Road to Hana - Jan. 10th, 2007

The Road to Hana (or Hana Highway) on Maui's north east shore is perhaps the closest thing to a highway to Heaven as you'll ever find. The Road to Hana is 52 miles of undeveloped road that passes by some of the most breath-taking scenery on the face of the earth. It was literally a million years in the making. It's not a journey for those in a rush. With beautiful stops and sights, 56 one-lane bridges, and 617 curves & turns along this scenic route, it's the journey getting there, not the destination, that is the main attraction. We bought a CD from Wal-mart, which cost $15.99. If you buy it from other tourist places, it generally costs $24.99. Tourists are supposed to play this CD or cassette in the rental car on the way to Hana. It tells you all the points of interests on the road.

Of course, on this first day in our trip that we planned to do something on our own, it started to rain continuously. Biajee and I got used to that. Whenever we decided to go out and enjoy nature, we were always blessed by rainy or snowy weather. This has been true in our Canadian road trip to Banff National Park, Lake Louise and Glacier National Park. We've camped in high winds and rain in South Dakota as well.

As you may tell from the rainy pictures of the Road to Hana and Hana beaches, the heavenly road is still spectacular even in rain.

The plants we saw on the roadside were all sugar canes. Maui provides one-tenth of sugar supply for the United States. Biajee and I were both bitten by mosquitoes when we stopped at a trailhead to rest. The mosquitoes in Maui are much bigger, uglier and more deadly than those in Alaska. They wouldn't take off once they land on our skin. At first, I thought they were flies, but Biajee confirmed that they were mosquitoes after killing a few of them.

We visited a lava cave right before we enter the little sleepy Hana town. We were given torches to go in and look at the enormous subterranean lava tube.

Lunch was at the Hana Maui Hotel. There were not many lunch places in Hana at all. I picked the hotel because I'm tired of cold sandwiches. We've been eating junk for lunch ever since we arrived at Maui. We had fresh squeezed ginger carrot juice with Tofu hotpot and Mahi-mahi salad. Arnold was fed some Tofu soup and solid food as well. The view of the hotel restaurant was serene and enchanting, offering a tranquil escape from real life. We are speculating that Arnold may want to have his honeymoon here in future, but we would buy them plane tickets to fly to Hana directly so that he doesn't have to go through the dangerous and exhausting drive.

There was 3 miles of dirt road if we drive the round trip circling East Maui. Biajee was all prepared for it although the rental car company told him not to take the Impala to dirt road. We took some pictures on the best beaches of Hana in rain while Arnold was sound asleep. When we were ready to bump through the dirt road, we found that it was closed due to the rainy weather. It must be a lot worse than the dirt road we encountered in Alaska. Biajee couldn't drive at that time. I had to suffer 14 hours drive to get to our hotel in Wrangle St. Elias National Park.

We visited the only store in Hana town, the Hasegawa General Store. We bought two packs of playing cards and a mosquito repellent spray. They also sell T-Shirts with "I survived the road to Hana". Biajee thought it was more important to drive the road than to own the T shirt.

We had to turn back and set off for our hotel in Kahului before dark. Arnold was crying because of hunger. We weren't able to do anything while one side was mountain and the other side was cliff and the ocean. There was nowhere to pull over and feed him. The cars behind us were following closely. For a few moments, I almost thought we couldn't survive the rugged shoreline.

We got back safe and sound. I had to admit Biajee is a super driver, much better than me. I would have cursed and lost my temper and ruined the whole day. All he did was to fall into bed and snore after we settled in the hotel.