Mai Tai - Bali High
Written: Dec 06 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: All the pros that come with a tropical island.
Cons: All the cons that come with a tropical island.
The Bottom Line: If you're looking for a tropical island getaway, it can't be beat. If you're looking for a unique travel experience, you could do better.
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| dastr8poop's Full Review: Kauai |
I’ve had quite the eventful past week. I got back from Hawaii, sold my old boat, bought a new house, quit smoking and bought a new puppy. Short of finding out my wife is pregnant or I won the lottery, I can’t think of how this past week could have been more eventful. All that other stuff can wait though, right now I want to talk about Hawaii. Specifically I want to talk about the Garden Island of Kaua’i.
Let’s start at the beginning. I don’t know how many of you have had the opportunity to fly since the Sept. 11th attacks, but things have changed slightly. People had been suggesting to me that we get to the airport at least 3 hours early to give us enough time to wade through the new security lines and checkpoints.
“That’s crazy talk!” I said, “You are ridiculous fools!”
However, my wife insisted that we follow their advice and so we arrived at Sea-Tac at 4:30 in the morning to catch our 7:30 flight to LAX. In theory this would have given us plenty of time to catch our flight. In practice, it really didn’t matter how early we got there because the United Airlines ticket counter doesn’t open until 6.
We were through the line at ticketing by 6:30 and on to security. The line at the ticket counter was about 200 people long. The line at security was about twice that. An hour later we were through security and racing to catch our plane. By luck of the draw we avoided getting the third, random security screening that happens right at the gate. Huffing and puffing we rushed onto a near empty plane.
About ten other people had managed to get into the plane by our scheduled departure time. Everyone else bound for L.A. was still back in the airport, waiting in line.
Needless to say we waited there on the ground for about an hour as everyone slowly trickled aboard, resulting in missed connections, crappy airport food, and 4 long, hot, nerve-wracking hours in Honolulu. 15 hours after leaving our home in Seattle, we landed in Lihui airport on Kaua’i…
Another thing I might mention about air travel post Sept. 11 is that the national guard now patrols every US airport. The last time I saw men in camo with M-16’s marching through an airport I was flying into Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. There I could understand it, as there is no real police force, and the army is used for everything from shooting down drug planes to helping school kids cross the street. Seeing this kind of thing in America looked so out of place, it got me thinking not only about the tragic loss of life that these attacks brought about, but of the tragic loss of civil liberties that will surly be the end result of the War on Terrorism.
Ugh.
Anyway, my wife and I landed in Lihui and hopped the shuttle bus to the Thrifty car rental lot about five minutes away. Thrifty had two types of cars in their fleet; the white 1999 Dodge Neon, and the white 1999 Chrysler Sebring convertible. We picked the Neon just because it was cheaper, although we were nice enough to tell ourselves that it was because the Neon was less pretentious.
Speeding down the sole highway in Kaua’I, we steered our rental rocket in the direction of the main town of Kapa’a. Kapa’a is small for a main town, even for small island standards, mostly because there is no residential area. The town exists strictly as a commercial center with restaurants, bars, a grocery store, a furniture store and other such “downtown” establishments.
Just outside of Kapa’a is the Coconut Beach Resort where my wife and I would be staying. The place was done in typical middle-class resort style. Two tennis courts, one large and two small fountains in the lobby, a single small pool with adjacent hot tub, two elevators that worked most of the time. The rooms were done in the early 80’s condo style with very high ceilings attempting to compensate for a lack of actual space. Nothing to write home about, but more than adequate for the price.
The first thing I noticed on the morning of our first day was that the 1999 Dodge Neon is a very popular rental car. In fact, the entire parking lot of the Coconut Beach was filled with nothing but white Neon’s and Sebring’s. We decided to sit pool-side and have a few drinks and wait for the lot to clear out. If you ever stay at the Coconut Beach, I highly recommend the Lava Flow, a sort of Pina Colada/Strawberry Daiquiri mix that is quite refreshing in the heat of the island sun.
I think I’ll forgo the time line narrative and just break down a list for you because I’m getting a little lazy now.
FOOD
A typical lunch joint that sticks out in my mind is Bubba’s Burgers. Bubba is somewhat of a local celebrity, a giant, sloppy ex-NFL guy who cooks up giant, sloppy burgers. I made the mistake of going in there extremely hung-over and ordering the “Hubba Bubba”. This meat monstrosity looked good on paper, but was a daunting task when presented. A think layer of rice lines the bottom of a paper plate. On top of this is an extra-large beef patty. Next, ladled onto the rice and beef, is about two cups of hot, watery chili. Next a hot dog is sliced length-wise and placed face down in the chili. An inch thick layer of cheese is added to this concoction resulting in a foodstuff with more vomit-producing potential (in the severely hung-over) than a deep fried mayonnaise sandwich.
My wife, being the sensible one, got a veggie burger. She tells me it was very tasty.
While I’m on the subject of the Hubba Bubba, I’d like to note the universal usage of steamed white rice in Hawaiian cuisine. Rice is more than a staple here, it’s a requirement. I ate all kinds of food with rice that would have never been served with it on the mainland. In fact, white rice was what I was led to believe SPAM would be. I had been told by numerous people before going to Hawaii that SPAM was a staple of the diet. Not only did I not see a single gelatinous speck of potted mystery meat, people actually looked at me like I was crazy when I inquired. There’s no accounting for taste…
One place I can highly recommend on Kaua’I is Tahiti Nui. They’ve got a French Polynesian theme going on here, with an actually French guy cooking up the food! His name was Pierre (of course), he was about five foot nothing with a Dali mustache, and boy could he whip up a mean bisque. Anyway, the food was so good, I expected the drinks to be sub-par at best. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Mai Tai’s at Tahiti Nui were some of the finest fruity rum drinks I’ve ever tasted. What a convenient segue into….
DRINKING
In case you haven’t noticed yet, the search for the Ultimate Fruity Rum Drink was a strong subtext throughout my entire Hawaiian holiday. A noble effort, and one I undertook with the utmost determination. I had more Pina Coladas, Mai Tais, Mango Daiquiris, and Rum Punches than any sane man should ever imbibe. I assure you that this was all done in the name of science, my normal alcoholic “wonder twins” are a pint of Beamish and a shot of Jameson’s, so you can see that the sudden switch to sugar and booze isn’t something I’d do just for “kicks”.
My quest introduced me to many a strong competitor, from the Coconut Avalanche at the Lizard Lounge to Hula Girls mighty Shark Attack!, the competition was fast, frosty and furious. In the end though, much like Iron Chef, one Fruity Rum Drink reigned supreme. Rising hands and feet above the rest, the Mai Tais at Duke's Canoe Club represent the best of the best in rummy goodness.
How does a Mai Tai at Duke’s get such high praise? Two reasons – Quality and Quantity. Duke’s uses only locally produced fruit juices to create their drinks, combine that with a dash of tamarind pulp and a generous float of Pusser’s rum, a fine rum I found nowhere else on island, and you’ve got a Fruity Rum Drink for the Ages. The fact that this is all served in a full pint glass for only $5.50 is just icing on the cake. According to my list, Duke’s Mai Tai is now the second best Fruity Rum Drink in the world, surpassed only by the Soggy Dollar Bar’s Painkiller.
THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU’RE NOT DRINKING
Well, we did all kinds of stuff. One thing Kaua’I is known for is all of the waterfalls. We went and saw the waterfalls from Jurassic Park and the one from the beginning of Fantasy Island. The Fantasy Island falls were much nicer.
I also went surfing, something I’ve always wanted to do ever since I saw the very special Hawaiian episode of Life Goes On. Most places make you take lessons first, then let you rent a board, but I found a place called The Old Nawiliwili Club just outside of Kapa’a that would let me have one for $20 a day.
One of the best things about surfing in Hawaii is the lingo. The locals have all of their own slang used to describe the surf conditions and tricks and such. Not knowing anything about surfing, I made up both my own wave riding style (Monkey Foot) and lingo. As I would paddle out to the break I’d often call out things like, “Hey, Moondoggy! You aped it up on that one!” or “That last set was one crispy chimp!” or “Oh god no! There’s a shark biting off my arm!”. Soon I had won over the locals respect and admiration and became the King of the North Shore.
Eat shave ice. I ate a lot of shave ice and found the blueberry with vanilla ice cream at Breezer’s to be the best on island. People will try to tell you that shave ice isn’t like a sno-cone, but they are lying. It’s just like a sno-cone, only bigger.
Duck people trying to sell you time-shares. We were approached by approximately 586 billion desperate, pleading souls looking to give us free stuff in exchange for a 90-minute presentation. Yes, I am here on vacation. No, I did not just fall off the banana truck. I got so good at spotting these people that by the end of our trip I was able to ask them if they were interested in a time-share first. The thing to look for is that “Is he slowing down? Is this guy a potential John?” look that you see a lot in prostitutes. Notice I said you, not me.
Make fun of trustafarians. Kaua’I has got more white rastas than anywhere else in the world. I’m not sure what these people are thinking, if you want to live like a natural mystic then you need to go to the Caribbean, not the south pacific. As a matter of fact the white rasta population was large and distracting to the point of annoyance. We went to the natural foods store (ok my mistake) and smelt enough funky BO and saw enough nasty, nappy hair to last a lifetime.
Go to the Fern Grotto. Actually, on second thought, don’t go to the Fern Grotto, it was kind of lame.
Basically there’s lots to do on Kaua’I and there’s an enormous industry geared to selling you on doing stuff. Everywhere you go on the highway there are places trying to get you to rent a kayak, boogie board, snorkel gear, fishing charters, what-have-you. We actually did go on a fishing charter, but I think I’ll save that one for a review of it’s own.
RANDOM OBSERVENCES
One thing you should prepare yourself for when planning a trip to Hawaii is to see lots of big fat guys playing little tiny ukulele’s. The art of Polynesian lounge singer is alive and well on kaua’i. Almost everyone we talked to was a musician at night or on the weekends. Every place we ate or drank at had at least one ukulele player and most times a hula dancer as well. When you enter the place a typical exchange would go like this:
“Hello, where are you from?”
“Are you celebrating anything special?”
“Do you like Hawaiian music?”
“What is your favorite Hawaiian song?”
At this point it would be appropriate to say “Tiny Bubbles” or “Sophisticated Hula” or “Whatever your favorite song is”.
Like most tropical islands, there isn’t a whole lot for a local to do on Kaua’I. All of the touristy stuff gets old quick and as a result there is a lot of open weed smoking and excessive drinking. I’ve been there and done that. Seeing it again with my jaundiced eye didn’t add all that much pleasure to my experience.
Going to a luau isn’t all that exciting. There’s some cheesy Vegas style entertainment and lots and lots of shredded pork. We went to one on Thanksgiving and decided after that we could have been more entertained by staying in the hotel room, watching Survivor. The only highlight was when one of the fire twirlers lots his grip and a flaming baton went flying into the crowd. It would have been funnier, but no one was hurt.
CONCLUSION
That’s about it. Kaua’I was a blast and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Food and drink are kind of pricey, but there are lots of things to do on the cheap, and it’s a great way to experience something different for those of you too skittish to leave the U.S. I’ll throw up some pictures on my profile page as soon as they’re developed…
Aloha and Maholo for reading.
Recommended:
Yes
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dastr8poop
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Location: Gobblers Knob, WA
Reviews written: 30
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