The wide, wide world of Bike Friday in Hawaii
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| The view from my homestay in Kaneohe, Oahu |
First, a mini movie review ...
I'VE JUST crawled out from under a crocheted cushion after 'viewing' the Wachowski Bros (Matrix) 1996 movie, '"Bound." I don't think I'll sleep tonight, I'll need a stun gun and a Valium to close my peepers... which were closed for probably 60% of the movie. Extreme suspense, violence, Joe-Pesci-at-his-damndest dialog, a severed digit (or ten) thanks to a pair of garden clippers, plus a rather topical twist: a lesbian couple star as the glam Bonnie and Clyde. Topical, because I've just seen "Brokeback Mountain", this year's darling gay western flick. 'Bound' has terrific acting and plotting, highly recommended. Warning: it contains some serious Vaseline-covered lens action.
I'm now holed up in Oahu, via the Big Island, Kaui and Maui, as the guest of Bike Friday customers Ralph and Bernice. Ralph is the Bike Friday Club of Hawaii leader and rabid triathlete and marathoner. You can see him on front of this flip-through of the Bike Friday catalog. I just got back from his 8am training session, for which he and others shell out $500 or more to prepare for the Half Ironman. The Dobsons have kindly let me homestay their guest room for $300 a month, as per my Gal Across America 2006 proposal.
See my Oahu gallery here
Continuing from where I left off:
Big Island: 99% Self-Sustainable, Auto-Free Ann Kobsa
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| Reaping is not at all grim! |
PHOTOS Auto-free Ann Photo Gallery
On the Big Island I stayed with "AutoFree Ann" Kobsa, a Bike Friday owner who lives 99% self-sustainably off her land. In her self-sufficient, fossil-fuel-free world, leaf blowers and cars are taboo, toilet paper is for wimps and soap is not only color and fragrance-free, it's made by Ann from the fat of wild pigs she shoots herself. Hard. Core. Here are some other impressive factoids about her lifestyle:
- Packaged food does not cross the threshold of her simple, elegantly minimalist home: some 70 different fruits and veggies grow like weeds on her 2 acre property
- She cuts the grass with a scythe (see above photo) – surprisingly ergonomic, I tried it.
- Solar panels, bought second hand off eBay, provide enough power to run the internet and lights each day
- Her water catchment system is a sheet of metal tilted against a discarded clothes dryer filter and a washing machine bowl she found in a dumpster
- She welcomes junk mail insofar as it separates yesterday's poop from today's in the composting toilet (I saw that the tissuey, 1-ply pages of the CAMPMOR catalog make excellent loo paper
- She's investigating installing a methane toilet, the kind that families use in India: poop and biomass make gas for cooking.
- She grows every exotic and desirable non-animal you can think of, including cardamom and cinnamon trees
- Her cash crop is vanilla pods, which must be hand pollinated ,as a cash crop.
I stayed with Stacey whose standout hot shower head sticking out of a willy willy tree I will remember forever. David Hannauer is an ocarina meister, who I wrote about here. Rick and Iris are even harder core, trying to be self-sustainable on their salty coastal acreage right where lava meets ocean. He expresses alarm and guilt that he is wearing PVC boots, manufactured attire, and in fact, is breathing, thus adversely impacting the environment. All these intriguing folks form the Koa'e community near Kapoho, in the Puna region of the Big Island.
See my Big Island Gallery here
Stumbling upon a Tantra Puja
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| My friend Moon Lin in her favorite spot on the lava at Kaimu Beach, Kalapana, Big Island |
Loiter long enough, say 'yes' more often than 'no', and you never know where you'll end up. At the end of the fabulously bikeable 17-mile Red Road to Kalapana (south end of the Big Island), where the road is suddenly swallowed by lava, I met Moon. She'd been studying the tantra, and invited me to a "tantra puja" that evening. When faced with a new experience, I always ask myself: have I done this before? If not, then, can I afford it time-wise and money-wise? If yes, then I say... yes! Fast forward to a cosy living room in Pahoa, an urban ashram. The ten attendees eat a potluck meal, then the tantra begins. Picture seven "stations," a man each each one, through which the women rotate - we are the "goddesses."
"It's OK, it's perfectly safe," chimes the cheery 36-something Dakka (tantra teacher) who bears an uncanny resemblance to Alfred of Mad Magazine.
"Why, do I look terrified?" I ask.
"Yes, you do."
I soon get into it. One man is tardy to set up his lair for me.
"Where's my throne?" I demand jokingly.
But it was all a somewhat surreal experience of holding hands and touching faces and little else. It did, however, feel lovely to have each "man" create a "lair" for we "goddesses." Perhaps, despite all our advanced feminism, agency and self-actualization, some things never change...
In a bit of a crunch in Kauai
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| If you decide to drop out of law at Harvard there's always a PhD in Surfing at Anahola, Kauai... |
On Christmas Day I bade my Big Island friends farewell and headed to Kauai. Straight away I knew I this was a place where did not belong – I was neither rich, Hawaiian or driving an SUV. I was, however, there to serve on the 10-day Vipassana course at the YMCA, Haena.
A story will follow on this, but in a nutshell: my 10-year old guidebook pointed me to a beach campsite at Anahola that has since become an after-dark trawling ground for theft, meth and ice transactions – on the rise due to the gap between the haves and the have more's. I called the number of a haole friend of a friend who lived in the town to register my whereabouts, and because I felt a little nervous. She told me in no uncertain terms that I'd called the wrong number – I should be calling the police. I befriended Billy, a Hawaiian father with 10 kids who happened to be chilling out in his car (perhaps taking a break from his 10 kids?). He drove me to his cousin Herbert's Hawaiian homelands abode, to pass the night in comparative safety. The two men jammed on their guitars and ukeleles 'til late for the first time ever in their 60+ years. Check out his slack key guitar lesson you can learn in the comfort of your own laptop (except, as a reader on Craigslist pointed out, I neglected film the fingerpickin' right hand).
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| The incredible kindness of locals Billie and Herbert, who rescued me and taught me this slack-key-riff |
Kauai's traffic-choked two-laner follows the coast and is not great for biking, especially when the shoulder disappears. The entrance to the Napali coast trailhead resembled a car dealership. Herbert gave me a ride all the way to Haena in his poor, clapped-out pickup, and refused my donation of gas money. His hospitality was in stark contrast to that of the American friend of a friend I tried to reach out to in Anahola. Let us meditate on that, shall we ...
Dhamma in Kauai: Vipassana Meditation
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| Noble silence is 10 days of no talking, reading, writing, looking at anyone, or loitering off somewhere. |
There is never a charge for a Goenka Vipassana course, nor for the excellent food or lodging. I loaned the organizer a sizeable chunk of my small savings to make sure this course got off the ground, so strongly do I believe in its value, especially in moneyed Kauai. You donate what you can, as the belief is that meditation should never be a business. Amen. See http://www.dhamma.org for locations near you.
See my Vipassana Kauai gallery here
Hiking the breathtaking Napali Coast
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| The Hennessey Hammock was my bachelorette pad for 10 days |
After serving on the Vipassana course, I hiked the renowned, 11-mile Kalalau trail which switches back and forth through the dramatic, fluted mountains of the Napali Coast. There is a panty-pooping moment at Mile 7, where the trail becomes a 45-degree plummeting slope of loose gravel, the rocky, crashing ocean inviting you to a premature death below. The hiking technique? BABY STEPS! I was wearing my 10-year-old Lake cleated MTB shoes, normally a no-no, but for some reason they kept me stuck to terra not-so-firma. The trail is less than a foot wide and like scree in many places. It takes between 7 and 9 hours for a fit person to hike it one way, but you can camp at the nice facilities at miles 2 and 6. My friend, a six-time veteran of this hike, turned back for personal reasons at the start of mile 7. I hiked the remaining 4 miles alone. (What, you think I'm gonna trudge 7 miles then turn back?)
I languished in my Hennessey Hammock for 7 days, reading the far-fetched Da Vinci Code prequel, “Angels and Demons" from the local "library" (a plastic container of books under a tarp), visiting locals who had somewhat illegally made it their home, and cooking quinoa and dried pea soup mix on my little Trangia stove.
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| Not too shabby a campsite, wot? |
Staggering out of Kalalau on Day 7, I hitched to Princeville, a decidedly "Californicated" part of Kauai. It is hard to sleep for cheap on this island. I had to spend the last night sleeping in someone's car – she, and another friend, were not allowed to host visitors. Kauai is a place of "no space" unless you have equity, cash or cushy contacts. I had none of these, so it was time to go.
See my Kalalau gallery here
Maui meander
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| Gal Fridays: Summiting Haleakala on Maui with Susan Boatright |
Susan's traditional Hawaiian house consists of 3 little buildings – bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, a bit like a traditional Balinese house. Even if you're a homebody you can never complain you didn't get out today."
We cruised the touristy Kihei and fabulously wealthy Wailea area where a bedroom with a complimentary door and a window rents for $1200 a month up. We propped ourselves up at the Tommy Bahamas bar and split an appetizer with a long description. The bartender said we looked hungry and asked if we wanted bread. YES PLEASE! Shoestring (or rather, dental floss) travelers know that in fancy digs, bread is often more than merely 2 slices of Wondertoast; in this case, a giant, warm, springy loaf that resembled Haleakala itself, oozing a lavaflow of cinnamon butter.
Being a bit of a wandering workaholic, the highlight was telecommuting from Susan's office at the Vipassana Metta foundation (this is a different Vipassana organization from the one I did in Kauai) for 3 half mornings – overlooking the panorama of West Maui, the islands Lanaii and Ka'aolewe.
Now if you ARE endowed with more than a couple of brass razoos (that's Aussie for 'having equity') you should check out my literary lawyer's salubrious rental at Napili Point on this island. If I manage to do a John Grisham with my next book I'll be celebrating there, otherwise, it'll be the Hennessey Hammock and quinoa stew in the Trangia again.
Which brings me back Kaneohe in Oahu, where I am paused until February 20, writing the next Bike Friday newsletter and probably not a single apostrophe of my second book at the rate I'm going. I'm going to organize a showing of my Peru DVD movie this week at the house, and invite all biking and cerebral types to come along.
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Craigslist in HI – where are the singles?
All these women have one thing in common – they like to move around. Well, as my sage el jefe says, to get longevity – in anything, relationship, job, a garden, a skill - you have to do it. Dang. So where's a travelin' gal to hang her helmet?
Now, you can meet someone you like, in a place you hate, or go to a place you like and then look around – the latter seems to make more sense, especially if your funds are short and you're no longer in danger of overpopulating the planet.
So I posted on all the different CL social pages. I was inundated by replies from bikers, adventurers, dreamers, and 5 women of the aforementioned adventurous kind, two of which have taken me gadding about, one with their boyfriend in tow.
People are clearly wanting to connect with people. One of the women, Val, is an ABC like me (American Born Chinese, I'm an Aussie Born Chinese) so we were instant cousins by association.
She read my post and invited me to go dancing and crash at her folks' place. Her friends thought she was wacky, yet I would never have met her loitering in Safeway (that's because I try not to loiter in Safeway).
Conclusion: It must be the sun. You gotta live in Hawaii.
Can you stand more Hawaii? Of course you can!
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