Travel tales from the Aloha State

Diamond Head Dead Head

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Hawaii, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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“Purple head,” snickered Chuck, nodding his sunglassed wrapped head to the side to call my attention to a white thirty-something dude whose loose boardshorts did little to hide the stiffy that seemed to be ever expanding. Used to decoding Chuck’s use of pidgin, I looked, saw nothing of interest, and went back to my book. White guys don’t get purple head. Theirs tend to be various shades of red, and ‘red head’ just doesn’t have the same appeal in sound. Or in looks.

Years into our friendship, we were spending the afternoon together at one of Chuck’s more recent favorite hangouts, the nude/gay beach tucked away below Diamond Head lighthouse. Officially there are no nude beaches on O’ahu. Unofficially, everyone knew about the hidden expanse of sand, difficult to reach, where if you wanted to express some personal freedom, it was cool. At the foot of the steep path that dropped from a small asphalt parking lot to the shore below, local windsurfers ruled. A little farther to the right, a small contingent of breeders huddled together to flash a bit of skin. Beyond them the gay area sprawled where the rule was pretty much anything goes.

Compared to world famous Waikiki Beach just a mile away, the community spread out along Diamond Head Beach was sparse, more sand and rocks than bodies. One of the island’s not too well kept secrets, I knew about the spot but in almost ten years of living on O’ahu had never been there. It was Chuck’s newest hang-out. He’d recently decided, far too late for my enjoyment, to finally get a tan. A perfectionist, he wanted a full tan, sans lines, and had begun spending several hours daily at the beach. That it was also a well known spot for gay men to find anonymous partners for a quickie was just icing on the cake.

Sprouting wood at a nudist beach is generally considered a no-no. But then the usual display of bodies at nude beaches are not exactly inducive to erections. Straight nudists come in all shapes and sizes. None of them attractive. Gay men have the good sense to keep their clothes on unless their body scores at least an 8. Chuck was a solid 9. Maybe even a 9.5 once tanned. It wasn’t surprising that the haole dude furtively casting glances our way was sprouting wood. Chuck, who liked white guys, might have returned the favor, but the ability to do so was not a talent he’d ever managed to master. Which had a lot to do with why we were friends instead of lovers. Or fuck buddies.

Chuck was hapa-haole, a true half/half mixed breed of mainlander and local, whose family went back several generations in Hawaii. Born and raised on O’ahu, he’d never been off the island and except for his white skin would fit anyone’s idea of a local boy. The tan he was developing nicely would turn him into a poster child for island hotness. A little over six feet tall, he had a trim body, a lush head of jet black hair and a killer smile. He was gay, but like most local gay boys took his closet quite seriously.

Hawaii’s gay community is a strange mix. There are lots of out gays and lesbians who moved to the islands from the mainland, and free of family and childhood friends begin to live their life in the open. There are a large group of former military, both men and women, who have also adopted the islands as their home. No longer having to worry about being asked or telling, are also out and open about their sexuality. There’s an even larger group of active duty military who are closeted, but readily available to the point that I had begun to suspect that everyone in the military was gay. And then there are the local boys.

Every Hawaiian family has at least one gay member who is accepted and loved by all. And that sets up the odd paradox of the mass of local boys who live in fright of anyone ever even thinking they might be gay. The lengths they go to to protect their closet doors is beyond belief. You’d think that coming out in Hawaii would mean being ostracized for life by everyone you know the way they act. But the aloha spirit is alive and well among locals, and the truth is those who do manage to finally rid themselves of their worries find acceptance and love, their little world doesn’t change a bit. Chuck had finally been slowly inching his door open. His closet, however, wasn’t really what he needed to work on.

I’d met Chuck a good five to six years before. We’d met on a hook-up site, and against my better judgement since he claimed he had no picture of himself available, I agreed to meet. Knowing I was a bit dubious about the meeting, he promised me he wasn’t a troll. He didn’t lie. He wasn’t. He was a hunk. And though our initial meeting was nothing more than dinner and a few hours talking story, we became fast friends. His killer looks were the initial attraction, his sick sense of humor an added bonus.

We started meeting several times a week, getting to know each other. He’d been starved for gay companionship and quickly clued me in to his history. Which was nada. He’d always sensed he was gay, always had been attracted to guys, but had denied those feelings until recently. Totally inexperienced he was torn between wanting to jump in the sack and get it over with and putting off the big moment. In the face of that much naked honesty it’s difficult to push, to close the sale. So I waited, allowing him the time he needed to get comfortable. The night he finally decided to brave a make out session was like being mauled by a lion. A ball of repressed hormones finally being set free is not a pretty sight.

Chuck was hesitant to take the next step. I was hesitant to take more time to bed the hottie, there does come a time when the vision of a payoff begins to fade, working for it is one thing, overtime is another. We talked about his concerns. He talked about his worries. I talked about how tired I was of just talking. I finally convinced him to spend the night at my place, to give it a try. I promised him we’d take it slow, stop any time he grew uncomfortable, that he could call the shots and decide what he would or would not do. That first make out session should have been a warning of what was to come.

A virgin in his late twenties finally getting to taste what life is all about is a joyous thing to see. And a scary thing to experience. Once we were naked, there was no more hesitation on his part. Anything and everything he’d ever fantasied about was fair game. For a novice he was wildly inventive. With that much enthusiasm even a 5 can be fun. Presented with a lush tropical bubble butt mounted below those two cute little dimples some guys have right above their ass, I was in love. Or at least firmly in lust. Chuck seemed to be enjoying himself too. Except he was having trouble rising to the occasion. Six hours later, I was drained, totally depleted. Chuck was still raring to go but had still not managed to achieve lift-off.

Huh.

Okay, first timer. Nerves. I get it. While we were engaged, he made light of the problem and didn’t want to stop. Afterwards, cuddling up together in bed, both of us with smiles on our faces, I made the appropriate sympathetic noises, let loose with the oft used lie that it happens to everybody, and looked forward to our next time together when we’d both get to participate. It never happened. Three years of spending countless nights together and regardless of what we tried Chuck never achieved a state of purple head.

Chuck’s wasn’t a physical problem. The boy was addicted to gay porn. He jacked off as often as most people breath. Abstinence from his favorite pastime didn’t help. Getting him started alone in a separate room doing what he did best didn’t work either. As soon as I’d walk in, he’d go limp. Eyes open, eyes shut, in the bedroom, the kitchen, the shower, naked, dressed, with hours of foreplay, or jumping right in, nothing ever hit his up button.

I suggested maybe he needed to try a different guy, but he wanted to be with me. I suggested maybe he needed to try a woman, his retching sounds said no. A threesome? I’ve seen deer caught in headlights that looked more at ease than that idea invoked in him. Part of the problem was that he was good with it. He enjoyed bottoming; you’d think he was having multiple orgasms from the noises he’d make. He told me that later when he’d get home he’d break out the lube and get busy replaying our recent tryst over in his mind while having the time of his life.

I enjoyed being with Chuck, naked or not. Our friendship bloomed even if his cock never did. But finally I realized that I wasn’t in a relationship. I was in a porn movie. One that didn’t include a money shot until it’d been rewound and played later in private. I decided he’d become too familiar with not getting up, that possibly a different partner might be able to convince little Chuck to come out and play. I suggested we move from fuck buddies to friends. He was cool with that. So we moved in together.

Chuck was a better roommate than he was a lover. As long as you were able to overlook his constant masturbation thingy. I worked regular office hours, he worked nights. I’d come home from a long day at the office and he’d be stretched out naked in front of the wide screen playing with himself. Daily. I’d roll my eyes and sneak a quick look on the off chance I might catch a glimpse of improvement. He’d laugh, shake his head, and call me a bastard if he’d been close to cuming and my entrance had ruined his moment of ecstacy. Eventually he left himself alone long enough to meet a new guy, fall in love, and move in with his newest beau.

Upon hearing that news, using a finger to emphasize my point I asked, “Um, you mean things are looking up?”

“No,’ he said sadly. “But he loves me anyway.”

Ouch. But cool. Love may mean never having to say you’re sorry, but it does usually mean at least occasionally being able to say, “Look! You’re hard!”

Chuck and I stayed friends, getting together every now and then to catch up or enjoy a day out together. Sex was a thing of the past, but I always hoped he’d finally tell me that he’d had some success below the belt. His boyfriends never lasted long (go figure) but he had started making progress with coming to terms with his sexuality. As secluded as the gay beach was, just a few years earlier he’d have been too scared to visit much less make it a daily stop. I thought it was probably healthy that he was spending time naked on the beach instead of naked in front of his television.

After haole boy moved his erection further down the beach where someone might be interested in it, Chuck rolled over on to his back, allowing his more private parts to soak up some rays. And I started the next chapter of my book.

“Brah.”

It was a quite call. Almost a whisper. I looked over at him to see who or what he wanted to bring to my attention now.

Not moving a muscle, he used his eyes to point downward. “Look!” he whispered as though using his full voice would bring the wrath of the gods down upon him.

Immediately catching on I looked. And I’ll be damned, it was: debatable.

I’d thought I was going to finally see Chuck in all his glory, swaying proudly in the breeze. No such luck. But it was a start. It almost qualified as a chub. There was growth. And a sense of firmness. Good thing that before I made the disparaging remark that popped into my head I looked back at his face. Even though his accomplishment was small, his pride was obvious. So instead I congratulated him. “Nice,” I said. And then settled back to see if the combination of sun, sand, public nudity, and an appreciative audience would further things along. It didn’t.

I have no problem writing about friends and ex-lovers on my blog, sharing their most embarrassing moments with the world. And I have a bad habit of using their real names. Still, I probably wouldn’t be telling this one now except that I lost touch with Chuck when I moved away from the islands. When Viagra first hit the market it made me think of him and I mulled over the idea of trying to track him down. Like with waiting for him to sprout wood though, it didn’t seem to be worth the effort. And I don’t know that the little blue pill would have worked its magic on him anyway. But I hope he got a script, that it worked, and that whatever guy he is with now is getting to enjoy Chuck’s purple head.

[The artwork in this post is from Douglas Simonson, one of my favorite Hawaii-based artists. You can visit his website and check out his paintings, drawings, and photography here.]

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Bugging Out

28 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Bali, Hawaii, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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And More!, Stupid Tourist Tricks

Stupid Touri Trick #479: Thinking it’s a cool photo op to have a head-sized poisonous spider on your face.

Nothing is more pleasant than being awoken in the middle of the night by the feeling of the guy you are sleeping with wrapping his arm or leg around you. It induces a brief state of alertness, perhaps a small smile, and then you snuggle in close to drift back off to sleep. Nothing is more disconcerting than being awoken in the middle of the night by the feeling of something brushing against your leg when you are sleeping alone. It induces an immediate a state of panic.

“Holy Shit!” I yelled, jumping out of bed. “What the fuck was that!”

It was 3:00 a.m. and I’d been deep in dreamland, wrapped up in my soft bed contentedly alone, when my subconscious mind tapped my conscious mind on the shoulder. That soft brushing against my skin should not have been. I landed on my feet before my mind came fully awake, snapped on the lights, threw back the covers, and gazed in horror at the almost foot long centipede that’d decided to snuggle up with me in bed.

Throw a grizzly bear in my path, and I’ll roar back. But when a humongous cockroach divebombs my head, I scream like a big girl. Eyeballing a centipede who’d decided to mate with me in the middle of the night brought out the frightened, blubbering little girl in me instead.

When you live in the tropics, large bugs are part of your world. Cockroaches are more pervasive in Hawaii than middle age couples visiting from the fly over states adorned in matching aloha wear. The local joke is that the cockroach is Hawaii’s State bird. Though both centipedes and roaches make you shudder, the larger and more prehistoric looking of the two brings on a special brand of terror. Centipedes out ugly cockroaches ten to one. And they are aggressive as all hell and poisonous to boot.

This is Satan.

This one didn’t live long enough to accomplish whatever vile plans it had for me. With all my senses throbbing on full alert and blood pressure skyrocketing to heights it’d never experienced before, I grabbed a shoe and pounded the fucking thing into oblivion. And then spent the night curled into a quaking ball in the living room with all of the lights on, fully awake and on guard, never catching a wink of sleep. The next morning I made a quick trip to the local garden shop and bought a gallon of Diazinon to pour as a barrier around the house, and twice the required number of bug bombs to set off, filling my home with poisonous gases. The memory was not as easy to rid myself of.

When I first moved to Hawaii, discovering a humongous cockroach in my home brought on chicken skin. They’re evil looking things and more than willing to do battle with you if you don’t leave them alone. The first time I ran up against one, unprepared and not yet skilled in cockroach warfare, I trapped it under an upended empty coffee can. And then realized it’d never die on its own and I probably couldn’t live there for the next few years with a cockroach imprisoned under a tin can in the middle of my living room.

As the years past I became more skilled at dealing with the little beasts though never quite managed the nonchalant attitude locals displayed in sending the latest one to cockroach hell. I had a friend, a closeted little muscle stud who’d grown up in Hawaii, who used to kill them by squashing them with his bare feet. Whether he’d just done battle with a roach or not, I always made sure he showered before climbing into my bed.

My most humorous cockroach encounter was a night out having diner with a group of friends in Waikiki at a beachside restaurant open to the tropical breezes when a cockroach divebombed our table and landed head first into one of the girl’s small cup of sour cream. Many people like bacon bits as a topping for their baked potato, she had the opportunity of trying cockroach instead. We all grimaced, laughed, and then called the waiter over who replaced the cup of topping with a cockroachless one with compete indifference.

Hawaii’s State Bird

A daily occurrence in Hawaii, you get used to cockroaches. But your primitive senses still flare up, the fight-or-flight-or-freeze response still kicks in when one of the creepy critters makes its way into your life. The good thing about living in Hawaii is that it helps you to prepare for bug encounters when visiting other tropical paradises in the world. Or not.

On a trip to Bali, after spending a week in Kuta partying my ass off I headed up to Ubud for some rest, a chance for my brain cells to dry out, and a few days of much needed relaxation. On my first day in town I checked out the main drag, spent some time at the market, and then had a late dinner before heading back to my hotel in the nearby village of Mas where I settled down in my bungalow’s sitting room to read for a while.

The hotel was a cool little property, a dozen or so two story cabins spread along a curving path in a jungle-like setting. In each bungalow, there was a sitting room and bedroom downstairs, and then another bedroom and a spacious lanai upstairs with private views over the surrounding rice fields. There was a Bali style bathroom downstairs too, and they got it right: the shower was outdoor in a private little grotto but the toilet and sink were inside. I’d already learned the hard way that Bali-style bathrooms with the toilet outside means spending your morning trying to take a dump while mosquitoes bombard you. Not the best way to start off a day.

The property was designed to provide peace and privacy, an oasis of tranquility from the heavily populated touristy areas of the island. There were no televisions or phones in the rooms. Concrete lined trenches snaked along the property’s exterior boundaries, paths for the hotel’s staff to use that, like with servants in Victorian times, kept the hired help out of view of the noble class. The architect of the place had gone to great lengths to provide a feeling that you had the island to yourself. Even the restaurant was laid out so that regardless of how many of your fellow guests showed up at the same time as you for breakfast, you’d have a quiet little oasis to sit in while you sipped your muddy Bali coffee and contemplated the start of your day.

The only good cockroach is a dead cockroach. But tread carefully, they are known to fake it in preparation of an attack!

That night, comfortably kicked back and absorbed in what I was reading, movement on the wall separating the room I was in from the bedroom caught my eye. A little bit of aloha transplanted to Bali’s tropical paradise: one of those huge damn cockroaches that are a part of daily life in the islands. I’d lived long enough in Hawaii to no longer panic when I spotted one of the creepy crawlers, but still got chicken skin, my atavistic senses coming alive. Non of the Buddhist ‘all life is precious’ crap, your only duty upon spotting a roach is to kill it. As quickly as possible.

When you are going to put an end to a cockroach’s miserable little life, you need to commit to it fully. You need to man up and let the testosterone flow freely within your veins. A halfhearted attempt ain’t gonna cut it. You need to bring the full force of your disgust, terror, and revulsion into play. A quick snap with a rolled up newspaper like you would employ swatting a fly will only tickle the thing. A slap instead of a splat will only serve to piss it off when it recovers. And then, .38 seconds later it will pull a kamikaze act on your head.

No, you need to find something heavy enough to pulverize its very existence into oblivion. And use enough force to smash its exterior skeleton so that its white maggot-like life force squishes out and leave a Jackson Pollock painting of reddish-browns and creams on the wall. Like with a good golf swing, you need to aim carefully, then allow your stroke to follow through past the ball. Your intent should not be to kill the cockroach but rather to destroy it and whatever surface it is crawling on, to send them both permanently into a whole different dimension. Preferably in a million pieces.

I carefully slid off of the couch I’d been laying on so as to not give the thing an early warning of its impending doom. Grabbing one of my hiking boots, a suitable weapon weighing a good ten pounds, I snuck up on the roach from its blind side, keeping an eye on its twitching antenna. If you are new to cockroach hunting, you need to watch those things. Sure their movement is spooky and you’d just as soon not allow those creepy antenna that seem to have a life of their own to work their magic on your psyche, but if they stop that’s a sign the critter is preparing its air assault and then you have to go feet-wet sooner than planned.

Lying in wait

I cocked back my arm, aligned my trajectory, and let fly. Thud. The walls shook. The bungalow swayed. The sound of my boot hitting the wall echoed through the property like an M80 going off in a coffee can. And I stuck the landing. Cockroach shit flew out from the heel end of the boot and a mixture of brownish-red exoskeleton and white crud oozed out from the other. Success. But the gods of Bali were not done fucking with me yet.

My award winning shot had also disturbed another guest of the bungalow. The – now dead and destroyed – cockroach had been hanging on the wall between the bedroom and sitting room, inches away from a set of drawn back curtains used to separate the two rooms. Along with roach guts, a humongous spider as big as my head came flying out when my boot hit the wall. It’d been hiding behind the drapes and my assault on the roach disturbed it. I’d never seen such a huge spider in my life. I’d seen puppies smaller than this thing. It wasn’t one of those massive bodied spiders like a tarantula, most of its size was its twig-like spindly legs. But it’s bright yellow body was longer than any local guy’s cock I’d picked up nightly back in Kuta.

It only hesitated out in the open for a quick second, just long enough for my goosebumps to get goosebumps while it decided whether or not to go on the attack. I obviously wasn’t a worthy enough adversary and it took off scurrying into the bedroom at the speed of sound. Or at least my screams of terror lasted longer than the time it took the beast to scuttle up the wall and dash across the ceiling into the next room.

Fight, flight, or freeze are the natural response options that have served humanity well over the centuries. Being in a state of hyperarousal keeps you safe and alive. The odds of winning when taking on a critter an eighth of my size were not stacked heavily enough in my favor, so ‘fight’ was out. Besides, what I really wanted to do was to dissolve into a ball of blubbering tears like a little girl. That’s your third response option that no one ever seems to mention. With no phone to call for help, and any staff members still awake in the middle of the night hidden away in their privacy trenches (no doubt giggling about the pussy-ass tourist scared of a little spider), I was on my own.

Yes, it is a popular photo op in Bali. No, even dead I wouldn’t let one get this close to me.

I could have done battle with the beast, I could have immediately checked out of my cool little bungalow and flew the town too. Instead, whimpering in fright and leaving the downstairs illuminated in case I was forced to go one-on-one with the critter, I ran upstairs, deciding that using the smaller, upstairs bedroom would be the better choice of valor. I turned on all of the lights in that room too, hopped into bed, and immediately got busy securing the mosquito netting that draped the bed – a feature I’d early assumed was for ambiance – by tucking it deep under the mattress around its entire perimeter, building a safe cocoon to protect me while I slept. Not that I did. My eyes were as wide open when the morning dawned as they had been once I had my fortress built.

I embraced the flee response option when the sun rose, heading out for what I am sure was the earliest breakfast the hotel had ever seen. Motioning the largest male employee over after being seated, I told him about the spider. His responding nod was nonchalant, news about a spider large enough to eat Tokyo a non-event in his life.

When I got to my next hotel in Sanur a few days later and had internet access again I used Google to find out just how dangerous that spider was, how quickly its murderous venom would take to kill you while you writhed in agony pleading for the gods to finish you off. No one seemed to agree on what to call it, most went with the rather non-threatening name of Wood Spider. What they were in agreement with was that its potent, neurotoxic venom, while not lethal, caused major pain and that its relatively strong jaws often left scars on its human victims. Knowing what it was doesn’t mean that I won’t freak out just as badly the next time I encounter one of those creatures, but next time I’m gonna kill the thing. And then feed it to the first cockroach I see.

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An Important Date In Hawaii

24 Friday Jun 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Hawaii, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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Money Matters

As the years pass I try to avoid becoming yet another grumpy old codger, complaining about the state of the world and telling one and all – or anyone who will listen – how much better things used to be. So I try to give today’s youth a break instead of shaking my head at their collective stupidity, lack of brains, and poor taste in music. We were all young once. And we all made mistakes. Some of us learned. Some of us continue to be as ignorant as we were at sixteen. And some of us still try to date eighteen-year-olds. But a rant about the kids of today, or about grumpy old farang, is not the purpose of today’s post. Instead I’ll share with you what I’ve always thought is a cute story about a friend of mine in Hawaii.

My buddy and running partner Dave, who you’ve met on these pages before, married a local girl in Hawaii, Kim. Who came complete with a ready made family. Which was cool by Dave since he got to avoid the joys of diaper changing. And the kids, his new family, had all reached puberty too, so he also got to avoid that whole mine field. But they were all still young enough they needed parental guidance, wise advise from an elder to help them learn how to deal with what the world might throw their way.

Growing up in the islands doesn’t exactly prepare you for the world beyond Hawaii’s shores. No problemo if you will live your life on Gilligan’s Island, there’s a built in fail safe community of friends and relatives. You need not master even the most basic of life skills, or even bother to learn simple English. Neither is required for a happy life in Hawaii. And that’s okay. A life spent in paradise is nothing to complain about. But if you want the opportunity of success outside of the Aloha State, a basic knowledge of how the world works is required. At the very least.

Dave took to his fathering duties with a passion. And he wanted his kids to have a chance at succeeding at whatever they desired to do in their lives. Having not had a father during their formative years, it was an up-hill battle. But he did his best, taking any and every opportunity to school them in the game of life. Kimo, the oldest boy, was a senior in high school. Good at athletics, popular with the girls, like a lot of local kids he spent most of his time at the beach waiting for the perfect wave. Off the beach, he had the intelligence level of a jellyfish. He may have mastered the difference between a green light and a red one, but that was about the extent of his knowledge of anything that did not have to do with the ocean.

Teenage guys have yet to perfect their sense of style, an accomplishment many guys never manage to master. That’s why so many straight guys are dressed by their wife. In Hawaii, kids live their lives in a pair of shorts. Occasionally a shirt gets thrown on if attending a dress-up affair. In Hawaii, it is quite possible to reach your senior year in high school having never even worn a pair of shoes. Kimo’s senior prom was coming up, he needed a tux, and Dave decided he’d help him and at the same time teach him how to go about choosing and renting one.

The selection process was going along fairly well. Just a minor glitch over Kimo not having brought a pair of socks along to try on shoes. But then being Hawaii, that wasn’t an uncommon obstacle and the tux rental store owner smoothed things over with a loaner pair. Being a teenager, Kimo kept trying on suits of various pastel colors. Dave, to his credit, let the kid exhaust his choice of blues and oranges before suggesting a rather boring black number. And then surpassed the efforts of most parents by getting Kimo to agree he looked a whole lot of a hell hotter in a classic tux than in the chartreuse one he’d been eyeballing. Senior Prom is a big thing in a kid’s life. Why parents allow their child to pick out an outfit that will cause years of embarrassment over their senior prom picture is beyond me. But maybe those years of embarrassment are a payback, so maybe that lack of direction makes sense. Not having kids I often forget one of the joys of parenthood is the psychological scars you can inflict on your offspring over the years.

Why do parents allow their kids to dress like this for their senior prom? Oh, right. So you can laugh at them for years to come.

After being measured for size and picking out a bit of bling to jazz up and personalize the staid tux, the store owner passed over the tux rental form for Dave to complete. That would have been the easy option, but Dave wanted Kimo to learn so he handed the form and a pen to the kid and let him take a stab at it. When Kimo finished filling it out he handed it back to Dave to check:

Name:
Yup, first, last, legible. Good job. So far, so good, and Dave was happy.

Address:
Numbers and letters, always a tricky combo, but again the kid did good.

Phone:
Wow! Cell and home numbers without being asked; damn this kid’s on fire!

Event:
Well, ‘Senior Prom’ was a bit generic, but this was Hawaii, from the zip code alone they’d know which school it was. So thumbs up again.

Date:
Leilani.

Lol. And he’d been doing so good! But ya know, there was some logic at work there. Dave corrected Kimo’s error and immediately began spreading what has always been one of my favorite stories. Kimo had a great time at his prom, I’m sure Leilani did too. I still see Dave and his family a few times each year. And whenever I see Kimo, I ask him for the date. And he always flips me off. How to handle a smart ass is something you learn at an early age, even in Hawaii.

Watching The Lava Flow In Hawaii, Or Stupid Touri Tricks, Part IV

01 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Hawaii, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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Stupid Tourist Tricks

Lava Meets The Sea In Hawaii

Perusing my old photo files, I ran across some from when I lived in Hawaii and was reminded of a cool experience I thought I’d share. See how your amusement is of untmost importance to me? Right.

So anyway, I was living in Hawaii Kai, as was my bro Dave (though a few miles apart) and my Dad and his wife came for a visit from Illinois. Dave and I switched off showing them the sights of the island. (Though the hours long trip through Kakaako looking for a beauty supply shop Dave’s wife could kinda remember probably wasn’t one of the highlights of their trip). Figuring I could do better, I suggested a day’s trip to the Big Island, Hawaii, to see the volcano. It’d been active for a few years and on TV they were reporting that the black sand beach (and neighboring town) of Kalapana was in danger of being overrun by lava

Off to the Hilo side, we rented a car and made a quick stop at a local dive for breakfast. My visitors were thrilled with the prices (had one price, five ‘meals’ to choose from). Personally, canned corn as an option at the salad bar doesn’t make me drool with anticipation. But being of mid-western stock, they were quite happy and suggested we return at the end of the day for dinner before heading back to O’ahu.

Somewhat sated, with me trying to comer up with a good reason we wouldn’t be able to have another meal at their new favorite restaurant, we drove up to the main touri area of the Volcanos National Park to see the visitor center and find out where the best viewing of the lava was. Coming out I got to experience a truly touri moment. The lot was filled with rental cars. Half of them were small white ones, just like ours. Good thing the key ring had a tag with the license number on it or this travel tale would end there.

Found the car and headed over to the Kona side of the park where the rangers had reported lava was entering the sea. Way cool. Got to the end of where you could drive your car only to discover you had to walk for a bit over an hour to get to the viewpoint. That’s over large, crumbly chunks of old lava. My Dad’s wife is not real good at walking on sidewalks, so rather than leave her there I suggested we try an end run back the other way to see if we, and the car, could get closer.

So we headed over to Kalapana. Just outside the town, lava had flown over the road. Several hours before we got there. A cop was manning the flow while the ranger who was suppose to be there went on break. We parked, maybe ten yards away from a thick finger of lava and walked up to the cop who was standing a foot or two away from the crusted flow. Asked him if we could get closer, and, well, like he cared. So closer we went.

The view between our feet

You could feel the heat and hear a low hissing as lava flowed under the cooled crust. The top was black, but fissured. And like stupid touri the world over, we totally forgot about safety and quickly climbed up on top of the flow. We could only stand there for a few minutes because the heat was so intense it was melting the soles of our shoes. But Dad and I perched atop the flow, staring down into orange-red cracks where you could see the lava slowly moving toward the sea. An incredible experience!

Wasn’t until we got back home and I was telling some friends about it that it dawned on me how really stupid that had been. My local friends looked at me like I was completely nuts when I told them. Mmmmm, let’s see: go stand on freshly cooled lava with the real stuff running just inches below your shoes . . . yep, real smart!

So the black sand beach at Kalapana is no more. The town too is gone. But thanks to some good karma, both my Dad’s and my feet are still with us . . .