The next day we were on our way to the Airport before sunrise. We were running a few minutes late and I was edgy. Our luck, the cab driver was slow as a tortoise on the highway. Cars overtook us from both sides. Finally we reached the airport, only to see a long security line. I completely forgot we couldnt carry big liquid containers in our carry-ons. I had a huge bottle of lens cleaner on me. We had to run back to the Counter to check in a back-pack with the container, by which time the security line had gotten even longer. By this time I had decided we would miss the flight, and started taunting myself and DH for not waking up early and not being more responsible. DH was quiet, he knew we would make it to the gate on time, he just kept his thoughts to himself, and let me rant. The flight was at 7AM and by 6:30 we were inside, we even had time to grab a coffee from Starbucks. They dint start boarding until 6:55AM. DH started pulling my leg, saying things like, "Cha, we could have come a little later, we have so much time here waiting. We could have asked the cab driver to drive even slower, and we could have had a nice time at the security line", and so on. Yeah I know, I put up with this kinda talk all the time.
The most exciting part of this short 40 minute flight covering about 100 miles was I got to see the other islands from up above. They looked beautiful! I was able to see the water changing colors as we left the shore, from a light blue to dark blue. We saw, Molokai, another of the Hawaiian Islands, surrounded by the ocean totally. When we reached Maui, I thought Maui looked like a young girl with many hidden secrets within herself, to be discovered. It had drizzled a little, it increased the beauty of the island, as though a painting had been given a retouch.
The Airport was horrible though. It was stinking! We found some detailed road maps of Maui. We had our GPS too, though we werent sure if the maps of Hawaii came preloaded or not. Kahului seemed like a sleepy little town. We were to realize all of Maui was so, later. We got our rental car, a Ford Taurus, a stupid car I tell you. We had one whole day at the island. We had three things we wanted to see and do. Road to Hana, Haleakala, and the umpteen world famous beaches. Finally we decided on taking the Road to Hana, as we could go to some beaches along the way too.
It started drizzling a bit. But apparently it never rains for long on the islands. Our first stop was the Ho'okipa Beach. I should say these various names did not register in my head as we drove, I am just looking up these places on the internet as I write about them. The sea was supposed to be rough, and it was good for surfers. We saw a lot of surfers at the beach. The main highlight was the beautiful rainbow we saw as an aftermath of the drizzles. This is the first time I saw a whole rainbow thanks to the landscape, nothing was hidden. It was so cool. Unfortunately I wasnt able to take a picture of the whole thing, as it was huge, and I would have had to go across the road into the fields to take a full pic. All the seven colors were spectacularly clear. It was an amazing sight. I think we were just on time, once we finished taking pictures, the rainbow started fading away amidst the clouds. A wonderful start to the journey.
Er.. or so I thought. Within a few minutes of crossing the Beach, we were at the windward side of the island, lush green and just bathed in the rain, fresh and pristine. But I wasnt able to enjoy all of this. Because the road had by now become so winding, that it was difficult to not feel giddy. Another 30 minutes and I was almost regretting the decision to take the Hana Highway. I wanted to go back and do
something else. We stopped after 10 or so miles, at Kaumahina State Wayside Park. I had to gather my bearings a little before proceeding on. DH suggested I drove. It was a good suggestion. While I drove I was able to enjoy the drive much more, and didnt feel nauseated. The view along the road was becoming more beautiful as we were climbing on a light slope. It was exotic and heavenly. Isolated from the rest of the world, nature at its best self, untampered with.
We reached Ke`anae Point. It was another of nature's marvel. There was no beach, only dark rocks, and the rough sea. One can spend hours just watching the waves crash onto the rocks, beautiful. The blue of the sea, the green of the land, and in between was the black of the rocks, natures's true colors. It was bliss to watch. From there on we proceeded on the highway across so many many one lane bridges, with little streams of water rushing towards the ocean from the mountains. I should say most of the other attractions were hyped. I guess raw country side is a treat for Americans. Not for us, Indians, obviously.
As I said earlier we were on the windward side, which is the wet side of the island, and this side got much more rain than the dry side, and hence there was dense foliage, and amazing vegetation to look and admire. It was all rain forests along the highway, it looked picturesque.
We reached the Black Sand Beach, also known as Wai`napanapa State Park at the Pa`iloa Bay. What I liked about beaches in Maui were that they were so isolated. Not many people were around, so it was almost as if we had the whole beach for ourselves. Now thats amazing right?! Its mainly because these beautiful beaches are not easily accessible one has to drive the ever winding Hana Highway for three hours to get to the beach. Some might think its not worth it, but it soo is.
The beach obviously had black sand, which are apparently actually tiny, smooth lava pebbles. DH was a little dizzy this time, but he made it all right. We took a bunch of pictures at the beach. We saw some lave tubes. I had to drag DH from being too adventurous. Seriously, its like stopping naughty kids from doing unsafe things. ;--) He wanted to go into one of the caves which had crashing dangerous waves on the other side.
We went onto the rocks across the beach, where there was a blow hole. Did I tell you what a blow hole was? Blow holes are created when the pounding ocean undercuts a shorline lava shelf. A hole in the lava shelf causes a geyser like effect. When the surf is just right, it forces water up the hole, just like a geyser. I picked the definition right off the web and obviously it was not safe to trudge around that area, and I had to constantly remind DH of that fact.
We were just a few miles from the town of Hana. Hana wasnt as attractive. They rightly said, it is the journey that makes the destination attractive. We went to the Hana Bay Beach Park, we werent too impressed with the landscape. We spent sometime there watching a little kid running with the waves. We set out in search of the Red Sand Beach, but were lured by a Ranch house restaurant. We had been having
sandwiches until then, real food in a good restaurant was more than tempting. The place wasnt crowded, as it was almost 2PM. We asked the waiter for directions to the Red Sand Beach and he refused to give it to us, saying the route would be through the restaurant property and so he was not allowed to give us the route. Anyway by then we were too tired with all the winding roads. I wanted to visit a few beaches
atleast before going back to Oahu.
The drive back I was dreading. I wish they had a round trip route to Hana, so we
didnt have to get back the same way we came by. This time DH drove, while I sat with my eyes closed. The hairpins bends were not so bad with eyes closed. Dh made amazing time in the one hour I slept peacefully. When I woke up I was fully refreshed. And now I was able to admire the rain forest even more. I took some pictures on the way, for the hundredth time, the landscape was a beautiful work of nature.
We got back to Hookipa beach in less than two hours, and I was very happy. I suddenly remembered the GPS. I took it out to test it, and it worked!! With the GPS and the detailed Maui Map, I was sure we wouldnt get lost on the little island. So we set of to explore the other side of Maui, towards the beaches. The good thing about the GPS is that we didnt have to know the exact address of the place. I just searched for local attractions and lo behold! all the bearby beaches popped up! How cool!
We set forth to the south beaches. There were two main roads along the beach. Maui was so small compared to Waikiki. But it was beautiful nevertheless. No tall buildings, or noisy traffic. It was quiet serene and almost rustic. We finally settled on Mokapu Beach, set in front of a huge resort. In Hawaii, all the beaches are public. Even if there was a resort in front of the beach, the beach was open to the public. Good thing, we can enjoy beaches without having to cater to the exorbitant prices the resorts charge. We had almost an hour before we had to leave for the airport. So we changed to our swimsuits to play in the water. DH went deep into the ocean while I was just playing
closer to the shore, running with the waves. We saw Molokini island. That place is the most famous place for snorkelling and scuba diving in Maui. Unfortunately a trip to Molokini would take a whole day, hence we had dropped the idea. That is one of the things I would want to do, sometime in life. We were just in time for the sunset. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Well, we didnt realize it was beautiful then. But when we looked at the pictures later, the whole place felt so heavenly, so far away from the real world.
We were to realize later that a whole another set of beaches were on the west side. :--( The Kaanaapali beaches, which were also world famous. Unfortunately we didnt have tim to cover all of this in one day. Which is why I should reiterate, one should plan to spend more days in Hawaii. Still, I am glad we covered more than we had bargained for in Maui.
We left to the airport, as it started getting dark. Thanks to our GPS, I doubt if we would have made it safely to the Airport if not for it. We even took a detour to the gas station, with the help of our GPS to fill the tank before returning the car. The car was a stupid car. It did not have an 'all door lock/unlock' mechanism at the driver's seat. So to lock or unlock the passenger doors, where we had all our belongings, we had to unlock every single door separately. Even in this age!
The journey back was uneventful, I slept right after I sat in the plane, and woke up when the plane landed in Honululu. It had rained in Honolulu too, but we were happy our day didnt get spoiled too much by the rain. It was two tired sleepy heads that retired into the hotel room that night. I was personally a little relieved to be back to civilization. The husle buzzle of Waikiki was welcoming after Maui inspite of its exotic beauty.
And we had just one more day to enjoy this place. Our vacation was almost over! :--(
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Aloha! - Diamond Crater and Hanauma Bay
The next day morning, it was my turn to wake up early and get ready first.
We were going hiking to the Diamond Head. The sunrise was supposed to look good from the top, and it being the New Year's Eve, all activities were to close by afternoon. So we had booked this trip for 6:30AM, insane hour even by my standards. We were the only couple in the shuttle that took us to the crater. The driver was a friendly guy. We realized we had our afternoon program also with him. He offered to pick us up for the 8:30AM trip, and club the two activities together. Heck, we didnt wake up this early, to go back to sleep! So we politely declined the offer.
We reached the crater in 15 minutes, it was very close to Waikiki breach front. It was still dark, we saw a few hikers walking towards the crater. we went on a slight hill, and then through a short tunnel and lo! we were right inside the crater! I should say it didnt really look like a crater to me, after all the volcano here had erupted some 150,000 years ago and hasnt moved ever since. :--) The inside of the crater was almost symmetrically round. Apparently this led to the belief that the eruption here was one big one and that was about it. It was one of the two big volcanic eruptions that formed the Oahu island.
We started our hike first on paved road, then on a muddy trail, going up towards a corner on the top of the crater, directly overlooking the ocean. Just as we started on the trail, a tiny incident happened. DH still laughs about it when we see the picture associated with the incident. As I said, there were not very many people around and it was still a little dark as the sun had not risen yet. We saw a guy jogging back from the trail towards us. DH turned to me and said in a hurried voice," Hey quick, get me the camera, lets take a picture" I dont know it if was lack of sleep or what, but my head didnt quite process what I heard. I bluntly asked, " Why? Why do you want to take a picture of that guy?" Well, DH knows I can be a dumbo at times, some may call it stupid, I wouldnt, but this time it sounded atrocious even to him. He just gave a "I cant believe you!" look at me, and picked the camera from me. I realized my folly soon. All this happened in a matter of seconds, it is worth mentioning here I think. If you didnt get it, DH was asking the camera to ask the guy to take a picture of us. Yes, silly me, I didnt get it. We are always looking for someone, read scapegoat, to take a picture of the two of us, pictures look soo drab if it only had one of us.
It was a refreshing walk. The hike was a short one, approximately 1 mile one way, a two hour leisurely hike in total. The Diamond Head got its name from the fact that the sailors from far away saw the top of the mountain glistening like diamond. It was actually calcite that the sailors saw, but the name stuck with it. We did see some calcite on the sides of the hill as we trudged along uphill.
In a short while we reached a lookout point, and I should say in time, because the Sun was just rising at the horizon. The look out was decent. a Japanese guy got onto DH's nerves by not leaving the spot for us to take pictures. DH was cursing him, when he finally moved away. We took some snaps with the rising sun in the background.
We had to climb about 200 steps which got my panting for breath. I cant climb stairs. Period. I can walk howmuch ever on level ground, but slopes, my body gives up. On top of these stairs we went through a tunnel, I guess the slope was too much as we neared the top, they had to cut a tunnel to get to the top. We entered what was a fire station and a look out point at one time. We climbed another series of spiral steps to get to the top. And then a crawl underneath a wedge like thing, almost doubling ourselves to get out into the open. The view wasnt spectacular, it was decent.
We saw a lighthouse at the bottom. We got a nice view of the Waikiki beach with its tall hotels, on one side, a brilliant sunrise was on one other side, brilliantly colored ocean on one side, and the inside of the crater was on the last side. I was more awed with the crater than the beach. It was like standing on the rim of a coffee cup. The only difference was the rim was not level on all sides. It was higher where we were standing and the rest of the rim was a little lower.
The rim was uneven, the reason was because when the eruption happened, the wind was blowing towards the ocean. Hence all the ashes and lava flew to the ocean side, and immediately solidified, thus that side was higher than the rest. There, apparently thats how land gets formed in Hawaii.
We started our downward hike, after taking some pictures, munching on snacks and watching other families with kids around. It was a short hike down, my feet started aching a bit. If upward hike was breathless, the downward hike was straining my ankles and feet. I had to put brakes on my feet more often to avoid a headlong crash downwards. As we almost reached the bottom, my feet starting aching so badly, I started walking at a snail pace, forcing DH to also slow down, which lead to a funny conversation, not worth writing here :--)
We had 15 minutes to spare before the shuttle came to pick us up, so we waited while munching on snacks. There were a bunch of brids around, which surrounded us as we put crumbs for them to eat. We were observing the birds and their flocking behavior, their fight for food, with mild excitement. Have you noticed how most birds when they walk fast, bob their heads back and forth? I was wondering why they did that. I thought it must be to balance their small fragile body during movement, to keep the CG within themselves, as their body to head size ratio is pretty small compared to us humans. While I was partially right, here is a complete explanation.
We reached our rooms by 9AM, we relaxed ourselves, by watching TV, and cleaning up a little, and eating. Boy, I had peanut butter after a long time. Screw dieting, it tasted so yummy.
******
Our next pick-up was at 11:00AM to Hanauma Bay. We were going snorkelling! We packed our swimming clothes and change of clothes, slippers, snacks in our backpack, and let DH carry them :--D. It was about a 20 minute drive to the bay. During the drive, our driver cum tour guide taught us how to use the snorkel gear. For the uninitiated, snorkel equipment consists for a goggle-cum-tube for the eyes and mouth and fins for the feet.
Before leaving the hotel, I had a major dilemma about my contact lens as in should I wear it or not. Snorkelling is an activity to look at the underwater world. I didnt see any point in doing that without my contacts, or glasses. I have atrocious short sight. When I go swimming generally I try to minimize the total time I am without my glasses and not in water. Because I dont see much without them. So I kept my contacts on, I was going to wear the goggles over them, and pray water doesnt get into my eyes.
Hanauma Bay was rated one of the best beaches in America a few years ago. It looked beautiful, a naturally semi-circular shaped bay. It was obviously formed by another crater close to the ocean. It was almost too crowded at the Bay, and the parking lot was full. They were not letting more cars into the bay. Mercifully, we didnt have a problem since our guide would be leaving us there for a few hours and pick us back up.
There was a long line to get the tickets. We munched away on the caramel corn while waiting in the line, carrying all our belongings. After getting the tickets we had to watch a mandatory (jeez!) 13 minute video about the Bay and preserving the fishes and the reef in the bay. The main point to take from the video was that we were not to step on the reefs while snorkelling in the bay.
We walked down a slope to the bay, it was at the bottom of a mountain. The water was very shallow, about chest deep, hence the water color was amazing, a beautiful light blue. The sun was just perfect, didnt feel sweaty, but didnt feel cold either. There was another long line at the locker rental. We deposited our belongings, and went to the water finally. The reefs were pretty close to the shore. We put on the fins and walked like clowns in the water. We practiced a bit of breathing underwater with the goggles on. It was a little hard. I got water in my mouth a couple of times, salty water. The goggles are supposed to get locked onto your face, airtight, causing a vaccuum inside. Thus water did not get into the eyes. We had some kind of a spray sprayed on our goggles to prevent so-called fogging.
Once we mastered breathing a little, it was amazing to duck into the water to look under the surface. Initially I found it really hard to swim with the fins on. I mean, I was able to swim, but I found it real hard to stop swimming and get back on my feet. It scared me a little. After some trials I gave up on the fins, switched to DH's rapsters and started swimming. Ah, bliss! to swim without fins. DH however managed to swim and float with the fins. This was my first time out in the sea swimming. There are many differences between swimming in a guarded pool and in the open sea. In the pool, you know how deep the floor is, and you know where you are, and you know where to stop, your spatial locality is pretty limited. In the sea, there might be unexpected obstacles under the water, the depth cannot be perceived easily, and there are waves pushing you all over the place.
It took some time before we started doing some real snorkelling. I almost jumped with joy when I saw the first fish under water. It was so near my leg, I couldnt believe it. It seemed to be oblivious to my existence. I watched it as it brought two somethings out of an openning near its mouth, to clean and brush the mud from the ocean floor, to look for something to eat. It was so amazing. It was as if, the world under the surface was totally different from the world above the surface. I duck my head under the water and I am in a different world, Sea world?, it was quiet and surreal. I duck my head out of the water, and I see a crowd of people all around me, the real world. For the next hour we saw so many variety of fishes. Me and DH swam nearby each other. Sometimes I showed him some fishes pointing at it, and he did the same when he saw any. Finding Nemo - was the movie I remembered.
We floated on the water surface for sometime, we even ventured on top of reefs, which are, I think rocks with algae kinda plants on them. We knew we would find more fishes closer to the reefs. I was a little scared because you cant stop and stand if you amidst the reefs. We went over some reefs, saw a whole lot of fishes, of all colors, just like they said in the webpages. Here is a sample tour.
Just when it was geting exciting, it was time to go! DH was very much tempted to skip the drive back, as he wanted to spend more time, as we had just learnt how to snorkel. He said it was easier to navigate and change course with the fins. I was doing okay with the rapsters. We reluctantly came away from the ocean, hurried to change and get our belongings from the locker, hurriedly walked uphill distance to the parking area.
DH so fell in love with snorkelling, that for the rest of the trip he was ready to skip all programmes to just snorkel away in Hawaii.
While returning back, we had a bad news waiting for us. DH's Chithappa who recently had a heart surgery, passed away. He has three kids, all girls, one was 3 years old. :--( It came as a shock to us. We were very quiet on our way back to the Hotel. We went home, talked about it a little, and dozed away, as we were pretty tired. We saw the last sunset of 2006 from our patio. This will be the only picture I am putting up of the afternoon.
We were to go to the beach and float on a bed, but we didnt feel like doing it. We walked along the beach. New Year Celebrations had begun in most hotels. Music was playing all over the place. We sat at the beach when Sparkie called up. It was free charge to call US from India on New Years Day, and Sparkie was kind enough to give us a call and wish us.
Later we set out to find a decent place to have New Year Eve's Dinner. Every single place was crowded, the whole place was too crowded. I felt like having Pasta. We roamed around a lot searching for a good place, finally ended up in Ilima. It was not too crowded, but the food was awesome. We had chicken with pasta and buffalo wings. We split the portions. We always do. One single entree is too much for either of us.
We tucked into bed very early, because our legs were begging for some rest and anyway we had an early flight in the morning to the dream destination - Maui.
We were going hiking to the Diamond Head. The sunrise was supposed to look good from the top, and it being the New Year's Eve, all activities were to close by afternoon. So we had booked this trip for 6:30AM, insane hour even by my standards. We were the only couple in the shuttle that took us to the crater. The driver was a friendly guy. We realized we had our afternoon program also with him. He offered to pick us up for the 8:30AM trip, and club the two activities together. Heck, we didnt wake up this early, to go back to sleep! So we politely declined the offer.
We reached the crater in 15 minutes, it was very close to Waikiki breach front. It was still dark, we saw a few hikers walking towards the crater. we went on a slight hill, and then through a short tunnel and lo! we were right inside the crater! I should say it didnt really look like a crater to me, after all the volcano here had erupted some 150,000 years ago and hasnt moved ever since. :--) The inside of the crater was almost symmetrically round. Apparently this led to the belief that the eruption here was one big one and that was about it. It was one of the two big volcanic eruptions that formed the Oahu island.
We started our hike first on paved road, then on a muddy trail, going up towards a corner on the top of the crater, directly overlooking the ocean. Just as we started on the trail, a tiny incident happened. DH still laughs about it when we see the picture associated with the incident. As I said, there were not very many people around and it was still a little dark as the sun had not risen yet. We saw a guy jogging back from the trail towards us. DH turned to me and said in a hurried voice," Hey quick, get me the camera, lets take a picture" I dont know it if was lack of sleep or what, but my head didnt quite process what I heard. I bluntly asked, " Why? Why do you want to take a picture of that guy?" Well, DH knows I can be a dumbo at times, some may call it stupid, I wouldnt, but this time it sounded atrocious even to him. He just gave a "I cant believe you!" look at me, and picked the camera from me. I realized my folly soon. All this happened in a matter of seconds, it is worth mentioning here I think. If you didnt get it, DH was asking the camera to ask the guy to take a picture of us. Yes, silly me, I didnt get it. We are always looking for someone, read scapegoat, to take a picture of the two of us, pictures look soo drab if it only had one of us.
It was a refreshing walk. The hike was a short one, approximately 1 mile one way, a two hour leisurely hike in total. The Diamond Head got its name from the fact that the sailors from far away saw the top of the mountain glistening like diamond. It was actually calcite that the sailors saw, but the name stuck with it. We did see some calcite on the sides of the hill as we trudged along uphill.
In a short while we reached a lookout point, and I should say in time, because the Sun was just rising at the horizon. The look out was decent. a Japanese guy got onto DH's nerves by not leaving the spot for us to take pictures. DH was cursing him, when he finally moved away. We took some snaps with the rising sun in the background.
We had to climb about 200 steps which got my panting for breath. I cant climb stairs. Period. I can walk howmuch ever on level ground, but slopes, my body gives up. On top of these stairs we went through a tunnel, I guess the slope was too much as we neared the top, they had to cut a tunnel to get to the top. We entered what was a fire station and a look out point at one time. We climbed another series of spiral steps to get to the top. And then a crawl underneath a wedge like thing, almost doubling ourselves to get out into the open. The view wasnt spectacular, it was decent.
We saw a lighthouse at the bottom. We got a nice view of the Waikiki beach with its tall hotels, on one side, a brilliant sunrise was on one other side, brilliantly colored ocean on one side, and the inside of the crater was on the last side. I was more awed with the crater than the beach. It was like standing on the rim of a coffee cup. The only difference was the rim was not level on all sides. It was higher where we were standing and the rest of the rim was a little lower.
The rim was uneven, the reason was because when the eruption happened, the wind was blowing towards the ocean. Hence all the ashes and lava flew to the ocean side, and immediately solidified, thus that side was higher than the rest. There, apparently thats how land gets formed in Hawaii.
We started our downward hike, after taking some pictures, munching on snacks and watching other families with kids around. It was a short hike down, my feet started aching a bit. If upward hike was breathless, the downward hike was straining my ankles and feet. I had to put brakes on my feet more often to avoid a headlong crash downwards. As we almost reached the bottom, my feet starting aching so badly, I started walking at a snail pace, forcing DH to also slow down, which lead to a funny conversation, not worth writing here :--)
We had 15 minutes to spare before the shuttle came to pick us up, so we waited while munching on snacks. There were a bunch of brids around, which surrounded us as we put crumbs for them to eat. We were observing the birds and their flocking behavior, their fight for food, with mild excitement. Have you noticed how most birds when they walk fast, bob their heads back and forth? I was wondering why they did that. I thought it must be to balance their small fragile body during movement, to keep the CG within themselves, as their body to head size ratio is pretty small compared to us humans. While I was partially right, here is a complete explanation.
We reached our rooms by 9AM, we relaxed ourselves, by watching TV, and cleaning up a little, and eating. Boy, I had peanut butter after a long time. Screw dieting, it tasted so yummy.
******
Our next pick-up was at 11:00AM to Hanauma Bay. We were going snorkelling! We packed our swimming clothes and change of clothes, slippers, snacks in our backpack, and let DH carry them :--D. It was about a 20 minute drive to the bay. During the drive, our driver cum tour guide taught us how to use the snorkel gear. For the uninitiated, snorkel equipment consists for a goggle-cum-tube for the eyes and mouth and fins for the feet.
Before leaving the hotel, I had a major dilemma about my contact lens as in should I wear it or not. Snorkelling is an activity to look at the underwater world. I didnt see any point in doing that without my contacts, or glasses. I have atrocious short sight. When I go swimming generally I try to minimize the total time I am without my glasses and not in water. Because I dont see much without them. So I kept my contacts on, I was going to wear the goggles over them, and pray water doesnt get into my eyes.
Hanauma Bay was rated one of the best beaches in America a few years ago. It looked beautiful, a naturally semi-circular shaped bay. It was obviously formed by another crater close to the ocean. It was almost too crowded at the Bay, and the parking lot was full. They were not letting more cars into the bay. Mercifully, we didnt have a problem since our guide would be leaving us there for a few hours and pick us back up.
There was a long line to get the tickets. We munched away on the caramel corn while waiting in the line, carrying all our belongings. After getting the tickets we had to watch a mandatory (jeez!) 13 minute video about the Bay and preserving the fishes and the reef in the bay. The main point to take from the video was that we were not to step on the reefs while snorkelling in the bay.
We walked down a slope to the bay, it was at the bottom of a mountain. The water was very shallow, about chest deep, hence the water color was amazing, a beautiful light blue. The sun was just perfect, didnt feel sweaty, but didnt feel cold either. There was another long line at the locker rental. We deposited our belongings, and went to the water finally. The reefs were pretty close to the shore. We put on the fins and walked like clowns in the water. We practiced a bit of breathing underwater with the goggles on. It was a little hard. I got water in my mouth a couple of times, salty water. The goggles are supposed to get locked onto your face, airtight, causing a vaccuum inside. Thus water did not get into the eyes. We had some kind of a spray sprayed on our goggles to prevent so-called fogging.
Once we mastered breathing a little, it was amazing to duck into the water to look under the surface. Initially I found it really hard to swim with the fins on. I mean, I was able to swim, but I found it real hard to stop swimming and get back on my feet. It scared me a little. After some trials I gave up on the fins, switched to DH's rapsters and started swimming. Ah, bliss! to swim without fins. DH however managed to swim and float with the fins. This was my first time out in the sea swimming. There are many differences between swimming in a guarded pool and in the open sea. In the pool, you know how deep the floor is, and you know where you are, and you know where to stop, your spatial locality is pretty limited. In the sea, there might be unexpected obstacles under the water, the depth cannot be perceived easily, and there are waves pushing you all over the place.
It took some time before we started doing some real snorkelling. I almost jumped with joy when I saw the first fish under water. It was so near my leg, I couldnt believe it. It seemed to be oblivious to my existence. I watched it as it brought two somethings out of an openning near its mouth, to clean and brush the mud from the ocean floor, to look for something to eat. It was so amazing. It was as if, the world under the surface was totally different from the world above the surface. I duck my head under the water and I am in a different world, Sea world?, it was quiet and surreal. I duck my head out of the water, and I see a crowd of people all around me, the real world. For the next hour we saw so many variety of fishes. Me and DH swam nearby each other. Sometimes I showed him some fishes pointing at it, and he did the same when he saw any. Finding Nemo - was the movie I remembered.
We floated on the water surface for sometime, we even ventured on top of reefs, which are, I think rocks with algae kinda plants on them. We knew we would find more fishes closer to the reefs. I was a little scared because you cant stop and stand if you amidst the reefs. We went over some reefs, saw a whole lot of fishes, of all colors, just like they said in the webpages. Here is a sample tour.
Just when it was geting exciting, it was time to go! DH was very much tempted to skip the drive back, as he wanted to spend more time, as we had just learnt how to snorkel. He said it was easier to navigate and change course with the fins. I was doing okay with the rapsters. We reluctantly came away from the ocean, hurried to change and get our belongings from the locker, hurriedly walked uphill distance to the parking area.
DH so fell in love with snorkelling, that for the rest of the trip he was ready to skip all programmes to just snorkel away in Hawaii.
While returning back, we had a bad news waiting for us. DH's Chithappa who recently had a heart surgery, passed away. He has three kids, all girls, one was 3 years old. :--( It came as a shock to us. We were very quiet on our way back to the Hotel. We went home, talked about it a little, and dozed away, as we were pretty tired. We saw the last sunset of 2006 from our patio. This will be the only picture I am putting up of the afternoon.
We were to go to the beach and float on a bed, but we didnt feel like doing it. We walked along the beach. New Year Celebrations had begun in most hotels. Music was playing all over the place. We sat at the beach when Sparkie called up. It was free charge to call US from India on New Years Day, and Sparkie was kind enough to give us a call and wish us.
Later we set out to find a decent place to have New Year Eve's Dinner. Every single place was crowded, the whole place was too crowded. I felt like having Pasta. We roamed around a lot searching for a good place, finally ended up in Ilima. It was not too crowded, but the food was awesome. We had chicken with pasta and buffalo wings. We split the portions. We always do. One single entree is too much for either of us.
We tucked into bed very early, because our legs were begging for some rest and anyway we had an early flight in the morning to the dream destination - Maui.
Aloha! Pearl harbour and the Submarine Tour
My body clock woke me up at 5AM inspite of being tired. It was still dark outside, and DH was sleeping soundly. I was rolling in the bed for an hour and by 6:30AM I forced DH to wake up. We pulled the drapes of the patio to look outside, the day was just breaking, we were able to see the ocean from our patios! Our Hotel was only two blocks from Waikiki beach, as were most Hotels, we were to realize later in the day, it had a moderate ocean view amongst other tall hotels in front of us.
We had bought the 3-day Go Oahu Card, in advance. This card gave us access to major sight seeing tours. I knew the tours started pretty early in the morning, so while DH was having his bath, I called up the different tours to ask for timings. The Pearl Harbor Tour was in our agenda for the day, and I realized in dismay that the tour started at 7AM! It was about 7:15AM when I called them up and asked for a reservation for the day. The guy was nice enough to accomodate us in the tour for the day, the only catch was we had to be down at the lobby in 15mins. We hurried through the getting ready process, and went down.
Oahu is the most visited of the islands in Hawaii, looks like. It has excellent public transportation system, compared to the other islands. Most tours pick up and drop off at your hotel if you are in the Waikiki area.
This was one reason why we decided not to rent a car and drive around ourselves. Besides, we didnt want to waste time trying to find our way around, and worry about parking while trying to visit places. This turned out to be a good idea after all.
The tour guide was funny, I realize all of them are, given they have to do the same thing day in and day out with different sets of people. Pearl Harbor was a 20 minute drive from Waikiki on the west side of the island. It is an active navy base even to this day. This was DH's must-not-miss place in Hawaii, I was not too excited in the beginning. We learnt quite a bit about Hawaii in this tour.Most Hawaiians are not pure Hawaiians. In the sense that, most of them had varied heritage. One can very well understand this, given Hawaii has over a million tourists every year. Our tour guide himself was apparently less than 1/8th Hawaiian. It is a big deal if a native is at least 50% pure Hawaiian. Hawaiians actually migrated from French Polynesia, mostly Marquesas somewhere around 0 - 600 AD, after a fight apparently. Of course it still amazes me that these travellers has enough guts to travel all the way in the lonely Pacific in search of another place to live. Many failed in the search and died.
Only Oahu in Hawaii has Interstate System. The standing joke about the Interstates in Hawaii is that, obviously enough, the three interstates, H1, H2 and H3, do not connect to any other State in the US :--) The speed limit was 50mph on these higways. The State wanted money to build these roads, and to be able to get money from the Federal Govt, they had to call them InterState. Me and DH learnt long back during our super long drive from East to West on I-80, that these InterStates were built in the US mainly for faster transport of military equipment and man power. The same was the reason for building the interstates in Hawaii, for faster transport of naval equipment.
We were going to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, one of the many navy ships that were bombed during the Pearl Harbor attack. There was a huge long line outside, but our guide reassured us that the lines movied faster than they looked. We saw a real life sized anchor from a real ship just outside the Memorial. It was huge! To think it was actually used by a ship to harbor, was fascinating.
In the next one hour, as we waited for our turn to watch the 15 min video. then take the ferry to the memorial, we took the boring Audio Tour, as we looked around the small museum. It had imitations of real navy ships, and planes, and the torpedo that hit the Harbor etc etc. We saw some real navy ships in the harbor, clicked some pictures. We proceeded to watch the video, a movie on the attack and all the politics involved, I will save you the headache of having to read it here. We proceeded to the Ferry which took us to the Memorial. The Memorial itself was actually right on top of the sunken Ship, USS Arizona. The Memorial was very small, built along the breadth of the sunken ship. On a clear day we should have been able to see the ship itself at the bottom. We were asked to maintain silence as a mark of respect to the brave souls on the ship who died in the attack, about 1200 of them on this ship, for most of them the ship itself was a burial ground. We could see some parts of the top of the ship, all rusted and old. The US flag was flying high from the stern of the ship underneath, supported on the Memorial. We saw other navy ships docked at the Harbor. In 10 minutes the next ferry came by and we went back to the mainland to return to the tour bus.
The next couple of hours were the most boring of hours during our whole vacation. The guy took us on a Honolulu City Tour! We visited the Punch Bowl Cemetery, which is also an old dormant volcano, where brave men were buried. We visited the Iolani Palace, the only Palace,per se, in US Soil. It was about 2PM when they dropped us back to our Hotel.
We had our Submarine trip scheduled for the next day at 10AM which we realized was hindering a lot in our other activities, hence we called them up and asked if it can be preponed to today. Luckily they were able to accomodate us at the 3PM trip. Then without having lunch, just grabbing some junk food, we made to the lobby where they picked us up at around 2:25PM.
We were near the beach for the first time. The beach looked refreshing, but too crowded. Waikiki Beach is supposed to be famous, and safe at the same time, so it was pretty crowded. It had a pretty long shore considering the other beaches in Oahu. We saw the Diamond Head crater from the beach for the first time. It looked majestic. I was to learn later that it was a tiny crater compared to some other craters on the other islands. We waited in line at the pier for a boat to come and pick us up.
Initially we thought that the submarine would come to the shore and we would get into it. But that was not the case. A boat took us from the shore to the middle of the ocean, and then the submarine shot up from under water, and then the folks tied the submarine to the boat, to facilitate safe migration of us folks into the submarine. We were among the first few to get into the submarine. A friend of mine at work had warned me that sometimes they cheat you by calling a vessel that doesnt actually really go fully underneath the water as a submarine. I was kind of sceptical in the beginning, but my doubts were cleared when the Captain said we would be going to about 150 feet under sea level.
Our excitement knew no bounds as we entered the little vessel which had only 64 seats for us passengers. Each of us had a window to ourselves, we could see the blue water, and the rudder of the boat we came in, along side, above us. It was so cool! Once all of us were in, the top openning from which we came in was closed tight. If the woman did not go a god job closing it, the submarine would have been flooded with sea water within the next few seconds! Slowly the captain took us down under, we could feel the sub moving in an inclined angle. We also saw an indicator of the depth of the Sub, it kept on increasing from 0 to about 90 ft, when we got the first view of the reefs. These were artifical reefs put under the ocean to attract fishes and other sea beings. It was a wonderful sight, as we watched multicolored fishes swimming and feeding at their habitat, more so, their home.
We proceeded to see a crashed sunken air plane on the ocean floor, all rusted and decayed, with algae or whatever growing all over it, the fishes had made it their home. So this is how the ocean underneath looks! I marvelled at the ocean for the first time during my trip. We proceeded further deep to about 140ft, to see two ship wrecks, real ships, huge ones, wrecked on the ocean floor. Notice a green sea turtle on the wreck in the picture on the right. The ship was home for a hoard of fishes and turtles. Seeing the wreck reminded me of the wreck of Titanic. It was similar, only smaller. It did have a ghost-like appearance.
The Captain was driving the sub really close to the wreck. I realized why he did that, later in time. The ocean water was pretty dense, like it was not easy to see through the water. Also the ocean floor is supposed to be really dark. After all we are about 150 ft below the surface. The Sub had som special lights outside its body which helped us see things clearly. It was a spectacular ride.
It was an hour long ride, totally worth it. When it was time to go back, the Captain explained to us about how he needs to be really careful about the speed with which he takes the Sub out of the water. Since the friction in water is more than in air, if we came out in the open in the same speed as in the water, the Sub would just shoot out of the ocean. DH said he saw a Sub shoot out of the ocean in the movie, The Hunt for Red October. I am yet to watch the movie, but I can imagine how it would have been. Thanks to our Captain, he brought us safely out of the water without any mishaps. The top door was openned and water sprayed from the top on the few who were close to the door. We went up and as was obvious, most part of the top was all wet. To think this was a 100ft below the ocean just a few minutes ago! Goose bumps again. We got back into the boat, which took us back to the shore.
We decided to walk the distance back to our Hotel along the beach instead of taking the ride back. We wandered along the beach, watching the waves, the playing kids, the sun bathing men and women. The beach was a very protected beach, made safe for people by having structures on the beach to reduce the force of the waves. How boring. I would like to be in a real beach, not a man made one. I had the next couple of days to see the fierce ocean.
Waikiki had two major roads, one right by the beach, and one just parallel to it. These major roads had the hep hotels and restaurants and shopping centers. Chanel, Gucci, Prada and the other hep shops, whose names I remember from Paris were here, only to go window shopping. We stopped at Starbucks to have a cuppa hot coffee and to satiate our grumbling stomachs, we hadnt fed them proper food the whole day. We entered a market place where I got my Hula girl costume of artifical flowers to wear on my head, and DH for a huge chain to look like a Hawiian boy. There were these grocery store kinda place called ABC stores, literally in every block. You just cant miss one if you are in main Waikiki area. We got some bread and jam for breakfast and some snacks for the next day. By the time we reached our hotel we were tired yet again, with all the exposure to the sea, and the walking. I had already called up the tours who were to take us out the next day. We watched some movie for exactly 10 minutes before drifting to sleep.
I personally think this day was the most boring and wasteful of all the days spent in Hawaii. Sorry dear DH. I mean who wants to see Pearl harbor and of all the things, Honolulu City, in Hawaii, when there are a million other things to do? ;--)
We had bought the 3-day Go Oahu Card, in advance. This card gave us access to major sight seeing tours. I knew the tours started pretty early in the morning, so while DH was having his bath, I called up the different tours to ask for timings. The Pearl Harbor Tour was in our agenda for the day, and I realized in dismay that the tour started at 7AM! It was about 7:15AM when I called them up and asked for a reservation for the day. The guy was nice enough to accomodate us in the tour for the day, the only catch was we had to be down at the lobby in 15mins. We hurried through the getting ready process, and went down.
Oahu is the most visited of the islands in Hawaii, looks like. It has excellent public transportation system, compared to the other islands. Most tours pick up and drop off at your hotel if you are in the Waikiki area.
This was one reason why we decided not to rent a car and drive around ourselves. Besides, we didnt want to waste time trying to find our way around, and worry about parking while trying to visit places. This turned out to be a good idea after all.
The tour guide was funny, I realize all of them are, given they have to do the same thing day in and day out with different sets of people. Pearl Harbor was a 20 minute drive from Waikiki on the west side of the island. It is an active navy base even to this day. This was DH's must-not-miss place in Hawaii, I was not too excited in the beginning. We learnt quite a bit about Hawaii in this tour.Most Hawaiians are not pure Hawaiians. In the sense that, most of them had varied heritage. One can very well understand this, given Hawaii has over a million tourists every year. Our tour guide himself was apparently less than 1/8th Hawaiian. It is a big deal if a native is at least 50% pure Hawaiian. Hawaiians actually migrated from French Polynesia, mostly Marquesas somewhere around 0 - 600 AD, after a fight apparently. Of course it still amazes me that these travellers has enough guts to travel all the way in the lonely Pacific in search of another place to live. Many failed in the search and died.
Only Oahu in Hawaii has Interstate System. The standing joke about the Interstates in Hawaii is that, obviously enough, the three interstates, H1, H2 and H3, do not connect to any other State in the US :--) The speed limit was 50mph on these higways. The State wanted money to build these roads, and to be able to get money from the Federal Govt, they had to call them InterState. Me and DH learnt long back during our super long drive from East to West on I-80, that these InterStates were built in the US mainly for faster transport of military equipment and man power. The same was the reason for building the interstates in Hawaii, for faster transport of naval equipment.
We were going to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, one of the many navy ships that were bombed during the Pearl Harbor attack. There was a huge long line outside, but our guide reassured us that the lines movied faster than they looked. We saw a real life sized anchor from a real ship just outside the Memorial. It was huge! To think it was actually used by a ship to harbor, was fascinating.
In the next one hour, as we waited for our turn to watch the 15 min video. then take the ferry to the memorial, we took the boring Audio Tour, as we looked around the small museum. It had imitations of real navy ships, and planes, and the torpedo that hit the Harbor etc etc. We saw some real navy ships in the harbor, clicked some pictures. We proceeded to watch the video, a movie on the attack and all the politics involved, I will save you the headache of having to read it here. We proceeded to the Ferry which took us to the Memorial. The Memorial itself was actually right on top of the sunken Ship, USS Arizona. The Memorial was very small, built along the breadth of the sunken ship. On a clear day we should have been able to see the ship itself at the bottom. We were asked to maintain silence as a mark of respect to the brave souls on the ship who died in the attack, about 1200 of them on this ship, for most of them the ship itself was a burial ground. We could see some parts of the top of the ship, all rusted and old. The US flag was flying high from the stern of the ship underneath, supported on the Memorial. We saw other navy ships docked at the Harbor. In 10 minutes the next ferry came by and we went back to the mainland to return to the tour bus.
The next couple of hours were the most boring of hours during our whole vacation. The guy took us on a Honolulu City Tour! We visited the Punch Bowl Cemetery, which is also an old dormant volcano, where brave men were buried. We visited the Iolani Palace, the only Palace,per se, in US Soil. It was about 2PM when they dropped us back to our Hotel.
We had our Submarine trip scheduled for the next day at 10AM which we realized was hindering a lot in our other activities, hence we called them up and asked if it can be preponed to today. Luckily they were able to accomodate us at the 3PM trip. Then without having lunch, just grabbing some junk food, we made to the lobby where they picked us up at around 2:25PM.
We were near the beach for the first time. The beach looked refreshing, but too crowded. Waikiki Beach is supposed to be famous, and safe at the same time, so it was pretty crowded. It had a pretty long shore considering the other beaches in Oahu. We saw the Diamond Head crater from the beach for the first time. It looked majestic. I was to learn later that it was a tiny crater compared to some other craters on the other islands. We waited in line at the pier for a boat to come and pick us up.
Initially we thought that the submarine would come to the shore and we would get into it. But that was not the case. A boat took us from the shore to the middle of the ocean, and then the submarine shot up from under water, and then the folks tied the submarine to the boat, to facilitate safe migration of us folks into the submarine. We were among the first few to get into the submarine. A friend of mine at work had warned me that sometimes they cheat you by calling a vessel that doesnt actually really go fully underneath the water as a submarine. I was kind of sceptical in the beginning, but my doubts were cleared when the Captain said we would be going to about 150 feet under sea level.
Our excitement knew no bounds as we entered the little vessel which had only 64 seats for us passengers. Each of us had a window to ourselves, we could see the blue water, and the rudder of the boat we came in, along side, above us. It was so cool! Once all of us were in, the top openning from which we came in was closed tight. If the woman did not go a god job closing it, the submarine would have been flooded with sea water within the next few seconds! Slowly the captain took us down under, we could feel the sub moving in an inclined angle. We also saw an indicator of the depth of the Sub, it kept on increasing from 0 to about 90 ft, when we got the first view of the reefs. These were artifical reefs put under the ocean to attract fishes and other sea beings. It was a wonderful sight, as we watched multicolored fishes swimming and feeding at their habitat, more so, their home.
We proceeded to see a crashed sunken air plane on the ocean floor, all rusted and decayed, with algae or whatever growing all over it, the fishes had made it their home. So this is how the ocean underneath looks! I marvelled at the ocean for the first time during my trip. We proceeded further deep to about 140ft, to see two ship wrecks, real ships, huge ones, wrecked on the ocean floor. Notice a green sea turtle on the wreck in the picture on the right. The ship was home for a hoard of fishes and turtles. Seeing the wreck reminded me of the wreck of Titanic. It was similar, only smaller. It did have a ghost-like appearance.
The Captain was driving the sub really close to the wreck. I realized why he did that, later in time. The ocean water was pretty dense, like it was not easy to see through the water. Also the ocean floor is supposed to be really dark. After all we are about 150 ft below the surface. The Sub had som special lights outside its body which helped us see things clearly. It was a spectacular ride.
It was an hour long ride, totally worth it. When it was time to go back, the Captain explained to us about how he needs to be really careful about the speed with which he takes the Sub out of the water. Since the friction in water is more than in air, if we came out in the open in the same speed as in the water, the Sub would just shoot out of the ocean. DH said he saw a Sub shoot out of the ocean in the movie, The Hunt for Red October. I am yet to watch the movie, but I can imagine how it would have been. Thanks to our Captain, he brought us safely out of the water without any mishaps. The top door was openned and water sprayed from the top on the few who were close to the door. We went up and as was obvious, most part of the top was all wet. To think this was a 100ft below the ocean just a few minutes ago! Goose bumps again. We got back into the boat, which took us back to the shore.
We decided to walk the distance back to our Hotel along the beach instead of taking the ride back. We wandered along the beach, watching the waves, the playing kids, the sun bathing men and women. The beach was a very protected beach, made safe for people by having structures on the beach to reduce the force of the waves. How boring. I would like to be in a real beach, not a man made one. I had the next couple of days to see the fierce ocean.
Waikiki had two major roads, one right by the beach, and one just parallel to it. These major roads had the hep hotels and restaurants and shopping centers. Chanel, Gucci, Prada and the other hep shops, whose names I remember from Paris were here, only to go window shopping. We stopped at Starbucks to have a cuppa hot coffee and to satiate our grumbling stomachs, we hadnt fed them proper food the whole day. We entered a market place where I got my Hula girl costume of artifical flowers to wear on my head, and DH for a huge chain to look like a Hawiian boy. There were these grocery store kinda place called ABC stores, literally in every block. You just cant miss one if you are in main Waikiki area. We got some bread and jam for breakfast and some snacks for the next day. By the time we reached our hotel we were tired yet again, with all the exposure to the sea, and the walking. I had already called up the tours who were to take us out the next day. We watched some movie for exactly 10 minutes before drifting to sleep.
I personally think this day was the most boring and wasteful of all the days spent in Hawaii. Sorry dear DH. I mean who wants to see Pearl harbor and of all the things, Honolulu City, in Hawaii, when there are a million other things to do? ;--)
Aloha! The Journey
The most challenging part of the trip was the planning. The problem was, I knew exactly one couple for real, and one online friend who had visited Hawaii. I had two sources to get advice from to plan this trip. When I googled for Hawaii, it gave me five choices of islands to visit. The five main islands of Hawaii are, Hawaii,also known as the Big Island, Oahu, Maui, Kuaui and Molokai. We had a hard time pronouncing these Hawaiian words too. Honolulu was the only place we had heard of in Hawaii, so we started off from there. Honolulu is in Oahu island. DH was particular that he wanted to visit Pearl Harbor, an important landmark, which was the reason for US to enter into World War II. This was in Oahu. When I consulted my friend whose brother and wife had visited Hawaii recently, she said they had gone to Maui, another less inhabited and more beautiful island. Now the confusion arose. Should we visit Oahu or Maui. My friend, let me call her R said Oahu was just like any other city, with Highways and tall buildings, and that it was not the real Hawaii. After lot of consulting and talking for a few days, while the prices on Orbitz to Hawaii climbed up a full 100 bucks right infront of our eyes as we were still deciding, we booked our tickets to Honolulu, atleast we know one place we want to see in Oahu.
Our flight was at 4:40PM on Friday from Oakland. We thought we would have a lot of time on Friday, to pack up and make the 2 hr drive to Oakland. We were so wrong. We woke up at 8AM, and from then on we were packing, arranging stuff, deciding what to take and what not to, and it was a tight schedule, before we left our sweet home at 11:15AM. DH had printout of maps for our trip. We had to drop off DH's Comcast Modem at some place in Oakland before going to the Airport.
I should take this opportunity to talk about this exotic thing I got as a Xmas gift from DH. A GPS!!
It is the coolest thing! I have wanted one for a year now, but it was so expensive, we had been putting off buying it. Now finally we got it! With all the travel we do, I think we will make good use of it. No more paper maps for us, and no more getting lost, not that we get lost often. Our experience with the GPS alone would make a couple of blogs, should I write about it now or later? Let me write now, while I am still excited about it. :--)
I have heard from one of my friends that the maps in the GPSes are sometimes inaccurate, or they might take you on a roundabout route, and sometimes are not reliable. Heck, we were prepared for that. I didnt want to take a chance with the GPS right away and get lost, so we had paper maps, and the GPS for reference. We didnt want to get lost on our way to the airport and miss our flights now, did we?
The lady in the GPS tells us when to take a left or a right, when we are about 0.3 miles from the intersection or on the ramp. If we do miss the turns, it automatically recalculates a route from our current position and gives us another route! Isnt it cool or what?! I was so excited. First we thought we need to have the exact address of places to be able to use the GPS. But no!! We can search for near by anything, grocery store, walmart, Fuel station, restaurants, and it will automatically show us the list it has with the distance. It is the most amazing thing to possess, I tell you.
Once we reached Comcast office, we had to simple select the nearest airport and it took us to the Oakland Airport. Of course it didnt know the Economy Parking Lot, it just gave directions to the terminals, but thats a given, even Google maps cannot help us there. Our car was to stay there for five days until we got back.
We reached the Airport at around 2:30, well before time, thanks to me, and there was long line at the check in counter. We were flying ATA. We already saw many Hawaiian looking people around us. Huge round faces and flat noses. I still had a nagging doubt in the back of my head, hope they wont ask for a valid US Visa to get back to US Mainland. Of course they didnt. :--) Afterall Hawaii is the 50th State of the US of A. The Airport was a sicko Airport, they had gates built amidst restrooms, bad planning. We were like a hyper excited couple at the gate taking pictures and laughing uncontrollably for the silliest of jokes DH made, and eating non stop too.
Our seats were apart, two aisle seats on either side. I cant fly like that for full 5:30 hours! We were keeping our fingers crossed hoping someone would accomodate our request. A single guy sitting by DH agreed to swap seats and yeah! we were sitting together now. The lady beside me was a resident of Hawaii, teaching in the University of Hawaii, and boy! was she talking non-stop! The flight was full of babies and kids. Babies in the front, smiling at us, kids in the back, kicking our seats, and kids on our sides too.
We watched the stupid John Tucker must Die chick flick they cast on the plane, and then continued to watch the Pelican Brief on our laptop. I slept halfway in the cosy comfort of DH's shoulders. We had to fill out some custom forms, DH forced me to put our purpose of visit as Honeymoon. Yeah right, any trip we do will be our n+1th honeymoon.
We got some tips from the lady beside us on places to visit. She told us not to miss the North Shore in Oahu, which was supposed to be very beautiful. We asked her to take a picture of us at the airport and bid adieu. Our baggage did not get lost, thankfully, we collected it and quickly went to get a cab to our Hotel.
The drive was about 20 minutes, on a Highway, from Honolulu, full of tall buildings, to Waikiki, full of tall hotels. These two cities had a New York look, with all the tall buldings.
It was an awesome feeling. To be on an island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We were really in the middle of the Pacific, we flew about 2500 miles, and it was about 2500 miles to Japan on the other side! This is my first visit to any island, it was beautiful, it was a wonderful feeling. The whole islands were formed by volcanic eruptions from the mountains in the Pacific. It gave me goose bumps when I thought about that.
Hawaii was 2 hrs behind California. Gee, we thought we were the last to wake up and the last to sleep, but not anymore. Hawaii is probably the only place we can go to from California and gain two hours. The weather was good, high 70s, just perfect.
We checked into our room, we were not able to see the beach and the sea from our patio because it was dark. We were very tired, it was 11:30PM PST, but only 9:30PM Hawaiian time. We went down to walk a little, get something to eat. We got garden sandwiches, which we gobbled up pretty fast. We were supposed to make plans for the next day, make arrangements, but we were too tired for that, and so hit the sack soon.
Our flight was at 4:40PM on Friday from Oakland. We thought we would have a lot of time on Friday, to pack up and make the 2 hr drive to Oakland. We were so wrong. We woke up at 8AM, and from then on we were packing, arranging stuff, deciding what to take and what not to, and it was a tight schedule, before we left our sweet home at 11:15AM. DH had printout of maps for our trip. We had to drop off DH's Comcast Modem at some place in Oakland before going to the Airport.
I should take this opportunity to talk about this exotic thing I got as a Xmas gift from DH. A GPS!!
It is the coolest thing! I have wanted one for a year now, but it was so expensive, we had been putting off buying it. Now finally we got it! With all the travel we do, I think we will make good use of it. No more paper maps for us, and no more getting lost, not that we get lost often. Our experience with the GPS alone would make a couple of blogs, should I write about it now or later? Let me write now, while I am still excited about it. :--)
I have heard from one of my friends that the maps in the GPSes are sometimes inaccurate, or they might take you on a roundabout route, and sometimes are not reliable. Heck, we were prepared for that. I didnt want to take a chance with the GPS right away and get lost, so we had paper maps, and the GPS for reference. We didnt want to get lost on our way to the airport and miss our flights now, did we?
The lady in the GPS tells us when to take a left or a right, when we are about 0.3 miles from the intersection or on the ramp. If we do miss the turns, it automatically recalculates a route from our current position and gives us another route! Isnt it cool or what?! I was so excited. First we thought we need to have the exact address of places to be able to use the GPS. But no!! We can search for near by anything, grocery store, walmart, Fuel station, restaurants, and it will automatically show us the list it has with the distance. It is the most amazing thing to possess, I tell you.
Once we reached Comcast office, we had to simple select the nearest airport and it took us to the Oakland Airport. Of course it didnt know the Economy Parking Lot, it just gave directions to the terminals, but thats a given, even Google maps cannot help us there. Our car was to stay there for five days until we got back.
We reached the Airport at around 2:30, well before time, thanks to me, and there was long line at the check in counter. We were flying ATA. We already saw many Hawaiian looking people around us. Huge round faces and flat noses. I still had a nagging doubt in the back of my head, hope they wont ask for a valid US Visa to get back to US Mainland. Of course they didnt. :--) Afterall Hawaii is the 50th State of the US of A. The Airport was a sicko Airport, they had gates built amidst restrooms, bad planning. We were like a hyper excited couple at the gate taking pictures and laughing uncontrollably for the silliest of jokes DH made, and eating non stop too.
Our seats were apart, two aisle seats on either side. I cant fly like that for full 5:30 hours! We were keeping our fingers crossed hoping someone would accomodate our request. A single guy sitting by DH agreed to swap seats and yeah! we were sitting together now. The lady beside me was a resident of Hawaii, teaching in the University of Hawaii, and boy! was she talking non-stop! The flight was full of babies and kids. Babies in the front, smiling at us, kids in the back, kicking our seats, and kids on our sides too.
We watched the stupid John Tucker must Die chick flick they cast on the plane, and then continued to watch the Pelican Brief on our laptop. I slept halfway in the cosy comfort of DH's shoulders. We had to fill out some custom forms, DH forced me to put our purpose of visit as Honeymoon. Yeah right, any trip we do will be our n+1th honeymoon.
We got some tips from the lady beside us on places to visit. She told us not to miss the North Shore in Oahu, which was supposed to be very beautiful. We asked her to take a picture of us at the airport and bid adieu. Our baggage did not get lost, thankfully, we collected it and quickly went to get a cab to our Hotel.
The drive was about 20 minutes, on a Highway, from Honolulu, full of tall buildings, to Waikiki, full of tall hotels. These two cities had a New York look, with all the tall buldings.
It was an awesome feeling. To be on an island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We were really in the middle of the Pacific, we flew about 2500 miles, and it was about 2500 miles to Japan on the other side! This is my first visit to any island, it was beautiful, it was a wonderful feeling. The whole islands were formed by volcanic eruptions from the mountains in the Pacific. It gave me goose bumps when I thought about that.
Hawaii was 2 hrs behind California. Gee, we thought we were the last to wake up and the last to sleep, but not anymore. Hawaii is probably the only place we can go to from California and gain two hours. The weather was good, high 70s, just perfect.
We checked into our room, we were not able to see the beach and the sea from our patio because it was dark. We were very tired, it was 11:30PM PST, but only 9:30PM Hawaiian time. We went down to walk a little, get something to eat. We got garden sandwiches, which we gobbled up pretty fast. We were supposed to make plans for the next day, make arrangements, but we were too tired for that, and so hit the sack soon.
Aloha!
While I try to sneak in some time amidst yet another busy quarter at work, to write in detail about our third..ahem...honeymoon to paradise...aka Hawaii, write I will definitely, find a few pearls of advice to take, when planning your trip to Hawaii.
*Plan way ahead.
*Book tickets atleast three months in advance, else you will end up paying a fortune.
*Plan to stay for a minimum of 2 weeks if that would be your only visit to Hawaii.
*Five days is nothing. You will end up almost crying at the Airport, not wanting to leave. And you will also end up planning your next visit to Hawaii even while your first visit is not over yet!
*Plan to visit all the islands. Each island has something unique to offer.
*Be prepared to have a whale of a time.
*Leave time to take enough rest after all the beach activities, else you will end up feeling tired.
*Decide how you want your vacation to be. Hawaii has so much to offer, to folks in all age range, and varied interests.
- If you want a romantic vacation, dont plan much, just book a resort, and spend all days at the beach with your sweet heart, lazing around, taking in the sun and the ocean.
- If you want to go sight seeing, book all the different tours in advance, and be prepared to have a jam packed schedule.
- If you want to do water sports, you wont have time to do much else. Hawaii has so much to offer, snorkelling, scuba diving, surfing, para sailing, kayaking, canoeing, jetskiing, regular swimming, and what not. Each activity would take a day on its own, an extra day if you want to do something more.
- If you want a leisure holiday, enjoy the culture of Hawaii, attend luaus, spend time learning about Polynesian culture, experience the exotic food and shopping Hawaii has to offer, dont expect to have time to do much else.
- If you want your vacation to be all of these, packed in a few days, well, you are me! And as I said you should spend a month in Hawaii and probably go bankrupt afterwards.
*Finally, ladies, take your straightners with you, if you want to have straight beautiful hair in your pictures inspite of all the fun activities at the beach. ;--)
*But I have a feeling, no matter what you do on these paradise islands, you will end up wishing you had spent just a few more days. Believe me, Hawaii does that to you.
*Plan way ahead.
*Book tickets atleast three months in advance, else you will end up paying a fortune.
*Plan to stay for a minimum of 2 weeks if that would be your only visit to Hawaii.
*Five days is nothing. You will end up almost crying at the Airport, not wanting to leave. And you will also end up planning your next visit to Hawaii even while your first visit is not over yet!
*Plan to visit all the islands. Each island has something unique to offer.
*Be prepared to have a whale of a time.
*Leave time to take enough rest after all the beach activities, else you will end up feeling tired.
*Decide how you want your vacation to be. Hawaii has so much to offer, to folks in all age range, and varied interests.
- If you want a romantic vacation, dont plan much, just book a resort, and spend all days at the beach with your sweet heart, lazing around, taking in the sun and the ocean.
- If you want to go sight seeing, book all the different tours in advance, and be prepared to have a jam packed schedule.
- If you want to do water sports, you wont have time to do much else. Hawaii has so much to offer, snorkelling, scuba diving, surfing, para sailing, kayaking, canoeing, jetskiing, regular swimming, and what not. Each activity would take a day on its own, an extra day if you want to do something more.
- If you want a leisure holiday, enjoy the culture of Hawaii, attend luaus, spend time learning about Polynesian culture, experience the exotic food and shopping Hawaii has to offer, dont expect to have time to do much else.
- If you want your vacation to be all of these, packed in a few days, well, you are me! And as I said you should spend a month in Hawaii and probably go bankrupt afterwards.
*Finally, ladies, take your straightners with you, if you want to have straight beautiful hair in your pictures inspite of all the fun activities at the beach. ;--)
*But I have a feeling, no matter what you do on these paradise islands, you will end up wishing you had spent just a few more days. Believe me, Hawaii does that to you.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Europe Trip Part 8 - Eiffel Tower
Warning: A very long post. I spent about 3 hrs writing this one. Whew!
Morning
The day dawned in the heavenly city of Lucerne with an excited couple getting ready in a hurry, which had become part of everyday routine now. They had spent the previous night cuddled up in the lazy boy couch, watching some meaningless TV. Err. Thats us so let me stop talking in third person now. As usual we hurried up for breakfast, which was now just hard bread and some cereal and some orange juice. Not fogetting the coffee.
It was going to be a long drive today. In fact we were going to be driving almost all day today. All the way to Paris. Paris! The dream city. The romantic city. Did you know the word romantic was coined from Rome and Romans and because Romans were such passionate lovers, the word romantic came to used as an expression. The French were in their own way suckers for such things. Anyways. So I was doubly triply excited about Paris. For the Eiffel Tower, which I had seen a couple of times on Google Earth, and imagined so many times as to how it would actually be, to be right there, look at the magnificent piece of work. And for the Lourve. Mona Lisa, Da Vinci, art. Frankly I had not heard for the Lourve, before the Da Vinci code. BUT, when I read the book, I so got a liking for that place, I started dreaming about how it would be to go there. I am not very knowledgable when it comes to art, but the magnanimity of the whole thing, never ceased to amaze me.
We sat almost at the end of the coach this time. Behind us were the Mexican couple, the man who was as boisterous as can be, and a little cheap too. Did I tell you about how he wanted to take a picture of his two girls kissing the Casanova at the Chirstmas party? I mean which Dad would want such a picture? I was in a pretty decent mood. I was a little happy. Excited about France. The bus was ambling along the road, as it was snowing a little. We entered France close to ten in the morning, after crossing the French speaking Swiss zone. France is one of the biggest countries in Europe, and Paris was located close to the west and hence the long drive.
We stopped over for coffee at La Boutique. It was not coffee, it was cappucino. In cute small cups. We got munchies and a tshirt for K. We were once again spending in Euros.
Vinyards
It was all snow al over the place, which kind of made the drive a little boring. Luc, our tour guide, let us sleep the whole afternoon, disturbing us only when there was something for us to see and know. Me and K were peacefully juggling between sleeping and reading and listening to music. Also ' konjal' fighting. Like we used to fight for the only arm rest in between us, to keep our elbows in. Or fight like bulls locking their horns. Sometimes those fights turned into teasing and poking fun, quite oblivious to the people around us.
Towards noon, Luc said we were passing through the famous French Vinyards. We were on top of a hill and beneath us was huge vinyard with lines lines of climbers supporting the creepers. Except it was all white and snowy, and we couldnt see them. We stopped over anyway due to popular demand. K got down while I stayed in, I did not want to mess up my shoes and clothes with snow and aggravate my cold. Also I am kinda done with snow now. There was a time, when I used love to play with it, hold it in my hand and wonder just how, does the sky create snow or ice up above. Now, I am done. Walking on it is enough. But K, he still retained some enthusiasm for snow. Well, now, I mean now, he is sick of it, he is glad he is moving to a place where it seldom snows, but then, when we stopped at the vinyards, he did get down to play a ball fight with the Mexican and the other enthusiastic men round. Folks from South Africa and Australia had not seen a lot of snow I think, and the Mexican family from LA were also not so used to snow. I did warn K, that before getting into the bus and sitting beside me, he had to be perfectly snow-free.
We were running late because of the snow. We did not stop over for lunch until about 2 in the afternoon. We had some crazy veggie sandwich. French food sucks big time, really. Bland and cold. Ah. We never realized we would miss good food in Europe until we left Italy. The Italian dinners and luncheon, when compared to French food, was divine.
Battlefields
Late afternoon, we were driving across the Second World War battlefields. And Luc was filling us up with the history. It was stunning, although the fields, grounds on both sides looked just like any other place in the country, what we were hearing from Luc, did not fail to bring goosebumps. We saw this lone patch of the field, which was Canada's land it seems! Just a small enclosed area, which apparently the French gifted to the Canadians, and had a lot of Canadian soldiers buried. If the Canadians wished they could set up a booth to only let people with Visas to get through the patch of land! But they were kind enough to let the land be used as it is.
We saw some other places like Burgundy and all, I have forgotten the details. Sigh! Thats why I thought I should write up soon.
The city
It was about five in the evening when we entered the outskirts of Paris. To me, seriously, it felt like entering Chicago. The roads were kind of deserted until then, and then it was lot of traffic! It was nothing like Rome. Rome looked ancient, and old. Paris looked old in a new kinda way. Lot of traffic. Our hotel was kind of in the city center, hence we had to wade through the traffic. Paris felt more developed. They had a new kind of advertisement technique. Like how we have posters in India on the wall, the french had little TV like things, which scrolled the ads. Like in NY, only smaller.
As we were driving, Luc said we could see the Eiffel Tower from here, sometimes, just the top. There is apparently a rule that no building should be built taller than the one wonder of the world in the middle of the city. Luc said the French were as bickering as anyone can be. They fight a lot, for petty things. They can pick up a fight in a jiffy it seems. The families are not as closely knit as the Italians. The tiny cars which the French drove looked funny. They were impatient people too. It was fun to watch. I was reminded of this one French guy I knew from Grad School, dunno how to spell his name, we called him, 'Anthwaan'. Loved the way he spoke English.
Then we drove in a tunnel underground. And Luc showed us the spot, where the accident which killed Princess Diana took place. We could see the black mark, that was supposedly blood mark. Ah! My day was already made. And we had not even entered Paris.
We reached the Hotel at about six in the evening, and we had to immediately get ready for our Paris at Night tour.
Paris at Night
We had a French driver for our local tour. We drove first close to Arc De Triumphe, and had our dinner at one of the restaurants. Food was in one word - yucky. Taseless beans, chicken breast was raw. Bread and butter was the only food we could eat and not hate. We took some pictures are the Arc de Triumphe and headed towards the city centre. The Arc was actually built in the middle of the road, forming a roundana kind of a thing, with vehicles driving by aimlessly, crazily. The whole place was lighted up for New Years It looked too beautiful. The whole of the main street, which housed all the fancy rich showrooms, was decorated with lights. All the buildings were decorated with lights. There was a giant wheel in the centre which was lighted too.
Oh I forgot, we got the first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower near the Arc de Tirumphe, Sadly it did not look all that impressive from that spot. It looked like this thin stick protuding amongst the buildings.
Appearences are deceptive. Especially appearences from a distance. The Tower was truly magnificent when we did see it up close and personal.
Eiffel Tower:
Ok, I should probably take this moment to explain how the monument is located actually. It is located such that, buses can actually go between its four giant legs. People walk underneath it. Each leg is a mammoth. In fact the lifts to go up are located on one of the legs. The structure itself is huge.
We were surprised to see Indians selling little souveniors at under the tower. There was lot of bargaining to be done, given they were Indians. 'Paanch rupiya dho na' They kept coming behind us and asking us to buy it. After some bargaining we got three of them, one for us and one of each of our parents.
We were able to dodge the long line and got in pretty quickly into the lift to go to the second floor. It was cold out there. It was open, and not enclosed. We went around the floor to drink in the view of Paris from atop Eiffel Tower at night. Dreamy. It was a dream come true really. The Seine River was flowing right by the Tower.
The city itself was well lighted and looked busy. Of course nothing like seeing Chicago while landing in O'Hare, but still, this was something. [I know, dumb comparison]On one side was a football stadium, where kids were playing football.
After that, we got into our buses as Luc said he will take us to good spot, from where we can take good pictures of the tower. We could not get enough of the place. I wanted to save what I was seeing for ever in my heart, for I dont know if I will ever be visiting here again. Little did I know that the next day I would be seeing so much for the Eiffel Tower that I would say enough is enough!
Apparently extra glitter lights come up, for 4 5 mins every hour. In fact it came up when we were on the top of the tower. It was like lot of cameras clicking us, with the white flash lights. We took pictures at the exact hour, with the Eiffel Tower with extra lights, like the ones already there was not enough.
We then drove back to our hotel, past the Lourve Museum. Yes, we did get a night view of the Louvre as we headed back. It was supposedly a palace converted into a museum. But, but, thats the next post. I will stop here.
Morning
The day dawned in the heavenly city of Lucerne with an excited couple getting ready in a hurry, which had become part of everyday routine now. They had spent the previous night cuddled up in the lazy boy couch, watching some meaningless TV. Err. Thats us so let me stop talking in third person now. As usual we hurried up for breakfast, which was now just hard bread and some cereal and some orange juice. Not fogetting the coffee.
It was going to be a long drive today. In fact we were going to be driving almost all day today. All the way to Paris. Paris! The dream city. The romantic city. Did you know the word romantic was coined from Rome and Romans and because Romans were such passionate lovers, the word romantic came to used as an expression. The French were in their own way suckers for such things. Anyways. So I was doubly triply excited about Paris. For the Eiffel Tower, which I had seen a couple of times on Google Earth, and imagined so many times as to how it would actually be, to be right there, look at the magnificent piece of work. And for the Lourve. Mona Lisa, Da Vinci, art. Frankly I had not heard for the Lourve, before the Da Vinci code. BUT, when I read the book, I so got a liking for that place, I started dreaming about how it would be to go there. I am not very knowledgable when it comes to art, but the magnanimity of the whole thing, never ceased to amaze me.
We sat almost at the end of the coach this time. Behind us were the Mexican couple, the man who was as boisterous as can be, and a little cheap too. Did I tell you about how he wanted to take a picture of his two girls kissing the Casanova at the Chirstmas party? I mean which Dad would want such a picture? I was in a pretty decent mood. I was a little happy. Excited about France. The bus was ambling along the road, as it was snowing a little. We entered France close to ten in the morning, after crossing the French speaking Swiss zone. France is one of the biggest countries in Europe, and Paris was located close to the west and hence the long drive.
We stopped over for coffee at La Boutique. It was not coffee, it was cappucino. In cute small cups. We got munchies and a tshirt for K. We were once again spending in Euros.
Vinyards
It was all snow al over the place, which kind of made the drive a little boring. Luc, our tour guide, let us sleep the whole afternoon, disturbing us only when there was something for us to see and know. Me and K were peacefully juggling between sleeping and reading and listening to music. Also ' konjal' fighting. Like we used to fight for the only arm rest in between us, to keep our elbows in. Or fight like bulls locking their horns. Sometimes those fights turned into teasing and poking fun, quite oblivious to the people around us.
Towards noon, Luc said we were passing through the famous French Vinyards. We were on top of a hill and beneath us was huge vinyard with lines lines of climbers supporting the creepers. Except it was all white and snowy, and we couldnt see them. We stopped over anyway due to popular demand. K got down while I stayed in, I did not want to mess up my shoes and clothes with snow and aggravate my cold. Also I am kinda done with snow now. There was a time, when I used love to play with it, hold it in my hand and wonder just how, does the sky create snow or ice up above. Now, I am done. Walking on it is enough. But K, he still retained some enthusiasm for snow. Well, now, I mean now, he is sick of it, he is glad he is moving to a place where it seldom snows, but then, when we stopped at the vinyards, he did get down to play a ball fight with the Mexican and the other enthusiastic men round. Folks from South Africa and Australia had not seen a lot of snow I think, and the Mexican family from LA were also not so used to snow. I did warn K, that before getting into the bus and sitting beside me, he had to be perfectly snow-free.
We were running late because of the snow. We did not stop over for lunch until about 2 in the afternoon. We had some crazy veggie sandwich. French food sucks big time, really. Bland and cold. Ah. We never realized we would miss good food in Europe until we left Italy. The Italian dinners and luncheon, when compared to French food, was divine.
Battlefields
Late afternoon, we were driving across the Second World War battlefields. And Luc was filling us up with the history. It was stunning, although the fields, grounds on both sides looked just like any other place in the country, what we were hearing from Luc, did not fail to bring goosebumps. We saw this lone patch of the field, which was Canada's land it seems! Just a small enclosed area, which apparently the French gifted to the Canadians, and had a lot of Canadian soldiers buried. If the Canadians wished they could set up a booth to only let people with Visas to get through the patch of land! But they were kind enough to let the land be used as it is.
We saw some other places like Burgundy and all, I have forgotten the details. Sigh! Thats why I thought I should write up soon.
The city
It was about five in the evening when we entered the outskirts of Paris. To me, seriously, it felt like entering Chicago. The roads were kind of deserted until then, and then it was lot of traffic! It was nothing like Rome. Rome looked ancient, and old. Paris looked old in a new kinda way. Lot of traffic. Our hotel was kind of in the city center, hence we had to wade through the traffic. Paris felt more developed. They had a new kind of advertisement technique. Like how we have posters in India on the wall, the french had little TV like things, which scrolled the ads. Like in NY, only smaller.
As we were driving, Luc said we could see the Eiffel Tower from here, sometimes, just the top. There is apparently a rule that no building should be built taller than the one wonder of the world in the middle of the city. Luc said the French were as bickering as anyone can be. They fight a lot, for petty things. They can pick up a fight in a jiffy it seems. The families are not as closely knit as the Italians. The tiny cars which the French drove looked funny. They were impatient people too. It was fun to watch. I was reminded of this one French guy I knew from Grad School, dunno how to spell his name, we called him, 'Anthwaan'. Loved the way he spoke English.
Then we drove in a tunnel underground. And Luc showed us the spot, where the accident which killed Princess Diana took place. We could see the black mark, that was supposedly blood mark. Ah! My day was already made. And we had not even entered Paris.
We reached the Hotel at about six in the evening, and we had to immediately get ready for our Paris at Night tour.
Paris at Night
We had a French driver for our local tour. We drove first close to Arc De Triumphe, and had our dinner at one of the restaurants. Food was in one word - yucky. Taseless beans, chicken breast was raw. Bread and butter was the only food we could eat and not hate. We took some pictures are the Arc de Triumphe and headed towards the city centre. The Arc was actually built in the middle of the road, forming a roundana kind of a thing, with vehicles driving by aimlessly, crazily. The whole place was lighted up for New Years It looked too beautiful. The whole of the main street, which housed all the fancy rich showrooms, was decorated with lights. All the buildings were decorated with lights. There was a giant wheel in the centre which was lighted too.
Oh I forgot, we got the first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower near the Arc de Tirumphe, Sadly it did not look all that impressive from that spot. It looked like this thin stick protuding amongst the buildings.
Appearences are deceptive. Especially appearences from a distance. The Tower was truly magnificent when we did see it up close and personal.
Eiffel Tower:
Ok, I should probably take this moment to explain how the monument is located actually. It is located such that, buses can actually go between its four giant legs. People walk underneath it. Each leg is a mammoth. In fact the lifts to go up are located on one of the legs. The structure itself is huge.
We were surprised to see Indians selling little souveniors at under the tower. There was lot of bargaining to be done, given they were Indians. 'Paanch rupiya dho na' They kept coming behind us and asking us to buy it. After some bargaining we got three of them, one for us and one of each of our parents.
We were able to dodge the long line and got in pretty quickly into the lift to go to the second floor. It was cold out there. It was open, and not enclosed. We went around the floor to drink in the view of Paris from atop Eiffel Tower at night. Dreamy. It was a dream come true really. The Seine River was flowing right by the Tower.
The city itself was well lighted and looked busy. Of course nothing like seeing Chicago while landing in O'Hare, but still, this was something. [I know, dumb comparison]On one side was a football stadium, where kids were playing football.
After that, we got into our buses as Luc said he will take us to good spot, from where we can take good pictures of the tower. We could not get enough of the place. I wanted to save what I was seeing for ever in my heart, for I dont know if I will ever be visiting here again. Little did I know that the next day I would be seeing so much for the Eiffel Tower that I would say enough is enough!
Apparently extra glitter lights come up, for 4 5 mins every hour. In fact it came up when we were on the top of the tower. It was like lot of cameras clicking us, with the white flash lights. We took pictures at the exact hour, with the Eiffel Tower with extra lights, like the ones already there was not enough.
We then drove back to our hotel, past the Lourve Museum. Yes, we did get a night view of the Louvre as we headed back. It was supposedly a palace converted into a museum. But, but, thats the next post. I will stop here.
Europe Trip Part 7 - Mt Pilatus
We reached our hotel close to noon, just left our bags with the bell-boy and proceeded towards Mt.Pilatus.
Mt. Pilatus is one of the famous Swiss peaks, beautiful, with a panoramic view, and cold too, at about 7000 ft.
This was my first time in any cable car. I have never been in one in India. And obviously I was excited like a kid. They had the cable car running from the foothills of the peak to the top. The peak was so much above the clouds that the first leg towards the top, we were not able to see the peak at all. It was a hazy, cloudy view. The cable cars were pretty interesting. First we got into a four seater cable car, with the Iowa couple. It was closed from all sides obviously with glass windows. Everything was pretty automatic. Well, I dont know how it is in India, or US or anywhere, but I thought the whole mechanism was pretty cool. The cable car slows down at the station, where people embark. The door is open and you kind of get into it, as it is moving, in slow motion. Then it picks up a little speed, as the cable car goes outside the station to be fully driven by the cables. Initially we were just going on top of the city, with houses, and roads and trees. We were making some small talk with the couple. There were a pretty nice couple, very friendly, not bossy or snobbish. Ah, you know the mid-west folks, very mild and friendly and sweet. Apparently they left their cameras at the airport with their friends. So they had to do away with a bunch of disposable cameras. Poor them! Now we did not have our luggage with us. But smart me, I had our cameras, batteries, camcorder everything with me in my carry-on, so we did not miss out on the pictures. But of course, K kept the convertors for our chargers in his luggage and hence we had to borrow it for a few nights from this couple. And I did not stop telling K, for a hundred times, to not keep important stuff in the check-in baggage. K apparently had a lot of gifts for me for Christmas and New Year, some dresses and some other things. He was not able to give them to me.
So anyways, as we crossed the city and slowly climbed up towards the mountain, it was all snow, and those pine trees all around us. The first station was pretty close by and we were not supposed to get down there. Thats were the little kids had a place for themselves to do sledging. And that was the end of the sledging slope for the adults.
Then the big leg to almost the top followed. The view was mesmerising to say the least. Those trees were so so so tall and huge. There were some places which looked so deserted, and so much natural, with no human being's intervention, I wondered how it would feel to just get down there and walk along. As usual I was busy with my camcorder, while K was busy with his camera. We couples took pictures of each of us, with the snowy range at the background.
We could also see some folks sledging along down from the top. K wanted to do that now! He gets excited with this kind of outdoor activities. Yes it would be lot of fun, I said, but we can do that back in Lake Tahoe, when we are with friends we know, and we arent so far away from home. So even if we were to break our legs, rescue wouldnt be far away and our insurance would coer us fully. Oops. I just got carried away with my extensive imagination, read paranoia, there. It was darn cold. Thank god we go some fleece jackets in Venice, else god knows how we would have managed in this cold weather with our Falls jackets we wore from home.
As we were approaching Kriens, where we were supposed to get off, we saw the cloudy peak of the moutain standing tall, no trees there, just white snow, and clouds. It was all white and foggy, and cloudy. And cold. And aloof. Majestic. Like a king.
We got down at the station and we were to take another cable car, this time a bigger one, which held about 30 people, to go all the way to the top! We were so excited. We were actually going to the summit of a peak, almost 7000ft high!
A Canadian family made a drama in that car. The father of the family got left behind at Kriens and his wife was almost in tears, while her two children were not consoling her but were making fun of her. The teenage girl was saying something like "Well , its your husband, how did you loose him? " And the boy saying," He is not a kid Mom, he will find his way to us." I was obviously surprised at the girl's comment. The father was her husband. Was he not the girl's Dad? I could only sigh at the American/Canadian family bonding. Of course, our dear Luc, our guide, and friend, did manage to find the Canadian father and reunite him with his family.
We reached the peak. There was just one restaurant on the top, and we were given time to look around and have lunch there. There was a souvenier shop too, we got some post cards and fridge magnets, and we went out to take a look. It was very cold. It was windy. Nature at its best. Untampered by humans. Cloudy and foggy. Nothing but snow covered mountains. And hazy frozen lakes. We were comparing this peak to Mt. Everest. Mt Everest is more than three times higher than this peak. Hm. How would it be to reach the summit of Mt.Everest? The top of the world?!
We took a few pictures before grabbing some food. We just had some kind of a soup to drink. Everything else looked very fattening.
We had some time after lunch to explore the grottos nearby. These were some caves carved on the mountain, so we can take a look all around the peak and get some out-of-the-world snaps.
We saw this cute little house, and a cross on one side. Now who would be living there? A better question would be why would one be living there?
And nope, I never got my answer.
It was time to go zoooom in the cable car down to the city again. It felt almost like returning back from a journey to heaven. This time we were with the Australian single divorced lady in the four seater car. She was a sweet lady. But we felt sorry for her. I mean how can one come on such a trip, alone? She said she wanted to be away from home for Christmes, lest she feel lonely and depressed. I only hugged K tight, thankful for him being with me.
So I will fastforward some here. So went down and back to our hotels. We took some rest and went shopping to the nearby downtown kind-of-a-place. We did cross the wooden bridge, Kay told about in one of his comments. Wow, I did not know it pictured in a few of the movies. The wooden bridge was across the lake which was right in the middle of the city, and we walked over it to go to the shopping place.
K did not flinch a muscle as I entered into what was probably the most expensive shop in the place around and bought exactly four pieces of clothing for a 260 Swiss Francs. Which comes to about $300. K is a darling no? Given we didnt know then that Lufthansa will be reimbursing most of our expenses?
I am very finnicky when it comes to clothing. I have a select shops I go to buy my jeans or tshirts. Like Gap and Old Navy and Limited and Banana Republic. Now in Switzerland, the sizes were all messed up. I took way too long to decide on a sweater. And a jeans. So long I took, that all the shops closed before we could buy anything for K! I felt a teeny bit bad, that I took all the time to shop for myself, not bothering about K. I mean I told him, we should shop for him first because his will be over quickly, but he just did not listen to me.
It started snowing lightly as we headed back to our hotel. I was all covered in white from my head. I must have looked like Santa, cos K could not stop laughing looking at me.
We went back to our room, tired and took a short nap before going up for dinner. The dining place was on the 10th floor. It was all jazzy with music and dancing going on near by. We were a little too late, and dinner was already being served. We were too sleepy, so quickly finished eating before going back down to our room to settle in snuggly for a good night's sleep.
The next day was going to be a long day driving all the way to Paris.
Mt. Pilatus is one of the famous Swiss peaks, beautiful, with a panoramic view, and cold too, at about 7000 ft.
This was my first time in any cable car. I have never been in one in India. And obviously I was excited like a kid. They had the cable car running from the foothills of the peak to the top. The peak was so much above the clouds that the first leg towards the top, we were not able to see the peak at all. It was a hazy, cloudy view. The cable cars were pretty interesting. First we got into a four seater cable car, with the Iowa couple. It was closed from all sides obviously with glass windows. Everything was pretty automatic. Well, I dont know how it is in India, or US or anywhere, but I thought the whole mechanism was pretty cool. The cable car slows down at the station, where people embark. The door is open and you kind of get into it, as it is moving, in slow motion. Then it picks up a little speed, as the cable car goes outside the station to be fully driven by the cables. Initially we were just going on top of the city, with houses, and roads and trees. We were making some small talk with the couple. There were a pretty nice couple, very friendly, not bossy or snobbish. Ah, you know the mid-west folks, very mild and friendly and sweet. Apparently they left their cameras at the airport with their friends. So they had to do away with a bunch of disposable cameras. Poor them! Now we did not have our luggage with us. But smart me, I had our cameras, batteries, camcorder everything with me in my carry-on, so we did not miss out on the pictures. But of course, K kept the convertors for our chargers in his luggage and hence we had to borrow it for a few nights from this couple. And I did not stop telling K, for a hundred times, to not keep important stuff in the check-in baggage. K apparently had a lot of gifts for me for Christmas and New Year, some dresses and some other things. He was not able to give them to me.
So anyways, as we crossed the city and slowly climbed up towards the mountain, it was all snow, and those pine trees all around us. The first station was pretty close by and we were not supposed to get down there. Thats were the little kids had a place for themselves to do sledging. And that was the end of the sledging slope for the adults.
Then the big leg to almost the top followed. The view was mesmerising to say the least. Those trees were so so so tall and huge. There were some places which looked so deserted, and so much natural, with no human being's intervention, I wondered how it would feel to just get down there and walk along. As usual I was busy with my camcorder, while K was busy with his camera. We couples took pictures of each of us, with the snowy range at the background.
We could also see some folks sledging along down from the top. K wanted to do that now! He gets excited with this kind of outdoor activities. Yes it would be lot of fun, I said, but we can do that back in Lake Tahoe, when we are with friends we know, and we arent so far away from home. So even if we were to break our legs, rescue wouldnt be far away and our insurance would coer us fully. Oops. I just got carried away with my extensive imagination, read paranoia, there. It was darn cold. Thank god we go some fleece jackets in Venice, else god knows how we would have managed in this cold weather with our Falls jackets we wore from home.
As we were approaching Kriens, where we were supposed to get off, we saw the cloudy peak of the moutain standing tall, no trees there, just white snow, and clouds. It was all white and foggy, and cloudy. And cold. And aloof. Majestic. Like a king.
We got down at the station and we were to take another cable car, this time a bigger one, which held about 30 people, to go all the way to the top! We were so excited. We were actually going to the summit of a peak, almost 7000ft high!
A Canadian family made a drama in that car. The father of the family got left behind at Kriens and his wife was almost in tears, while her two children were not consoling her but were making fun of her. The teenage girl was saying something like "Well , its your husband, how did you loose him? " And the boy saying," He is not a kid Mom, he will find his way to us." I was obviously surprised at the girl's comment. The father was her husband. Was he not the girl's Dad? I could only sigh at the American/Canadian family bonding. Of course, our dear Luc, our guide, and friend, did manage to find the Canadian father and reunite him with his family.
We reached the peak. There was just one restaurant on the top, and we were given time to look around and have lunch there. There was a souvenier shop too, we got some post cards and fridge magnets, and we went out to take a look. It was very cold. It was windy. Nature at its best. Untampered by humans. Cloudy and foggy. Nothing but snow covered mountains. And hazy frozen lakes. We were comparing this peak to Mt. Everest. Mt Everest is more than three times higher than this peak. Hm. How would it be to reach the summit of Mt.Everest? The top of the world?!
We took a few pictures before grabbing some food. We just had some kind of a soup to drink. Everything else looked very fattening.
We had some time after lunch to explore the grottos nearby. These were some caves carved on the mountain, so we can take a look all around the peak and get some out-of-the-world snaps.
We saw this cute little house, and a cross on one side. Now who would be living there? A better question would be why would one be living there?
And nope, I never got my answer.
It was time to go zoooom in the cable car down to the city again. It felt almost like returning back from a journey to heaven. This time we were with the Australian single divorced lady in the four seater car. She was a sweet lady. But we felt sorry for her. I mean how can one come on such a trip, alone? She said she wanted to be away from home for Christmes, lest she feel lonely and depressed. I only hugged K tight, thankful for him being with me.
So I will fastforward some here. So went down and back to our hotels. We took some rest and went shopping to the nearby downtown kind-of-a-place. We did cross the wooden bridge, Kay told about in one of his comments. Wow, I did not know it pictured in a few of the movies. The wooden bridge was across the lake which was right in the middle of the city, and we walked over it to go to the shopping place.
K did not flinch a muscle as I entered into what was probably the most expensive shop in the place around and bought exactly four pieces of clothing for a 260 Swiss Francs. Which comes to about $300. K is a darling no? Given we didnt know then that Lufthansa will be reimbursing most of our expenses?
I am very finnicky when it comes to clothing. I have a select shops I go to buy my jeans or tshirts. Like Gap and Old Navy and Limited and Banana Republic. Now in Switzerland, the sizes were all messed up. I took way too long to decide on a sweater. And a jeans. So long I took, that all the shops closed before we could buy anything for K! I felt a teeny bit bad, that I took all the time to shop for myself, not bothering about K. I mean I told him, we should shop for him first because his will be over quickly, but he just did not listen to me.
It started snowing lightly as we headed back to our hotel. I was all covered in white from my head. I must have looked like Santa, cos K could not stop laughing looking at me.
We went back to our room, tired and took a short nap before going up for dinner. The dining place was on the 10th floor. It was all jazzy with music and dancing going on near by. We were a little too late, and dinner was already being served. We were too sleepy, so quickly finished eating before going back down to our room to settle in snuggly for a good night's sleep.
The next day was going to be a long day driving all the way to Paris.
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