My Most Under -Rated Travel Experience: the Lahaina- Meat Grinder -Visitor Industry that took a chance on an unknown kid from Los Angeles and made an Aloha Graduate of him!
No Monster Waves until Winter ..but I did see Steve and Dano in Maui, complete with 4-year varsity letters, Portuguese last names and healed acne scars, handing out speeding tickets. Bad Cops. No Donuts. Hawaii 5 OMFG!
Is There life After Luau? An OOM "out of money" experience.
One of the best things to experience on your South Pacific vacation, is spending all your cash on things you don't need to impress people you don't know. It ranks as one of the Top Ten Best activities Hawaii has to offer, and Lahiana is no miraculous exception. Giving in to the urge of paying too much for things that comes with a side of Polynesian paradise is truely under rated.
Let's see who can hit this moving target. Let me display my skill--- that is no regard or knowledge for the unwritten rule of this place---take their money and run I'm just a volunteer salt of the earth rainbow lover, with a large supply of energy drinks who wants to dance the hula and be volunTOLD by mainland guilt, Pearl Harbor, Captain Cook, whatever to support the local economy.
Why is there no pine in pineapple? I don't know; but I did stay at a Holiday Inn and saved a ton on my car insurace by switching to Geico.
Lahaina. Even a caveman can do it.
The usual over priced rip-off francised suspects are hawaiianized.---Hard Rock Cafe, ABC Stores(Aloha Bring Cash). Starbucks Coffee. Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Cheezy(Burger) in Paradise--- . Seeing the world through rose colored Maui Jim's, the surf and sun provide the perfect brain dump. I go into default mode of island wear. I'm " One of those tourists". a temporary colonists, like a carton of milk with an expiration date stamped right on my forehead.
As the locals , indigenous and disadvantaged engage in some parallel hemp induced struggles, they look on in disguist, chin checking me with patronizing "Howz it's", and "Sup Brah" surfer dude speak. Way. No way. I don the loud expensive aloha shirt I charged $85 bucks two days before, at Hilo Hatties--- the Hamburger Helper for Mainland haole (pronounced howlie) Scum! It's just tuition for an Aloha graduate--- an edjamacated expense in a bowl of stupid. When I get home and get the bill--it's called the after life.
What they're really thinking is pu' insai,the contemporary pidgin-english slang term for having sex. literally meaning 'put inside'; getting screwed out of my hard-earned money.
Merchants put you through the meat grinder of souvenir turn and burn shops, with wampum and beaded shells made in Chinese and Cambodian sweatshops for ~$0.12/hour. Mahalo. I feel like I am in TJ, or some Mexican netherland border town. The rage subsides. After all, there is no place on earth like Hawaii. The best things in Hawain life aren't things, they're people---and I have been meeting some fantabulous people -a creamy blend of the fantastic and the fabulous, beyond belief and my wildest expectations....Lisa, Cheryl,Lauren and Chris, Nadine and Sherry, Martin, Javier, Rick, Matt, Zac, Keith, Kyle, Paul H-Tuna, Paul L and Johanna, David S. and others...
I love the smell of fractional real estate time shares in full bloom in the morning. It screams of "tourist trap" yet this ocean FRONT Street- is THE street on the west coast of Maui.
The ambassador of Aloha Don Ho, singing his lazy golden hits with the help of karaoke monitor lyrics was M.I.A. Today, it's the post humorous Izzy's "n Dis Life" soundtrack. Kamakawiwo'ole's tricked up lyrics:. "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" The vibe is the anti elevator muzac de jour. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole n Dis Life Lahaina Hawaii 5 O Front Street Don Ho Maui
ed reif
