Hawaii

Mahalo

2009-09-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

Just been told to leave by some apple lady. damn whore.

Leaving tomorrow.

With no slight exaggeration I can definitely say Hawai'i has changed my life. I'm incredibly happy, relaxed and healthy, plus I found out what Aloha really is and rather liked it!

The islands have been beautiful, truly. But nothing comes close to the friendships and opportunities I've come across, plus how much I've learnt about myself.

I'll be back, truly.

ALOHA!

Gnarly nights sleep

2009-08-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

Big island.

day1: argued with some hippy christians, got bother by some meth heads [having not washed my clothes for over a month was looking a little dishevelled, which for some reason homeless people and smackheads think you must be their friend because you smell like them. no].

night1: found myself a spot between a wall and a bush in a sort of disused industrial estate. woke up to two big [possibly] mexican boys arguing about 2metres away from me. there was no reason why anyone would come back in the bushes so i totally shat myself, they kept shouting at each other and say 'how much you want?' in english. i just kept my head down and some how they didnt see me. when they left i packed all my shit up and legged it down abit till i got a sweet spot under a tree. got to sleep and woken up by an alarm going off on one of the warehouses, 5mins later the police come and are checking all the doors. bit more scary and back to sleep. woken up a 3rd time by sprinklers. didnt get too wet so back to sleep. then woken up by epic jets of water soaking me to the fucking bone. cest la bastard.

day2: washed my clothes [and spent the rest of the day sniffing them in delight] and met a dude from the marshall islands, total legend and told me about an exchange program is country run where you go live there and teach english. might hit it. then got some awesome 90's short shorts and even better sunglasses [which i lost within a day [3rd pair so far]]. crusied around some super nice beaches and met a girl from cornwall with fake boobs.

night2: slept on supreme beach. good night if my toe hadnt been trying to explode.

day3: hospital. injections. puss. new toe. then went to see food inc at the local theatre. super good doc about the food we eat. a major must watch. checked into a hostel, the lady behind the counter told me to have a shower after being rather reluctant to let me in.

future: crusing. resting my foot. who knows.

xx

Have a nice day Pa'ia

2009-08-24T16:28:00.001-07:00

Well....
Leaving Pa'ia and the jungle tomorrow, its been my home for almost a month now and going to miss it like loosing a nose or a family member. Had so many amazing times over the past month with a fucking cool group of people. Our little gang of four will no longer be!
This weekend has been immense, had a true aloha friday with a really good party for a french girl who was leaving after 2yrs or something. Special highlight of 'I'm a vegan' after slapping my friend in the face with a hand full of ice cream [which came after the carrot cake fight]. Then bumped into matt and ashton and cruised to the beach for some naked hangover swimming and wrestling, trecked over to a beach where a volleyball / slip and slide party was going on. Took some rather lovely mushrooms, sat in trees watching volley ball [and the bark of the tree flow], sat in amazing fine white sand watching each others faces change colour and generally lounged. Ended up at a friends house, which we all marveled at, only to realise what massive hobos we had become, the sight of walls, cupboards [with things in] and clean floors just totally blew our minds. Spend the night chilling out and watching two friends trip balls on these blue shrooms they had [plus the biggest jar of bud Ive seen in my life].
Day after cruised to the birthing pools [some amazing warm rock pools by the sea surrounded by an almost lunar landscape of basalt and mud] and bumped into our yurt neighbours and their beautiful long blonde haired hippy kids. Got some supreme burn on my ass and thighs due to having a lack of clothes. Hung out, got high, swam, fought in the mud and played with the kids. Day ended with pizza and driving home whilst the sun set with 8 people in the car and everyone drumming on each other to beta band.
Sleep.
Big island awaits tomorrow. If all goes to plan i might even get on my flight.
Good night and good luck pa'ia.

Comando, comando, not that comando

2009-08-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

Did the gnarliest hike a few days ago. Comando hike - the true test of a hippy vagrant. Starts of hiking up through a stream, through a load of baobab trees making a true jungle gym until we hit a waterfall, only way up is to brace yourself between two super slippy walls and climb 20+ft to a ledge, real sketchy - you'd bugger yourself good and proper if you fell. one of the austrian couch surfer girls got the shakes half way up, was sure she would fall. all good though and we entered a cave [at which point we realised lights would have been a super idea. a few more tricky waterfalls to climb and got to a big circular domed room which we swam across to climb another sketchy waterfall [this time in the dark]. eventually got out the cave and a quick walk up a hill got us to a set of 3 jumps - 25ft, 50ft and 30ft [with rock danger bonus]. i had no interest what so ever in the 50ft one, probably doesn't need mentioning but it was fucking massive! but after the shaky austrian did it i had little choice [if i was to maintain my heroic image], after shooting fuuuuuck and plummeting i hit the water reeaal hard and the force of the water ripped my top lip up and gave me some rather excellent pink arms. quick jog back and mission accomplished. sort of. comando must be done comando. yet the austrians didn't seem that eager to take their clothes off.

in other news,

sort of intentionally missed my flight to big island yesterday and am staying another week on Maui.

did a cool trip to Haleakala crater [biggest dormant in the world] fucking amazing sight - saw the sun set and rise way above the clouds over a lunar landscape. then hitched to Hana and climbed a coconut tree.

worked yesterday for $135 and again tomorrow. bonus. true immigrant work force. run by a Czech with 2 Chileans, a Brazilian, a Hungarian, a welsh boy [only one whose legal] and a wonderful English gentleman.

Helloha!

Giggling tramps

2009-08-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

yesterday was odd. to the max!
started with 2 car chases with 14 pohleese cars in all razzing through paia. later found out that one of the cop cars totaled into a pt rental car, hopefully no one was hurt too bad.
then spent the day swimming and whittling, the cutest little girl came upto and asked what i was doing and showed her one of my finished sticks, she said it was awesome and i should sell them and trundeled off, looked up a few minutes later to find her lent right over me with a beaming smile and told me that i 'should really sell those, goodbye!' gave me a major grin for the rest of the day. then half hour later an old polynesian man tried giving me a dollar, i started giggling at him and he walked off bemused that i didn't want it. 2nd time Ive been mistaken for a homeless boy now. should probably wash my swim shorts, havent in 2months and they re getting slightly grubby.
off to hana in 5mins for the night and hopefully a cotch round the entire island next day.
its hot.

AWOHA!

2009-08-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Maharo!
last few days have been cool. lots of getting high whilst hitching and just high in general. lots of kindness too.
me and brooke headed into town with very few plans, ended up camping up the volcano with some stuff a really nice lady we hitched with lent us. what a king. amazing views at night with the sun setting, like watching it from a plane. ended up missing the boat trip which was fairly gash news but still had a roaring time! one the way down stopped at a cool little shop and bought the exact same type of journal i got in kathmandu a few yrs back, even had the same little note about how it was made. bonkers.
rest of the time has been some major chilling. /getting drunk
oh i tell a bloody lie. i totally did. for real. went surfing with kosharee [15yr old boy], yet only managed to get a sweet tan and bleeding nipples, beats standing up though. bullshit!
kosharee may have left us to go home today, yet we have a cool couch surfer at the mo and more arriving soon [there is no furniture let alone a couch in the yurt though so its more floor surfing one would assume]. so hopefully big party [mushroom based] and big hike [mushroom based] to follow i hope.
off to big island on the 18th then hopefully new york if i can get round to changing my flights or maui boat party.
Hurricane was supposed to hit today. rained abit this morning but pure sun at the mo. schmurricane.
Awoha

Best days of my life [so far]

2009-08-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

Wow. so where to start.
Currently hanging with some really cool people, started with being picked up by a lituanian guy [ernest], getting wasted with him and bumping into a welsh boy called matt, later seeing him hitching naked in the rain. went to a really cool belly dancing night then morning after cruised over to matts yurt in the jungle, got a ride with this mad man and got massively high with him and argued about the twin towers. then spent a very confused time in the rain trying to find this yurt. got to the yurt and met matts 15yr old house mate called cosharee [actual name - spelt massively wrong].

I'd like to apologise to my family in advance if theyre reading this.....

matts girl and her mate came round [really hot hippy blonde girls] and we all hitched to the beach to pick up chocolates full of mushrooms from this old hippy dude. got beers and hitched back and ate our chocs. came up super fast and super strong. we had loads of arts and crafts stuff and these disco lights. off my tits in a huge yurt, in the jungle, in hawaii, with people ive just met and a 15yr old boy. we just painted each others bodies, i made a hat, danced madly and just generally tripped to shit. it all ended with us all tangled up on a mattress just feeling the most loved up ever. Absolutely insanely amazing! never tripped so high and so well in my life

in the morning we all headed down to this beautiful pool that has an ace waterfall, all got naked and went for a swim and to shower off. went to ernest's, made pancakes and off the this beach, you walk around this rock to this stunning beach - was just full of naked hippies [and way too many gay old men], we got some fortified brownies, had a few pipes and body surfed whilst the sun set. man i couldnt have been a happier boy. not a chance. it got dark and these amazing fire dancers got going, a huge drum pit with at least 20 people had been going all day and just sounded amazing with the dancers. was time to head and we piled 8 of us into the car and drove back through the night, i had the biggest grin on my face. truly amazing.

theres a really cool community of vagrants and woofers of 20 somethings just bumming around and hanging out, such a cool atmosphere and everyones just super loving to each other. think im going to stick it out here for a while longer than i thought as doubt im going to be in such a great situation again. plus have a spot in the yurt and something going on with a little blonde hippy.

wow

2009-07-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

hello, how do you do?

been having a rather lovely time recently.
yesterday me and taj [a house mate] went fishing with bamboo sticks off the rock outside our house, taj got 3, laverick nil. then later we cooked them on a fire on the beach. just after our rather small fishy tea a big samoan boy picked us up in his truck and we went to his mates to drink kava [for non Samoans kava is a drink made from the root of a pepper plant, it tastes like dirty water with a hint of Cinnamon and is supposed to numb your body]. so we sat outside this house drinking kava out of a bucket with 3 vast Polynesian boys playing ukes and singing. pretty cool but the kava didnt really do a whole lot apart from make my legs abit numb.

went for some epic hiking a few days back, it followed the ridge of these mountains, only problem was the ridge was around 2ft wide with 2000+ft drop on either side. parts of it turned into rock climbing than an actual walk and took over 5 hours. about 3/4 of the way through i heard a massive scream and turned around to sea david dragging hannah to the ground. turned out she had reached for a branch that bent or broke and was about to fall several thousand feet off the ridge. pretty dodge. the plan was to hit up 2 other hikes [one with a 50ft waterfall to jump off] but just went home with jellied legs.

off to maui on tues then hopefully big island, back here and ny for a few days. also need to tan my chops off.

p p p pounders

2009-07-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

word up.
off to the beach in abit with some chums, later tonight off to honolulu to try and get tickets for MGMT who are playing there tonight. rather excited!
last few days have been mint, staying in a place on the northish shore called la'ie with some guys i met on the kalalau trail. we cruise around all day going to beaches, snorkel and body surf and generally jest around to the max!
yesterday got up at 3am to do this hike called stairway to heaven. over 4000 steps and 8,000ft up. i have a mint arse from all that exercise [and rather sore knees]. its sort of illegal to do it so we had to climb over some wire fences then follow a little path under the freeway. its a residential area where you go in and all the neighbours get majorly cheesed, we found out why after we set off a load of dogs barking and a cockrel crowing at about 4am. started off the steps to some major leg burn and dodgey belly but made it to the 1st platform to see the sun rise, yet when we got to the top it was cloudy and couldnt see a think. the top of it has some old abandoned WWII buildings with 2 huge dishes on top, it was used for submarine communications apparently. met some old dude up there who was telling us the US army hired a swiss mountaineer to blaze a route up which took him 3weeks then they put in the stairs and then brought up winches and concrete. must have been the worst job ever, huge huge drops on either side of ridges only a few ft wide and most of the climb almost vertical. walk down was abit dodgy in places where you could just see the ground thousands of ft below and just a little metal rail keeping you up!

other than that mainly been hanging out. been really cool living with the boys. theres about 7 or 8 people in the house, all of them mormon. all of them totally altered my perception of mormons. most of them here are really open minded, none judgemental and up for discussing everything. none of them drink, do drugs, have sex, smoke or drink caffeine which at first sounds super boring, yet when you actually get to know them and hang out its pretty obvious that not having those things doesn't stop you having fun at all and that missing booze and drugs actually makes people more up for doing varied and interesting things.

oh new favourite thing is pounders beach. its a beach just down from here where the waves smash you up pretty good. we've been going there to body surf and muck about. so much sliding down the side of a wave then getting barrelled and smashed up and spun upside down underwater. ace!

oh some women drove her car off a cliff into the sea at the end of the road we're on. pretty sad. pretty mental.

Whats Serbia?

2009-07-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

Its a country darling.
got a lift from some right daft americans on their honeymoon. she was classic. as rebhead would say she didn't know 'shit about fuck'. spent the day cruising round and getting high. was fairly nice, although several times thought 'wow glad im not driving right now', only to realise that the guy driving had smoked a fair amount more than me. doesn't do much for your paranoia.
Final night [hopefully] of sleeping rough. got myself a sweet beach for tonight though.
got stuck with this mental on the bus. he wouldn't shut up about his time in nam and then started on some rant about the benedictine monks started out and how they were all screwing each other and something to do with sparrows. the bus driver ended up stopping the bus and telling him to pipe down. i was also given a fairly comprehensive guide to what i should have in my bag, i doubt i'll be taking too much notice of the advice since the man who gave it had several large holes in his face.
this library is amazing. 4 computers, always being used by old hippy guys looking up recipes on turnips and stinking the place out. yesterday i walked out to find a cockerel standing on the handlebars of a bike, turned out to be someones pet who rode it round like that. pictures to follow....

Just life changing facts. Thats all.

2009-07-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

Fact 1) Kauai has the wettest place on earth.

Fact 2) Kauai also has the 9th driest place on earth.

There.

Tried hitching to Waimea canyon today. Currently stuck in Waimea as no one will pick me up on the canyon road. It seems to be only Hawaiians [who aren't too keen on howlies [white people]] or tourist [who are scared of anyone who isn't wearing a porter's outfit] driving by, so hit up the library since the town is a dump.

Last night got back to Hanalei with a ride with some dude who rattled off the same old fox news esque scare bullshit about how i'm going to be murdered by ice heads, beaten to death by locals or raped by chickens [there are chickens everywhere on this island all of which are fairly sexually aggressive to white guys]. Doesn't do much for a great nights sleep.

Met a guy on the beach playing hackysack, he was a massive hippy but was cool so i joined in. he was dead cool yet totally bonkers, probably the most intense man ive ever met. kept telling me about all the energy flowing from kauai, mother earth, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. gave me a hackysack though so sound.

this morning went to catch the bus, my 'hi, mind if i sit here?' got me the rather curt response 'we aloha here' from this hippy wench with massively hairy armpits. she then turned away to teach her kid some hippy mumbo jumbo about how you should love people and the energy it gives to them.

Bitch.

Ended up talking to her and she was fairly nice, although insisted on getting into energy, 2012 [for those of you who don't stink, think hemp is the shit or tie-die every last item of clothing 2012 has apparently been mentioned by loads of ancient civilisations as a time when something majors going to happen. loads of people over here are obsessed with it. seems to involve a lot of energy and long meaningless words to do with collective consciousness and the west being a complete bastard [just more facts there]].

seem to have got to that stage in my trip where i begin to hate the contents of the country im in. at least this time i can avoid being too racist.

one thing that did brighten up my rather soured mood today was this cheeky little number sported by a rather rotund gentleman on the bus. we'll show the Taliban who's more militaristic ey?

vow of poverty

2009-07-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

well. spent yesterday faffing. today isnt too much different.
hitched back to hanalei [my new bedroom], sat down with some boy who was passionate about plants and as a result massively boring. he had some shit tat on his leg saying 19?6, it was meant to challenge our ideas about what time we were living in. he also had a tash and faux nerd glasses. twerp.
then hoiked my crap to my usual spot and bumped into a seemingly cool hippy lady. she turned out to have no teeth and be mad. took a vow of poverty after being raped by a satanic cult. now was homeless in hawaii and studied the scripture and kept an eye out for sinning and the devil. she was fairly mad, kept ranting about sin, gods, bastard christians, wicked morals. buzz kill to say the least. pretended to go to the toilet and legged it. the prospect of waking up to a tramp with rotting gums doing some ritual on my tent didn't bode well for a good nights sleep.
today i tried to hitch to Lihue [main town on kauai], made a trusty 'i have chocolate sign', only to find out that tourists have no sense of humour and rude boys find it a good reason to threaten to rob me. caught the bus. turns out theres fuck all in Lihue. apart from wallmart [which will only sell dried fruit if it contains 90% chocolate drops [fat bastards]].
so ye getting abit of island fever. been here 3weeks or something now though so maybe time to move on. planning on doing some volunteer work in oahu. not sure what with but should be a good way to meet people. sitting on a beach surrounded by american sales execs fiddling with their 'cells' or trying to escape mad bums isn't.

festival of cheese

2009-07-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

hello!

for anyone without facebook [ie mother] you can get my photos here

yesterday ended riding in the back of a pick up truck with my 3 new american chums, sun setting over the mountains, wind in our hair and the biggest grins on our tanned / muddy faces. ace.
spent 5days on the kalalau trail, an 11 mile hike along the most beautiful coast line ive ever seen. also some of the most dangerous.

spent the 1st day hiking on my own, then bumped into 3 american boys [one of who asked me if id heard of chorley, turns out he used to hang with my friend from college little sister. mad.] and camped with them on the 1st beach, on the 2nd day we hiked to the final beach, alot of it was fairly hard work, hiking up and down the switchbacks, some of it was super dangerous too, about 1km of it was 1 to 2ft wide with an almost vertical thousand ft drop down to the sea and a cliff on the other side. pretty scary.

the beach we got to was amazing, proper little community living in tents, stunning waterfall to shower in, perfect sea and impossibly gorgeous mountains right behind. the next day we swum about 15mins round a headland to this beach you can only reach by swimming, was so so stunning, no way i can possibly explain how good it was, huge 1000+ft wall of rock over hanging on 1 side, turquoise ocean, little crabs hunting in the surf and a huge arch through to another beach. all totally deserted. swim back was a little scary as the sea picked up and im not the strongest swimmer. clearly didnt die though. sound.

that night i had a smoke with this guy ryan we were hanging with, fairly sure there isnt a better place to get high, just sat round the camp fire on the beach gazing at the stars and moon silhouette the incredible mountains. the moon made life a little tricky though. as i went to go piss in the sea i came across this mad change in tone of the sand. it was bright white, i couldnt work out whether it was the sea, foam, aliens or drug induced stupor. i stood there for a fair while not quite sure what to do. turned out to be the moon. i turned out to be quite high and stupid.

day after we hiked up into the valley, it was vast, all terraced using the huge basalt rocks to build walls, was apparently inhabited by 10,000 hawaiians some time ago, now all the terraces they used to grow taro in has turned to Forest / jungle. we picked loads of guava, mango and oranges from the trees and found wild ginger to make tea with. pretty ace.
met a dude on the way out who was kayaking around with a hammock and some rice and swede, he for sure had the life.

not sure what the crack is now. have plans for deep sea fishing with my $600 i earned. flying to Oahu to hang out with the trail boys. then who knows. surfing i hope.

booom!

2009-06-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

right this is super fast, my teas about ready. basically currently living in a mansion with tom and keyuko [or something] theyre paying me $15 per hr for doing random jobs. hes a fairly famous carpenter and has been in stuff like the LA times and made loads of stuff for JR in dallas and rock hudson. he also does some amazing sculptures.

oh so more time, theyve gone to see some terrible movie and ive got the house to myself, sound!
so ye ive landed on my feet massively! i get fed some really good food, theyre both really interesting and open minded and seem to quite like me. not sure how long im going to stick around for - defo till sunday but then they move house so i might just use their place to stash my stuff whilst i go on this big old trek you can do round the coast.

oh ye the guy im stoppin with originally trained to be a doctor at some really good uni but his dad left his ma and so he had to drop out and provide for his mum and shit so he turned to be a carpenter and seemingly got pretty good. his house is amazing, full of loads of carvings and skulptures and mad old furniture hes made.

so so glad i chose to run away from the grotty farm!

will try and get a photo of this house at some point

oh ye we have some mormons or general bible bashers coming round tomorrow - tom invited them, not because he's religious but because [he quoted some mad old mexican dude who taught him all him carpentry skills] 'every man's head is its own world'. so he just wants to chat to them to find out more about different people, thats pretty much why hes putting me up.

spent today about 2 or 3 stories up sweeping some leaves off a roof, fairly scary and nearly fell off twice. shit my pants. then went to his new house in the mountains to set up this mint bose stereo and dug a big old trench. day off tomorrow then on friday we're clearing a trail from his mountain house down to the river with some machetes and a chainsaw. coool. this money should buy me a second hand board. hopefully.

sweet love

xx

ch ch ch changes

2009-06-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

well hello. i hope you will all be suitably appalled with my terrible grammar and spelling.

in the library in kapaa, slept on a school playing field lastnight in the hills, was going to hitch back to hanalei [where i left my main bag in a bush yesterday] but was pitch black and didnt fancy my chances. had spent the day with this american lady driving around the island as she was looking to move out here. she was pretty cool and gave me loads of nuts. sound.

farming is out the window, pure slave labour. went to this farm a few days back which sounded really interesting, yet got there and it was a total dump, plus he wanted 20hrs a week for a shit camping space, yet on a plus side we could eat all the farm produce - only problem was that he only had 1 patch of lettuce growing. he was a bit of a gimp too, think my 20hrs would have included a good proportion of him trying to bugger me. also the 2 other guys working there were just like lost hippies with half a brain cell between them. brill.

however i met this old man whilst i was getting lost trying to find the farm, he said if the job didnt work out he'd employ me for a few days helping him move house, so i gave him a call and i'm meeting him tomorrow if all goes to plan. hes starting this woodwork buisness with this really cool asian guy who gave me a ride to the farm so i'm going to try and wangle a few hours of helping out there in exchange for a garden to pitch my tent.

currently camping on the beach for the most part, it was all good for the 1st few days since i met a sound young american couple who were here from honolulu for a hike and found this dead secluded bit of the beach. yet a few days back we bumped into a ice head [for you white guys whats someone who enjoys crystal meth] he looked like a fucking zombie, like actually something from resident evil, was pretty scary, he kept grunting really angry at us, we managed to escape but on the way back to the tent jonathon and amy decided to tell me stuff about iceheads in hawaii, apparently last yr one stole a tiny kid from a garden and threw it off an overpass onto the freeway. i slept like a goddamn log that night for sure. jesus!

[i'm also reading cather in the rye and wishing a spoke like him]

all is good so far [apart from my tent leaks], meeting some really cool people and got some plans in the pipeline but 3months is seeming like a pretty long time. hopefully getting a surf lesson in in the next few days, going to buy myself a board but need somewhere permanent to stay, lugging my 2bags [which are a pain in the arse already] and a 9ft board around wouldnt be the biggest buzz.

im brown and stink. [you cant wash me rebhead, sorry]

yes, hello

2009-05-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

word up, nothing here yet, just the stench of procrastination.
keep posted for further thrills etc