> Actually, Thomas, you will probably find Maui fairly touristy, as
> well, although I have never been there.
We were there for a couple of days in passing -- Lahaina had all the same
tourist junk stores as everywhere else, but also a lot of artists galleries;
the back streets there were much nicer, though, it takes literally only one
block to get out of the grim bit..
Driving around the rest of the island, much less tourist activity -- to be
fair, we weren't really looking in the places they might have been, but it
was still very quiet, a completely different feel to Oahu. As per
recommendation in a guidebook, we went to Harold Rice park to watch the sun
set over the island into the ocean, and there was nobody but us and a few
local folks listening to radios and chatting. Beautiful view, too.
We didn't make it up Haleakala for the sunrise; we'd gone to the bargain
car rental place, and one of the conditions there was that you can't take
their cars up the crater. It's not the climb, it's people burning the brakes
out on the way down that they're worried about -- and as they wanted $29/day
for a car -vs- 149 for a jeep at the 'real' rental place that we _could_
take up the crater, it didn't seem like a good deal..
> I used to go to Ala Moana Beach Park almost daily, and frequently found
> myself alone or nearly so. I'm sure those days are long gone, as well.
It wasn't empty when we went there (as per your recommendation!), but it
was about 10 times emptier than Waikiki beach, and lovely white sand, too.
> The one place we usually avoided was Waikiki, except for going to
> entertainment events at the Shell in Kapiolani Park,
One thing about the park -- Kodak's luau is now no more; as of sometime in
oct/nov last year, they decided it wasn't worth their money and stopped
running it.
> During the day, Waikiki is tourist central. Pretty place (but
> dangerous) to stroll at night,
I dunno about that, I wandered around on my own up and down the beaches and
roads with no problems -- but then again, I look like a generic poor
backpacker rather than a wealthy tourist, so maybe am less worth mugging.
-- dan
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