounding it, forming a significant portion and southern Oregon and Northern California, there was nothing but uninterrupted tall, wild forest. Some of the twisting and turning and undulating roads (marked as ‘Scenic Byways’) were fabulous, the superb cornering on the Mustang making them a real pleasure to drive. But the biggest impression that the area made on me - especially around Crater Lake, before I hit the busier Highway 199 - was that of complete, vast solitude. There wasn’t a person, let alone a car or building, sometimes for miles, and looking into the depths of forest I could see only more trees and only for a short distance too, the shrubs being so closely packed the light barely filtered through. I heard Dad use a phrase - a ‘cathedral of trees’ - a few weeks back, and that’s certainly how I felt: traveling through a snaking, narrow valley of foliage, the only source of a light a narrow strip above me.
Crater Lake itself was a humongous, water filled, spherical, sudden drop in the ground, like as if a giant, circular scooper had been used to rip a city sized chunk out of the earth. It was surrounded all the way around by dramatically jagged peaks, rising steeply on both sides, which enhanced the overall strikingness of the ‘cavity’. It was so large, I couldn’t get far enough away to fit it all in one picture, so had to make do with several dozen instead.
The drive down to the northern tips of the coast of California the next day was another long one, mainly through lots of forest (as mentioned above), later on following a stunning river which carved up a increasingly narrow and steep valley. The temps really dropped as I got closer to the coast, from the thirties down to the mid teens, as I eventually hit the coastal fog (brrrr). Before hitting the fog, I made a stop at the ‘Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park’, as recommended to me earlier in the trip, particularly focusing on ‘Stout Grove’. I was going to get to it by entering the park through the traditional entrance, but the lady at the gate explained I could enter via a back route, drive all the way up the the grove’s entrance that way, take in a six mile gravel road through the redwood forest all the way to the coast (she assured me it was in tip top condition and well worth it - it was too, great snaking corners, trees growing into and over the road, ethereally lit by dappled sunlight) and to top it all off, avoid paying the $6 entrance fee. It was a no brainer!
‘Stout Grove’ was a large collection of incredibly tall redwood trees, mentioned in Lonely Planet’s top twenty things to see in the States. The trees were massive, though their bases were not as thick as some Dad and I had seen, they made up in height what they lacked in girth (though don’t get me wrong, they were still several feet thick). What really struck me was how familiar that section of forest looked. It wasn’t until that night, checking into a hostel which was perfectly located right on the coast, opposite a stunning section of volcanic sanded beach, that I found out it was where George Lucas filmed the setting for Endor, the moon on which the Ewoks lived in Return of the Jedi!
Last day of driving to San Fran took in mainly Highway 101 - the fast freeway that bisects California north to south, where I saw the tree populated, green landscapes turn ever yellower and drier, then into vast swathes of grape vines as I entered wine country - as well as a three hour detour to the coast on the fabulous Highway 1 (I’d previously traveled several hundred miles of this scenic, mainly coastal hugging road north up from LA to San Francisco with Lucie, past places such as the bourgeois Santa Barbara and the sensational cliff sides of Big Sur), where I tempted fate by heading back out to the coast for a while, into the occasional clutches of ‘the fog’. (That particular journey was well worth it, by the way. The stretch of hill hugging, forest road that formed the part of H/W 1 leading out to sea was the most devilishly twisty one I’d ever been on, and brilliant for swinging round in the Mustang with the top down, each blind bend bringing with it a perfect blend of adult fear and childish excitement. Finally got to see what the car could do.) On hitting the coast, I lapped up the cliffs, ocean views and cool weather for a while, eventually giving in and headed back inland to the welcoming heat (extreme difference in temp. in just a few miles, yet next to no difference in altitude) on an equally bendy road.
Finished with the west coast now, off to do the east, catch Independence Day in the city it transpired in (Philadelphia), shop till I drop in Manhattan, then catch a plane home.
Arrived in SF and met Lucie - all going swimmingly so far, except that the hostel is a bit of a party place, with ‘kids’ whooping, hollering, shouting and playing various instruments (like a loud horn) late into the early hours of the morning. Means no sleep and a grumpy Jake today. Glad I finally managed to find the hostel: it was scary going, not getting into town (via the BART sky rail system into the city) until near 11PM, then getting lost in scary neighbourhoods, hulking my bulging bags around streets laden with bums and druggies (people bent over in odd positions in doorways or in the middle of the sidewalk, lots of them black; police crawling the curbs, forcing tramps and beggars to move on). Such a relief to finally find the place - the directions were a bit weak and I’d forgotten to take a note of the exact address of the hostel (doh) - but on doing so, I said a quick hello to the extremely jet-lagged Lucie and grabbed myself some freakily enormous slices of pizza from a local Italian around the corner.
27.5.08
Ok, so the blog has taken a real backseat to enjoying my high life living crossing the States in a red shiny convertible (a fuel guzzling Ford Mustang) with Lucie. Unfortunate, but true: traveling with someone else is in most ways preferable to traveling alone - it’s definitely revitalised my love of sight-seeing, having someone to share it with - but at the same time is a distraction, meaning less time devoted to writing and more to doing. Speaking of doing, we’ve done plenty, barely stopping to rest until now, having reached the glamourous sights and sounds of Las Vegas. In the two full days we spent in ‘cisco, we fitted in a couple of cable car rides (amazing how many people can squeeze into the cramped, aged carriages, operated by a lever-pulling driver overly and hopelessly enthusiastic about clearing people out of his way and forcing everyone to the back), a trip to Fisherman’s Wharf (multiple piers, the most famous and touristy being Pier 39, brimming with cafes, restaurants and tourist shops: have been in more of these with Lucie during the week she’s been here than during the entire rest of my trip) and a boat ride out to a tour of ALCATRAZ (need I say more; well I COULD say that it once imprisoned some of America’s most notorious criminals under one roof, we partook of an excellent included audio tour, walked around and got a feel for the inside of the cells, the exercise yard, offices, kitchens, library, behind the walls - where several criminals escaped to the roof, having burrowed their way through their cells’ rear walls using handmade equipment and spoons! - and finally took in an awe inspiring view of the city and bridge).
We met a couple in the noisy hostel (it appears as good as USA Hostels are, with their free pancakes and wifi, they don’t have a curfew and they do play home to many under-21s, who are forced to party inside rather than out) called Josh and Leah (or ‘Ross’ and ‘Laya’ as I jokingly and absentmindedly called them, to Lucie’s utter despair), who we went out for some drinks with and accompanied on an organised tour of San Francisco: ‘Dylan’s Tours’. It was a great half day out in a van, taking in the business and government districts, as well as different parts of the cities belonging to different ethnic groups - Salvadorans, Latinos, Italians, Chinese (enormous Chinatown) - and a huge, dedicated homosexual neighbourhood (where the colourful stripy flag was invented and is still proudly displayed on many houses) and downtown hippy-ville (the corner of Haight and Ashbury, home of the swinging sixties, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead). The cumulation of all this was a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge (so called because of the look of the land across the bay from the city and also presumably a reference to the gold mining that formed California’s beginnings), swinging by the ‘bay’ that Otis Reading famously wrote a song about, a hilltop viewpoint offering the most staggering views of the city and suburbs yet (San Francisco is possibly the most picturesque city I’ve ever seen, thanks to its sometimes impossibly staggered blocks of streets comprising of a multitude of brightly coloured, wooden Victorian buildings - these, by the way, go up and down at forty five degree plus angles seemingly arbitrarily). Before finishing the tour, we travelled a little way out into ‘the valley’ to see the Muir Woods, home to some neck craning-ly tall, massive Californian redwood trees. It was quite a day.
29.5.08
About to hit ‘the Strip’ on our last full day in Vegas, having spent the morning burning in the thirty degree sun.
15.6.08
Sat on one of two humongous beds in a motel in the swish town of Jackson - Wyoming’s most trendy residence - just south of the Grand Teton National Park (containing mountains that Teddy Roosevelt once said looked how mountains should).
30.6.08
It’s 10.22 AM and I’ve just had my first lie in since Vegas (over a month ago). Feel particularly good as I was terribly hungover yesterday, after spending my first night alone in six weeks at McMenamin’s ‘Edgefield’ hotel/winery/bar/brewery/concert resort, drinking an exorbitant amount of their excellent IPA (not to mention a couple of ‘Maker’s’ Bourbons) and chatting with as many random people as time would allow. I had dropped Dad off at Seattle Airport just prior, and after a three hour journey of nothing but highways and incredible heat brought on by a sudden heat wave (the journey we shared during our last few days in NW USA has been more on the bleaker side: grey, cool and cloudy, with the occasional few hours of blue sky and mild sunshine), I was more than ready to cool off.
Whilst at Edgefield, I managed to take in a couple of sights that Dad and I missed there during our stay a week ago, including a Jerry Garcia statue (very surreal monument, easily missed amongst the trees it lay situated amongst on the edge of a golf course, it looked like ‘Barnacle Bill’ from the latter Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and the distillery (a dimly lit, smokey, entirely wooden ‘shed’ of a bar, host to plenty of liquors - as they call spirits here - and, fortunately, beers too, a groovy, bearded hippy of a bartender, and a small television showing old reruns of Woodstock). Whilst there, I also took in a wedding reception party on the edge of a grassy, picnic tabled clearing, into which a fiddler and his band piped merry music until the wee hours (sitting there also had the advantage of being near a large, central bonfire, which wasn’t really needed until after midnight). I got chatting with many Americans - some staying the nights, others braving it with taxis or by driving - and even an English bloke, there on a working holiday.
Have just spent the night in the cheapest US motel I’ve ever stayed in: $38.50 for a decent, clean, pretty large room, right on the corner of the Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. Am trying to eat the cold pizza remains from last night’s tea for breakfast, but it’s not working as the in-room fridge has turned it into a huge, pizza flavoured ‘popsicle’. Yuck. Got to pack up now as its nearly kicking out time.
2.7.08
Sat in the cafe of the H.I. Fisherman’s Wharf Hostel in San Francisco, looking out of a window that overlooks the currently very foggy bay. It’s been a busy day today. I dropped off the car - said a weepy goodbye to the beautiful V8 driving deity the has been my trusty steed these last six weeks, in both red and white guises, clocking up 5,400 miles with Dad and almost 2,000 miles with Lucie. It was incredibly dirty both inside and out after such a magnum opus of a journey, having wrestled with so many hills and mountains, as well as the occasional dirt, stoney track: I gave it a once over with a hostel loaned towel and plenty of tissues, but it was all a waste of time in the end, as the Budget Rental people didn’t even bother leaving their desks to look at it. Had a heck of a time getting to the Hyatt Hotel (where this particular Budget office is based) to drop the damn thing off: I’ve never seen such a maze of one-way streets. Fortunately got it there with minutes to spare.
I spent a lot of time walking to and fro between the hostel, which is located on a state owned ‘national park’ campus called ‘Fort Mason’ (looks like an old fashioned army campus, sitting on a hill, between the wharf and a marina), and ‘North Beach’, San Francisco’s cafe-filled Little Italy. There I had lunch, took in the warmth of the sun and blue skies - what little of it there was, flitting between heavy bouts of California’s infamous creeping, coastal fog - and got a hair cut (at last!). I also confirmed my flights to Philadelphia for tomorrow, sorted out an early minibus collection to the airport (5AM: yawn!), mailed Courtney to arrange meeting her at the airport, booked myself into a hostel in New York for next week and contacted Qantas to bring my final flight home forward. I’m set to fly out of New York’s JFK Airport at 6PM on Friday 11th July, nine days from now. Decided I couldn’t wait another week for the original date, I’m wrapped up with this trip, very much ready to come home and besides, out of money!
Last few days traveling south, I’ve covered a heck of a lot of miles as well as a tonne of sights. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride, with me barely having time to assess what I’ve seen before flying onto the next attraction. Southern Oregon was awesome: having left the busy and boring Interstate-5 a hundred miles south of Portland, I entered the ever thickening woods of Willamette National Forest. To the south, these turned out to be on a larger scale and denser than even those I saw with Dad, lush with deep greens and rising as high as five thousand feet, where the forest fell away to reveal America’s, now, trademark snow-topped peaks (that of ‘Diamond Peak’, to name but one). Then it was a steady descent back to a hot, dry, sandy dust bowl close to Crater Lake, where I spent the night in the aforementioned cheapest motel I’ve ever been in. That same day though, even having driven over four hours with a hangover, I simply had to go see Crater Lake.
The drive to it was completely bonkers: a super straight road that would make the Romans proud, barrens gave way to yet more thick forest, sprawling for miles in ever direction. Though the road bobbled up and down over the fourteen miles to the northern entrance to the park, I don’t remember climbing a significant way up, but on entering it, all of a sudden there was snow everywhere. A heavy cloud also appeared out of nowhere, blocking the sun and sending the hot, steamy temperature I’d been experiencing yet minutes before plummeting to freezing. Madness. The park surrounding Crater Lake was almost as stunning as the lake: great snowy vistas, trees dotting the landscape and rocky jaggies protruding regularly to force the road off course. The snow was almost as thick as it was on the ‘Beartooth Pass’ in Montana, in fact the scenery was very similar. Leaving the park, and for what must have been hundreds of square miles surrounding it, forming a significant portion and southern Oregon and Northern California, there was nothing but uninterrupted tall, wild forest. Some of the twisting and turning and undulating roads (marked as ‘Scenic Byways’) were fabulous, the superb cornering on the Mustang making them a real pleasure to drive. But the biggest impression that the area made on me - especially around Crater Lake, before I hit the busier Highway 199 - was that of complete, vast solitude. There wasn’t a person, let alone a car or building, sometimes for miles, and looking into the depths of forest I could see only more trees and only for a short distance too, the shrubs being so closely packed the light barely filtered through. I heard Dad use a phrase - a ‘cathedral of trees’ - a few weeks back, and that’s certainly how I felt: traveling through a snaking, narrow valley of foliage, the only source of a light a narrow strip above me.
Crater Lake itself was a humongous, water filled, spherical, sudden drop in the ground, like as if a giant, circular scooper had been used to rip a city sized chunk out of the earth. It was surrounded all the way around by dramatically jagged peaks, rising steeply on both sides, which enhanced the overall strikingness of the ‘cavity’. It was so large, I couldn’t get far enough away to fit it all in one picture, so had to make do with several dozen instead.
The drive down to the northern tips of the coast of California the next day was another long one, mainly through lots of forest (as mentioned above), later on following a stunning river which carved up a increasingly narrow and steep valley. The temps really dropped as I got closer to the coast, from the thirties down to the mid teens, as I eventually hit the coastal fog (brrrr). Before hitting the fog, I made a stop at the ‘Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park’, as recommended to me earlier in the trip, particularly focusing on ‘Stout Grove’. I was going to get to it by entering the park through the traditional entrance, but the lady at the gate explained I could enter via a back route, drive all the way up the the grove’s entrance that way, take in a six mile gravel road through the redwood forest all the way to the coast (she assured me it was in tip top condition and well worth it - it was too, great snaking corners, trees growing into and over the road, ethereally lit by dappled sunlight) and to top it all off, avoid paying the $6 entrance fee. It was a no brainer!
‘Stout Grove’ was a large collection of incredibly tall redwood trees, mentioned in Lonely Planet’s top twenty things to see in the States. The trees were massive, though their bases were not as thick as some Dad and I had seen, they made up in height what they lacked in girth (though don’t get me wrong, they were still several feet thick). What really struck me was how familiar that section of forest looked. It wasn’t until that night, checking into a hostel which was perfectly located right on the coast, opposite a stunning section of volcanic sanded beach, that I found out it was where George Lucas filmed the setting for Endor, the moon on which the Ewoks lived in Return of the Jedi!
Last day of driving to San Fran took in mainly Highway 101 - the fast freeway that bisects California north to south, where I saw the tree populated, green landscapes turn ever yellower and drier, then into vast swathes of grape vines as I entered wine country - as well as a three hour detour to the coast on the fabulous Highway 1 (I’d previously traveled several hundred miles of this scenic, mainly coastal hugging road north up from LA to San Francisco with Lucie, past places such as the bourgeois Santa Barbara and the sensational cliff sides of Big Sur), where I tempted fate by heading back out to the coast for a while, into the occasional clutches of ‘the fog’. (That particular journey was well worth it, by the way. The stretch of hill hugging, forest road that formed the part of H/W 1 leading out to sea was the most devilishly twisty one I’d ever been on, and brilliant for swinging round in the Mustang with the top down, each blind bend bringing with it a perfect blend of adult fear and childish excitement. Finally got to see what the car could do.) On hitting the coast, I lapped up the cliffs, ocean views and cool weather for a while, eventually giving in and headed back inland to the welcoming heat (extreme difference in temp. in just a few miles, yet next to no difference in altitude) on an equally bendy road.
Finished with the west coast now, off to do the east, catch Independence Day in the city it transpired in (Philadelphia), shop till I drop in Manhattan, then catch a plane home.
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Hopping the Pacific
11.5.08
It’s an early Sunday morning, just finished my usual breakfast of coconut riddled muesli and fresh fruit, with a piece of coconut bread-cake on the side (you get coconut in everything here), and I’m sat bent over my computer on a wooden veranda, facing the beach and a breezy, blue-green sea. It’s my fifth day at the Octopus Resort and the fifth since updating my blog! This resort does indeed live up to its name: a proper tourist holiday destination, it has a long, white sand beach, lapped by a shallow ocean perfect for scuba/snorkeling (so I’m told - haven’t tested this out yet, but intend to this afternoon), a sand carpeted dining area, bar, pool, ‘bures’ (thatch roofed cottages, housing 2-4 people), a couple of dorm rooms (unusual for a resort but I’m not complaining as I’m staying in a really nice one, along with 13 others) and the obligatory palm trees, hammocks and sun beds (free).
Weather wise, Wednesday through to Friday were pretty miserable, with Thursday being the worst. I took a two hour boat trip to get here - was picked up from my hotel shortly after 9AM (worried they weren’t coming, but turns out they were running to ‘Fiji Time’, like everybody else), driven along with a few others to a small, very pretty jetty, where I had some yummy coffee (and found a free wifi hotspot, but alas, too late to use it) and then we jumped aboard a small, motor-powered boat, which whizzed us off to Octopus Resort’s own island. The ride started off fairly pedestrian but after we cleared the bay I made some stupid comment about the going being slow, which naturally prompted the driver to put his foot down, sending the boat crashing over the busy surf, everybody holding on for dear life. It was quite the thrilling ride - all of the flapping, plastic windows but my own were battened down to keep out the splashing water, I enjoyed the wind in my face and getting wet (that was until some less enthusiastic Fijians on the boat insisted I clip down my window too). When we got to the resort, a smaller boat took us and our bags to the shore, where we were greeted by a flowery shirted, guitar playing song and dance troupe: a traditional Fijian welcome.
20.5.08
Aloha!
Well, I got sidetracked from my blog for another nine days. Have been relaxing the last week away in Hawai’i, intent on getting away from it all, chilling out and making an reasonable attempt at updating my travel diary. Two out of three doesn’t feel too bad, but the guilt’s been eating away at me, so here I am, waiting for my plane to San Francisco (have to remember to call it ‘ess ef’ or ‘the city’, so not to sound too much like a tourist) at the amazing Honolulu Airport. Wish that it had made such a good impression on me on arrival: all there was to greet international flights was a long (LONG) wait for a bus, boxy, grey, concrete buildings, a noticeable lack of ATMs (did indeed find one, but took me almost an hour to) and then an even greater lack of shops to get change from (‘The Bus’, the Oahu public transport system infamous for its $2, take-you-anywhere charge, refuses to split notes). Leaving the country, on the other hand, presents me with wide, glorious lounges stacked to the brim with Starbucks, cafes and duty frees, an onsite Hawaiian band and a huge, central garden, open aired and kitted out with fish ponds, palm trees and stacks of tropical vegetation (has to be a first for an airport). Swish.
There’s been a few big differences between Hawaii (Oahu Island, that is) and Fiji. I spent six out of my seven days in Fiji at the Octopus Resort in the Yasawas Island group, a small, mountainous island with the one resort, a local village (very ‘local’, home only to around a hundred Fijian natives - the traditional Kava drinking, hut living, satellite TV watching, self-sufficient type - most in the employ of the resort), jungle, absolutely no roads and some long, sandy beaches. I spent most of my time socialising with the people in my resort (couples or girls mainly, the latter part being fine with me), reading on the beach or under the shelter of thatched roofs (about half and half - sadly the weather tended towards overcast and the rain kept on coming, most frequently over the first few days), eating (the inclusive three meals a day were excellent, the menu very varied), playing the odd game of beach volleyball (I was rubbish, but enjoyed it), going for walks on the beach, snorkeling (some beautiful corral and stunning, multicoloured fish) and taking part on the occasional organised (supervised) hike to the neighbouring village, up and over the other side of the mountain (two visits: one on a Sunday for a Christian service held at the village church, spoken entirely in Fijian but still very evocative, thanks to the powerful evangelical choir and the put-the-fear-of-God-into-you, just as loud preacher, the other to look around and join in a Kava drinking ceremony). Kava, by the way, is a local delicacy made from the roots of a special plant: it’s infused into cold water through straining it, rather like how tea is made. The result is a drug that’s supposed to get you high if you drink enough of it (rather like the effect of cannabis). I had several bowlfuls in one ceremony and can only report a slight fuzzy head, with a very noticeable numbing of the lips and tongue. Other things of note in Fiji: despite the crap weather (only one full day of sunshine, two partially overcast, the rest: rain) I had a great time, met lots of nice people (all Facebook’d), really enjoyed the absolutely fabulous resort (everybody staying there - and that was lots, what with each day interchanging new people for old, sometimes admittedly poignantly - said it was the best one they’d been to, throughout the entire of Fiji), feasted on some great food (too much food: a different three-course meal each night - curry, meat BBQ, fish, pasta - lots of continental breakfast to choose from, plus a choice of around ten dishes for lunch, with a daily changing special) and took part in/witnessed several entertaining shows (from a dance performed by the native villagers to beach party games to watching DVDs on giant, poolside screen). Everything had a polished, package holiday feel about it, without the tackiness.
Hawaii, on the other hand, turned out to be incredibly civilised, trashy in parts and boldly American: leaving the airport and heading into Honolulu, I could have been entering any large, US city, such was the spaghetti-like entanglement of roads, each bearing witness to big, flashy cars (lots of 4x4s and sports cars), shopping centres and high rise office blocks. Waikiki, where I spent the first couple of nights and my last night, turned out to be a real haven for tourists - like a Disneyland for grownups, it had more sky scraping hotels than I could count, with as many again restaurants and cafes, likably clean streets (‘sidewalks’?) spilling over with holiday makers and the famous, but extremely tacky in my opinion, ‘Waikiki Beach’: a long strip of sand barely big enough to contain those splayed out upon it. Still, as bad as that sounds, it was fun for a while, especially nice after the remoteness and quiet of my stay in Fiji. Whilst staying in the Octopus Resort, I made countless friends with the girls in my beautifully clean and high sociable dorm (it WAS a lovely dorm too: fourteen extremely comfortable beds, equipped with mosquito nets, made every day by the friendly Fijian staff), but eventually got ‘in’ with a crowd of Irish girls who had their own bure (Alison, Grace and Frances). Turned out they were staying in the same crappy hostel as me back in Auckland - they remembered me, having asked for directions to the laundry (but I not them: naughty!) - and that two of them happened to also be going on to Hawaii next. So straight away I was keen to get to know them, also attracted by their entirely hilarious Irish (‘Oyrish’) accents - being from Cork and Dublin, they sounded exactly like any female member of the cast of Father Ted. Their accents and colloquialisms seemed really exaggerated as well as, at times, derived, yet completely natural too (‘feck’ was a constant feature of conversation). Brilliant :)
Anyway, I spent the first couple of nights in Waikiki with Grace and Alison, where we took in Duke’s Bar on the beach the first night (it came recommended - the cocktails were great, the view excellent, the food not so) and the delights of the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ (YES!!!) the second. The latter had an upmarket ‘TGI Friday’s’ feel to it: the food was good and massive, the cheesecake desserts exemplary. On the first day in the centre of the Pacific - a Tuesday, where I left Fiji at one minute to midnight on the Tuesday, flew for eight hours (sat with the girls, the flight took this long thanks to a stopover at ‘Christmas Island’: what appeared to be nothing but a pancake flat, sand and palm tree lined archipelago - no man made constructions in sight, other than a tiny terminal building and a caked, old runaway with cracks on its surface), then arrived at just after 10AM the same day, receiving a whole extra day, thanks to crossing the Pacific ‘date line’ - I had a sublime piece of Tiramisu Cheesecake (as good as it sounds) coupled with a super strong and sweet Mai-Tai cocktail (an atypical Hawaiian cocktail: Hawaii’s all about the cocktails and the leis [the flowery necklaces]). Cocktails have turned out to be a godsend in Hawaii: very suitable in the hot, sultry climate (unlike the heavy Samuel Adams beer I tried, but I can also see why ‘light’ beers - such as ‘Corrs Light’ - would be popular, though I hear that’s a trend that unfortunately continues throughout the whole of the US). The staff in the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ were also incredibly friendly and engaging, almost overbearingly so; the reason for which revealed itself when the bill arrived, where, as I expected, a 15-20% tip was expected, spelt out by a thoughtful gratuity advice slip for tourists.
So Hawaii has very much marked my entrance into the United States. Of the Americans I’ve met or happened across here, many have seemed friendly, those that I’ve spoken to very willing to engage in conversation, some most intrigued by my accent. The second day I spent in Waikiki I teamed up with a Canadian for a trip to Pearl Harbour, where just as many Americans were taken by his accent as by mine. Though his name escapes me unfortunately, the Canadian was a radio advert producer from Calgary, as well as a past radio disc jockey: an interesting, ginger bloke with a very loud voice (seemingly unbeknownst to him, which was a tiny bit cringeworthy in quieter places, such as on ‘the Bus’). The trip to Pearl Harbour was really satisfying: we went for a walk around and inside an old and very impressive battleship, the USS Missouri, built before the second world war, prior to the supersession of the aircraft carrier (several old veterans were employed inside, who were very chatty and helpfully explain the workings of the ship, the bus driver who took us round the sights was also jolly and talkative, but warned us not to take photos whilst traversing the still active - ! - naval base: all we really saw were streets upon streets of identikit officer’s home, looking as colourful and fake as those in the film ‘Edward Scissorhands’) and we also got to see the incredible insides of a submarine (built in retaliation of the Pearl Harbour attack, used to take out many Japanese ships and subs - as indicated by the rising sun flags painted on its side, as well as one French one, unusually). The latter was the best part of the full day, the worst (least exciting, anyway) was the free visit to the USS Arizona, the sunken, unsalvageable, rusting remains of a ship bombed during the attack of Pearl Harbour (preceded by the much more interesting film of the event, shown on a big cinema screen, including both American and Japanese sourced clips). Watching from a viewing platform above, I did witness a stingray pass through the waters above the wreck, which was by far and away the highlight of that particular trip.
Am typing this from my seat on an American Airlines passenger jet, some 25,000 feet above the ocean. I can’t believe quite how tight this airline is. Not only do they insist on charging for food - ooh, but at least we get a complimentary soft drink - but you also have to pay for headphones, in case you wanted to watch the inflight entertainment. It’s a joke. The American guy from the Napa Valley (famous for its wines he tells me, I’m sure I’ve heard of it before) sat in the seat next to me informs me that all the American airlines have started charging for these services. Won’t be long until England follows suit I bet, though perhaps because this constitutes a shorter flight - relatively speaking, being less than five hours long - that’s how they get away with it.
After the first couple of days in tourist hotspot Waikiki, I was ready to get away from it to the comparably quiet ‘North Shore’. Ooops, forgot to mention - one other cool thing I discovered about Oahu is that Lost is filmed here. Not only that, but later the same day, I was taking a stroll down Waikiki’s highstreet only to pass by one of the actors from it: the guy who plays Ben, leader of ‘the Others’. Feigned ignorance until he passed me then whipped out my camera to grab a clumsy back shot. Still got him though :) Anyways, Thursday I caught a bus up to the North Shore with my Canadian acquaintance, glad to leave behind the complete hole that was my hostel: no curtains, loud music late into the night from the next door neighbours, dirty and grotty rooms, annoying, ignorant staff, poor free breakfast (bread, a limited supply of peanut butter and crappy coffee basically). Passed a ‘Dole Banana Plantation’ en route, trading a fully urbanised landscape for a much more rural one. Had a long chat with an old and well informed American guy who seemed only too happy to tell me how his country was going to hell thanks to Bush and his cronies. Argh, the lady in front of me has just lowered her seat back as far as it would go - and then some - limiting my space to just a few inches, or so it feels. In front are a couple of loud, obnoxious, black Americans - their rudeness to the air stewardess said it all - so I’m not too inclined to argue.
The hostel I stayed in on the North Shore was a godsend - despite the crap the guys at the Beachside Hostel in Waikiki tried to feed me about it. The unfortunately titled ‘Ho Hostel’ comprised a couple of spotless, freshly painted houses, set within the landscaped grounds of well trimmed, plant filled gardens, equipped with seats and hammocks for lounging lazily in, run by a welcoming and helpful Latin American family who, through their constant attention, kept the place feeling fresh and homely. I had a large, astroturfed veranda to sit, relax, browse the web (free and FAST wifi) and eat on, adjacent to a pristine, new, fully fitted kitchen and several colourfully painted rooms, one of which played host to my bunk bed. For the entire duration of my stay - four nights, five days - there was only one other person in the dorm (if you could call it that), an American midget from Florida, who was considering Hawaii as his next place to live (it’s wonderful how the United States work). Like the old guy on the bus, he also had extremely negative opinions on his country, its current depression, how Americans appear to outsiders and the general ignorance of his fellow countrymen on these subjects. Appears defeatism could turn into a bit of a theme for my US trip.
Right across the road from my ‘hostel’ (like I said, if you could really call it that - more like a hotel or a ‘home’ in actuality) was a bike track, succeeded by miles of thick, behind a long strip of thick, creamy white beach (the sand particles were larger than the usual grain sized, appearing like tiny, smoothly rounded pearls or pebbles), stretching for miles in either direction, lined with some pretty expensive looking beach condos and picturesque palm trees (the really tall, swaying variety, like those you see in the movies). The beach directly opposite Ho was called Sunset Beach, barely distinguishable from its neighbouring beaches if I’m honest, except that some were considered safer for swimming in, thanks to the presence of jutting rocks in the sea, calming the ever-present, bone crushingly powerful surf (I can attest to this, my one experience swimming in the sea sending me crashing back into the beach). Speaking of the surf, I could see why Hawaii, and in particular the North Shore, is considered such a top destination for surfing: despite it not even being the surfing season, I bared witness to some of the largest waves I’d ever seen - some towering easily more than a dozen feet into the air, they’d crash into the beach with an incredible impact, enough to create a ridge in the sand whilst sending showers of white foam scattering in all directions (sometimes alarmingly far up the shore).
I did plenty of sunbathing, reading (finally completed the ‘Outline of American History’ book I ‘borrowed’ from a hostel in Kuala Lumpur, so now I’m fully clued up) and cycling. The weather has been wonderful for the most part (blazingly hot when the sky was clear), though disappointingly it occasionally got cloudy for long periods. What the locals call ‘VOG’ was mainly to blame, a misty settling of fog issued by the Big Island’s volcano. My experience of food in Hawaii hasn’t been all too positive - apart from the cheesecakes, cafe and restaurant grub seems largely to be based around the concept of ‘fast food’. Burgers and fries are very much on the menu, lots of sugar and salt form a large part of the island diet, everything is BIG and not fresh, and preservatives and colouring appear to be overly present in everything, from Chinese Spicy Pork to Chocolate Haupia Pie (a chocolate and coconut dessert from Ted’s Bakery, Hawaii’s most famous confectioner - pretty tasty but too artificial, too obviously the product of a machine). I really hope this isn’t indicative of America in general - it would go some way to explain my obsession with meals whilst touring the States when I was 15, however - but a lady at my noticeably nicer hostel last night, the ‘Polynesian Beach Hostel’ in Waikiki, kindly reassured me it wasn’t (what I’m to look for, it would seem, are ‘diners’). Here’s hoping.
After relaxing up on the North Shore and not taking advantage of all that free time to blog (!!), spent the last day in Waikiki, so to be closer to the airport. Had to make do with fast food outlets (Subway, Starbucks) as nothing else was available. Went on an enjoyable, though rather tiring, trip that took me all the way around the outside on a circuit of and up on top of the ‘Diamond Head Crater’: a large crater left by a long dead volcano, just past one end of Waikiki Beach. Got lost going there, wound up in a very posh, Beverly Hills alike neighbourhood of dead ends, retreated and made my way up along the coastal ‘Diamond Head’ road, which turned out to be the much longer way round to get to the entrance of the crater (took me a couple of hours, as opposed to the half an hour return journey coming back the other way). When I made it to the ticket office, the lady announced it was closed - it was 4.50PM, the park closed at 6PM and the round trip to the top was supposed to take 90 minutes (many signs bared warnings, for fat Americans no doubt, about the whopping 1.5km trip, without toilet and water facilities: oh my god!) - but she could see the anxious, tired and disappointed look on my sweaty face, as she very kindly let me through anyway (and for free, saving me a whole dollar - woo!). Speed walked my way to the top, up a windy path, through a dark tunnel, up some very steep stairs and finally up a spiraling staircase, before making it to a lookout point/defence bunker on the rim (the route was an old one built by the US Army). The views of the island and its tall mountains in one direction and the expanse of the city of Honolulu equalling towering in the other made it worth the walk (and just as the sun was going down to).
Made it back in time to the beach for another sunset: I’ve been watching these avidly and taking many photos since Granddad reminded me how impressed he and Gran were by them. Attracting whopping crowds every evening, they’re indeed a marvel, so long as the sky is relatively clear of clouds or VOG. The sun, like a huge, full, round, iridescent torch light, turns from yellow to orange, then to deep red as it descends, the sky taking on shades of pink then purple as dusk follows. Perhaps not quite as spectacular as those I witnessed in the deserts of India, but magnificent nonetheless. Unfortunately my new digital camera doesn’t cope with such shots half as well as my old one, so will have to rely on memory mainly for these.
So, just over three hours until I reach SF, then I’m all set to meet Lucie. Am excited to gain a companion for the next part of my trip, but also a little anxious. Hope she doesn’t get bored of me, plus I hope I don’t suffer too much for lack of private time. Am really counting on being myself around her, dunno if this will be the case as never spent so much time with her. We do get on really well usually, and I can’t wait to catch up. Doesn’t seem real yet. One really good thing I’m looking forward to is that I’ll have someone to share photos and experiences with, plus I know Lucie will have me doing all sorts of activities I wouldn’t normally be doing, as she’s one of those crazy, always active persons. Hopefully will keep the blog up too.
P.S.: The split between native Fijians and Indians is 55:45. The natives resent the (originally imported by the Brits) Indians, thanks to the latter’s ability to work hard and make money (explains the presence of so many Indian taxi drivers at the airport). Fijian dollar notes have the Queen’s head on them. Native Polynesians in Hawaii look more like their Maori counterparts than the African looking Fijians: a definite cross between a Asian and American Indian, which makes sense being that Hawaii is almost exactly in the centre of the Pacific. Didn’t notice too many native Hawaiians about, however, thanks to the heavy presence of multi-ethnic Americans (both tourists and residents). There’s a large Asian presence in Hawaii, especially Chinese (Honolulu has its own Chinatown). Being in the States, I’m really disliking the reintroduction of single and two cent coins (completely redundant, since you can buy nothing with them, and weighing down my wallet, I find myself dumping such change straight into a donations box on receiving it), as well as the paper one dollar note.
Really disappointed I wasn’t presented with a free lei by a beautiful grass-skirt wearing lady on my arrival at Honolulu Airport. The movies they lie!
The USS Arizona was still leaking oil fifty years on. You could see it floating on the surface of the sea above.
I saw a lady open her handbag and drop her pet dog into it, sealing the zip close around the neck so that it’s head popped out the top, before throwing the bag over her shoulder and entering Foodland (whilst on the North Shore). Only in America.
It’s an early Sunday morning, just finished my usual breakfast of coconut riddled muesli and fresh fruit, with a piece of coconut bread-cake on the side (you get coconut in everything here), and I’m sat bent over my computer on a wooden veranda, facing the beach and a breezy, blue-green sea. It’s my fifth day at the Octopus Resort and the fifth since updating my blog! This resort does indeed live up to its name: a proper tourist holiday destination, it has a long, white sand beach, lapped by a shallow ocean perfect for scuba/snorkeling (so I’m told - haven’t tested this out yet, but intend to this afternoon), a sand carpeted dining area, bar, pool, ‘bures’ (thatch roofed cottages, housing 2-4 people), a couple of dorm rooms (unusual for a resort but I’m not complaining as I’m staying in a really nice one, along with 13 others) and the obligatory palm trees, hammocks and sun beds (free).
Weather wise, Wednesday through to Friday were pretty miserable, with Thursday being the worst. I took a two hour boat trip to get here - was picked up from my hotel shortly after 9AM (worried they weren’t coming, but turns out they were running to ‘Fiji Time’, like everybody else), driven along with a few others to a small, very pretty jetty, where I had some yummy coffee (and found a free wifi hotspot, but alas, too late to use it) and then we jumped aboard a small, motor-powered boat, which whizzed us off to Octopus Resort’s own island. The ride started off fairly pedestrian but after we cleared the bay I made some stupid comment about the going being slow, which naturally prompted the driver to put his foot down, sending the boat crashing over the busy surf, everybody holding on for dear life. It was quite the thrilling ride - all of the flapping, plastic windows but my own were battened down to keep out the splashing water, I enjoyed the wind in my face and getting wet (that was until some less enthusiastic Fijians on the boat insisted I clip down my window too). When we got to the resort, a smaller boat took us and our bags to the shore, where we were greeted by a flowery shirted, guitar playing song and dance troupe: a traditional Fijian welcome.
20.5.08
Aloha!
Well, I got sidetracked from my blog for another nine days. Have been relaxing the last week away in Hawai’i, intent on getting away from it all, chilling out and making an reasonable attempt at updating my travel diary. Two out of three doesn’t feel too bad, but the guilt’s been eating away at me, so here I am, waiting for my plane to San Francisco (have to remember to call it ‘ess ef’ or ‘the city’, so not to sound too much like a tourist) at the amazing Honolulu Airport. Wish that it had made such a good impression on me on arrival: all there was to greet international flights was a long (LONG) wait for a bus, boxy, grey, concrete buildings, a noticeable lack of ATMs (did indeed find one, but took me almost an hour to) and then an even greater lack of shops to get change from (‘The Bus’, the Oahu public transport system infamous for its $2, take-you-anywhere charge, refuses to split notes). Leaving the country, on the other hand, presents me with wide, glorious lounges stacked to the brim with Starbucks, cafes and duty frees, an onsite Hawaiian band and a huge, central garden, open aired and kitted out with fish ponds, palm trees and stacks of tropical vegetation (has to be a first for an airport). Swish.
There’s been a few big differences between Hawaii (Oahu Island, that is) and Fiji. I spent six out of my seven days in Fiji at the Octopus Resort in the Yasawas Island group, a small, mountainous island with the one resort, a local village (very ‘local’, home only to around a hundred Fijian natives - the traditional Kava drinking, hut living, satellite TV watching, self-sufficient type - most in the employ of the resort), jungle, absolutely no roads and some long, sandy beaches. I spent most of my time socialising with the people in my resort (couples or girls mainly, the latter part being fine with me), reading on the beach or under the shelter of thatched roofs (about half and half - sadly the weather tended towards overcast and the rain kept on coming, most frequently over the first few days), eating (the inclusive three meals a day were excellent, the menu very varied), playing the odd game of beach volleyball (I was rubbish, but enjoyed it), going for walks on the beach, snorkeling (some beautiful corral and stunning, multicoloured fish) and taking part on the occasional organised (supervised) hike to the neighbouring village, up and over the other side of the mountain (two visits: one on a Sunday for a Christian service held at the village church, spoken entirely in Fijian but still very evocative, thanks to the powerful evangelical choir and the put-the-fear-of-God-into-you, just as loud preacher, the other to look around and join in a Kava drinking ceremony). Kava, by the way, is a local delicacy made from the roots of a special plant: it’s infused into cold water through straining it, rather like how tea is made. The result is a drug that’s supposed to get you high if you drink enough of it (rather like the effect of cannabis). I had several bowlfuls in one ceremony and can only report a slight fuzzy head, with a very noticeable numbing of the lips and tongue. Other things of note in Fiji: despite the crap weather (only one full day of sunshine, two partially overcast, the rest: rain) I had a great time, met lots of nice people (all Facebook’d), really enjoyed the absolutely fabulous resort (everybody staying there - and that was lots, what with each day interchanging new people for old, sometimes admittedly poignantly - said it was the best one they’d been to, throughout the entire of Fiji), feasted on some great food (too much food: a different three-course meal each night - curry, meat BBQ, fish, pasta - lots of continental breakfast to choose from, plus a choice of around ten dishes for lunch, with a daily changing special) and took part in/witnessed several entertaining shows (from a dance performed by the native villagers to beach party games to watching DVDs on giant, poolside screen). Everything had a polished, package holiday feel about it, without the tackiness.
Hawaii, on the other hand, turned out to be incredibly civilised, trashy in parts and boldly American: leaving the airport and heading into Honolulu, I could have been entering any large, US city, such was the spaghetti-like entanglement of roads, each bearing witness to big, flashy cars (lots of 4x4s and sports cars), shopping centres and high rise office blocks. Waikiki, where I spent the first couple of nights and my last night, turned out to be a real haven for tourists - like a Disneyland for grownups, it had more sky scraping hotels than I could count, with as many again restaurants and cafes, likably clean streets (‘sidewalks’?) spilling over with holiday makers and the famous, but extremely tacky in my opinion, ‘Waikiki Beach’: a long strip of sand barely big enough to contain those splayed out upon it. Still, as bad as that sounds, it was fun for a while, especially nice after the remoteness and quiet of my stay in Fiji. Whilst staying in the Octopus Resort, I made countless friends with the girls in my beautifully clean and high sociable dorm (it WAS a lovely dorm too: fourteen extremely comfortable beds, equipped with mosquito nets, made every day by the friendly Fijian staff), but eventually got ‘in’ with a crowd of Irish girls who had their own bure (Alison, Grace and Frances). Turned out they were staying in the same crappy hostel as me back in Auckland - they remembered me, having asked for directions to the laundry (but I not them: naughty!) - and that two of them happened to also be going on to Hawaii next. So straight away I was keen to get to know them, also attracted by their entirely hilarious Irish (‘Oyrish’) accents - being from Cork and Dublin, they sounded exactly like any female member of the cast of Father Ted. Their accents and colloquialisms seemed really exaggerated as well as, at times, derived, yet completely natural too (‘feck’ was a constant feature of conversation). Brilliant :)
Anyway, I spent the first couple of nights in Waikiki with Grace and Alison, where we took in Duke’s Bar on the beach the first night (it came recommended - the cocktails were great, the view excellent, the food not so) and the delights of the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ (YES!!!) the second. The latter had an upmarket ‘TGI Friday’s’ feel to it: the food was good and massive, the cheesecake desserts exemplary. On the first day in the centre of the Pacific - a Tuesday, where I left Fiji at one minute to midnight on the Tuesday, flew for eight hours (sat with the girls, the flight took this long thanks to a stopover at ‘Christmas Island’: what appeared to be nothing but a pancake flat, sand and palm tree lined archipelago - no man made constructions in sight, other than a tiny terminal building and a caked, old runaway with cracks on its surface), then arrived at just after 10AM the same day, receiving a whole extra day, thanks to crossing the Pacific ‘date line’ - I had a sublime piece of Tiramisu Cheesecake (as good as it sounds) coupled with a super strong and sweet Mai-Tai cocktail (an atypical Hawaiian cocktail: Hawaii’s all about the cocktails and the leis [the flowery necklaces]). Cocktails have turned out to be a godsend in Hawaii: very suitable in the hot, sultry climate (unlike the heavy Samuel Adams beer I tried, but I can also see why ‘light’ beers - such as ‘Corrs Light’ - would be popular, though I hear that’s a trend that unfortunately continues throughout the whole of the US). The staff in the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ were also incredibly friendly and engaging, almost overbearingly so; the reason for which revealed itself when the bill arrived, where, as I expected, a 15-20% tip was expected, spelt out by a thoughtful gratuity advice slip for tourists.
So Hawaii has very much marked my entrance into the United States. Of the Americans I’ve met or happened across here, many have seemed friendly, those that I’ve spoken to very willing to engage in conversation, some most intrigued by my accent. The second day I spent in Waikiki I teamed up with a Canadian for a trip to Pearl Harbour, where just as many Americans were taken by his accent as by mine. Though his name escapes me unfortunately, the Canadian was a radio advert producer from Calgary, as well as a past radio disc jockey: an interesting, ginger bloke with a very loud voice (seemingly unbeknownst to him, which was a tiny bit cringeworthy in quieter places, such as on ‘the Bus’). The trip to Pearl Harbour was really satisfying: we went for a walk around and inside an old and very impressive battleship, the USS Missouri, built before the second world war, prior to the supersession of the aircraft carrier (several old veterans were employed inside, who were very chatty and helpfully explain the workings of the ship, the bus driver who took us round the sights was also jolly and talkative, but warned us not to take photos whilst traversing the still active - ! - naval base: all we really saw were streets upon streets of identikit officer’s home, looking as colourful and fake as those in the film ‘Edward Scissorhands’) and we also got to see the incredible insides of a submarine (built in retaliation of the Pearl Harbour attack, used to take out many Japanese ships and subs - as indicated by the rising sun flags painted on its side, as well as one French one, unusually). The latter was the best part of the full day, the worst (least exciting, anyway) was the free visit to the USS Arizona, the sunken, unsalvageable, rusting remains of a ship bombed during the attack of Pearl Harbour (preceded by the much more interesting film of the event, shown on a big cinema screen, including both American and Japanese sourced clips). Watching from a viewing platform above, I did witness a stingray pass through the waters above the wreck, which was by far and away the highlight of that particular trip.
Am typing this from my seat on an American Airlines passenger jet, some 25,000 feet above the ocean. I can’t believe quite how tight this airline is. Not only do they insist on charging for food - ooh, but at least we get a complimentary soft drink - but you also have to pay for headphones, in case you wanted to watch the inflight entertainment. It’s a joke. The American guy from the Napa Valley (famous for its wines he tells me, I’m sure I’ve heard of it before) sat in the seat next to me informs me that all the American airlines have started charging for these services. Won’t be long until England follows suit I bet, though perhaps because this constitutes a shorter flight - relatively speaking, being less than five hours long - that’s how they get away with it.
After the first couple of days in tourist hotspot Waikiki, I was ready to get away from it to the comparably quiet ‘North Shore’. Ooops, forgot to mention - one other cool thing I discovered about Oahu is that Lost is filmed here. Not only that, but later the same day, I was taking a stroll down Waikiki’s highstreet only to pass by one of the actors from it: the guy who plays Ben, leader of ‘the Others’. Feigned ignorance until he passed me then whipped out my camera to grab a clumsy back shot. Still got him though :) Anyways, Thursday I caught a bus up to the North Shore with my Canadian acquaintance, glad to leave behind the complete hole that was my hostel: no curtains, loud music late into the night from the next door neighbours, dirty and grotty rooms, annoying, ignorant staff, poor free breakfast (bread, a limited supply of peanut butter and crappy coffee basically). Passed a ‘Dole Banana Plantation’ en route, trading a fully urbanised landscape for a much more rural one. Had a long chat with an old and well informed American guy who seemed only too happy to tell me how his country was going to hell thanks to Bush and his cronies. Argh, the lady in front of me has just lowered her seat back as far as it would go - and then some - limiting my space to just a few inches, or so it feels. In front are a couple of loud, obnoxious, black Americans - their rudeness to the air stewardess said it all - so I’m not too inclined to argue.
The hostel I stayed in on the North Shore was a godsend - despite the crap the guys at the Beachside Hostel in Waikiki tried to feed me about it. The unfortunately titled ‘Ho Hostel’ comprised a couple of spotless, freshly painted houses, set within the landscaped grounds of well trimmed, plant filled gardens, equipped with seats and hammocks for lounging lazily in, run by a welcoming and helpful Latin American family who, through their constant attention, kept the place feeling fresh and homely. I had a large, astroturfed veranda to sit, relax, browse the web (free and FAST wifi) and eat on, adjacent to a pristine, new, fully fitted kitchen and several colourfully painted rooms, one of which played host to my bunk bed. For the entire duration of my stay - four nights, five days - there was only one other person in the dorm (if you could call it that), an American midget from Florida, who was considering Hawaii as his next place to live (it’s wonderful how the United States work). Like the old guy on the bus, he also had extremely negative opinions on his country, its current depression, how Americans appear to outsiders and the general ignorance of his fellow countrymen on these subjects. Appears defeatism could turn into a bit of a theme for my US trip.
Right across the road from my ‘hostel’ (like I said, if you could really call it that - more like a hotel or a ‘home’ in actuality) was a bike track, succeeded by miles of thick, behind a long strip of thick, creamy white beach (the sand particles were larger than the usual grain sized, appearing like tiny, smoothly rounded pearls or pebbles), stretching for miles in either direction, lined with some pretty expensive looking beach condos and picturesque palm trees (the really tall, swaying variety, like those you see in the movies). The beach directly opposite Ho was called Sunset Beach, barely distinguishable from its neighbouring beaches if I’m honest, except that some were considered safer for swimming in, thanks to the presence of jutting rocks in the sea, calming the ever-present, bone crushingly powerful surf (I can attest to this, my one experience swimming in the sea sending me crashing back into the beach). Speaking of the surf, I could see why Hawaii, and in particular the North Shore, is considered such a top destination for surfing: despite it not even being the surfing season, I bared witness to some of the largest waves I’d ever seen - some towering easily more than a dozen feet into the air, they’d crash into the beach with an incredible impact, enough to create a ridge in the sand whilst sending showers of white foam scattering in all directions (sometimes alarmingly far up the shore).
I did plenty of sunbathing, reading (finally completed the ‘Outline of American History’ book I ‘borrowed’ from a hostel in Kuala Lumpur, so now I’m fully clued up) and cycling. The weather has been wonderful for the most part (blazingly hot when the sky was clear), though disappointingly it occasionally got cloudy for long periods. What the locals call ‘VOG’ was mainly to blame, a misty settling of fog issued by the Big Island’s volcano. My experience of food in Hawaii hasn’t been all too positive - apart from the cheesecakes, cafe and restaurant grub seems largely to be based around the concept of ‘fast food’. Burgers and fries are very much on the menu, lots of sugar and salt form a large part of the island diet, everything is BIG and not fresh, and preservatives and colouring appear to be overly present in everything, from Chinese Spicy Pork to Chocolate Haupia Pie (a chocolate and coconut dessert from Ted’s Bakery, Hawaii’s most famous confectioner - pretty tasty but too artificial, too obviously the product of a machine). I really hope this isn’t indicative of America in general - it would go some way to explain my obsession with meals whilst touring the States when I was 15, however - but a lady at my noticeably nicer hostel last night, the ‘Polynesian Beach Hostel’ in Waikiki, kindly reassured me it wasn’t (what I’m to look for, it would seem, are ‘diners’). Here’s hoping.
After relaxing up on the North Shore and not taking advantage of all that free time to blog (!!), spent the last day in Waikiki, so to be closer to the airport. Had to make do with fast food outlets (Subway, Starbucks) as nothing else was available. Went on an enjoyable, though rather tiring, trip that took me all the way around the outside on a circuit of and up on top of the ‘Diamond Head Crater’: a large crater left by a long dead volcano, just past one end of Waikiki Beach. Got lost going there, wound up in a very posh, Beverly Hills alike neighbourhood of dead ends, retreated and made my way up along the coastal ‘Diamond Head’ road, which turned out to be the much longer way round to get to the entrance of the crater (took me a couple of hours, as opposed to the half an hour return journey coming back the other way). When I made it to the ticket office, the lady announced it was closed - it was 4.50PM, the park closed at 6PM and the round trip to the top was supposed to take 90 minutes (many signs bared warnings, for fat Americans no doubt, about the whopping 1.5km trip, without toilet and water facilities: oh my god!) - but she could see the anxious, tired and disappointed look on my sweaty face, as she very kindly let me through anyway (and for free, saving me a whole dollar - woo!). Speed walked my way to the top, up a windy path, through a dark tunnel, up some very steep stairs and finally up a spiraling staircase, before making it to a lookout point/defence bunker on the rim (the route was an old one built by the US Army). The views of the island and its tall mountains in one direction and the expanse of the city of Honolulu equalling towering in the other made it worth the walk (and just as the sun was going down to).
Made it back in time to the beach for another sunset: I’ve been watching these avidly and taking many photos since Granddad reminded me how impressed he and Gran were by them. Attracting whopping crowds every evening, they’re indeed a marvel, so long as the sky is relatively clear of clouds or VOG. The sun, like a huge, full, round, iridescent torch light, turns from yellow to orange, then to deep red as it descends, the sky taking on shades of pink then purple as dusk follows. Perhaps not quite as spectacular as those I witnessed in the deserts of India, but magnificent nonetheless. Unfortunately my new digital camera doesn’t cope with such shots half as well as my old one, so will have to rely on memory mainly for these.
So, just over three hours until I reach SF, then I’m all set to meet Lucie. Am excited to gain a companion for the next part of my trip, but also a little anxious. Hope she doesn’t get bored of me, plus I hope I don’t suffer too much for lack of private time. Am really counting on being myself around her, dunno if this will be the case as never spent so much time with her. We do get on really well usually, and I can’t wait to catch up. Doesn’t seem real yet. One really good thing I’m looking forward to is that I’ll have someone to share photos and experiences with, plus I know Lucie will have me doing all sorts of activities I wouldn’t normally be doing, as she’s one of those crazy, always active persons. Hopefully will keep the blog up too.
P.S.: The split between native Fijians and Indians is 55:45. The natives resent the (originally imported by the Brits) Indians, thanks to the latter’s ability to work hard and make money (explains the presence of so many Indian taxi drivers at the airport). Fijian dollar notes have the Queen’s head on them. Native Polynesians in Hawaii look more like their Maori counterparts than the African looking Fijians: a definite cross between a Asian and American Indian, which makes sense being that Hawaii is almost exactly in the centre of the Pacific. Didn’t notice too many native Hawaiians about, however, thanks to the heavy presence of multi-ethnic Americans (both tourists and residents). There’s a large Asian presence in Hawaii, especially Chinese (Honolulu has its own Chinatown). Being in the States, I’m really disliking the reintroduction of single and two cent coins (completely redundant, since you can buy nothing with them, and weighing down my wallet, I find myself dumping such change straight into a donations box on receiving it), as well as the paper one dollar note.
Really disappointed I wasn’t presented with a free lei by a beautiful grass-skirt wearing lady on my arrival at Honolulu Airport. The movies they lie!
The USS Arizona was still leaking oil fifty years on. You could see it floating on the surface of the sea above.
I saw a lady open her handbag and drop her pet dog into it, sealing the zip close around the neck so that it’s head popped out the top, before throwing the bag over her shoulder and entering Foodland (whilst on the North Shore). Only in America.
Sunday, 4 May 2008
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