Kauai

Photo by David Lansing.

Just down the road from the Hanalei Colony Resort is the Wainiha General Store which has quite a reputation in the area. I’ve stopped in a couple of times to grab some bottled water or dried coconut and never had any problems, but others tell a different story. The store is owned by a petite woman from Texas who some say is a very nice lady and others claim is a bit crazy. There are tales of her chasing people out the door, ranting and raving at them, and even flipping people off. Others say she’s quite friendly.

It’s almost like we’re talking about two different people here, and maybe we are. Maybe two women work in the store and one is the kindly old lady who always waves and says Mahalo when you leave and the other is a batshit crazy loon who throws change at you while cursing to the heavens.

There’s a Wainiha local who has a blog site called Wainiha Nation and he writes odd tales of the area, including stories about the store which, he says, “is the epicenter of all mischief and the magnet of all trouble in the little village of Wainiha. When you roll down the Wainiha Grade, and cross the first little bridge into town, the very thing that catches your eye like an object of terrible fascination is the Wainiha General Store and a surfboard just beyond that warns you that this is your Last Chance. I would like to place an addendum under that sign that reads Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. It is here that you will find the entrance to the Underworld.”

He goes on to say that the store is run by three women who “all look exactly alike and you never know which one you are dealing with.” It’s all written very much tongue-in-cheek. Then again, maybe he’s on to something. Maybe the store truly is owned by a woman with multiple personalities who, as one person told me, “has some major issues.” Fortunately for me, every time I’ve gone in, I’ve been greeted by the nice lady. The one who smiles when she takes your money and says Have a nice day when you leave. But I can’t say for certain that the other two women, who look exactly like her, don’t work there as well. In any case, I’m just glad I haven’t run into them. Yet.

Photo by David Lansing.

At the Starbucks closest to where I live the barristas have taken to glueing down their plastic tip jar because twice in the last year thieves have just walked off with it. So it amazes me to see all these little roadside stands selling backyard fruits—avocados, mangos, strawberry guava—on the honor system. Yesterday I stopped at a stand selling bouquets of ginger plants and bird of paradise that had a little woven basket in front with a handwritten sign that said “Please Make Your Own Change.” In the basket was fifteen or twenty dollars. This on an island where every beach has multiple signs posted warning you not to leave anything of value in your car.

This got me to thinking about the trouble I’ve been in with the Hindu gods ever since I took a couple of forbidden photos of the temple at the Kauai Hindu Monastery. Maybe there was another way to appease Ganesha and his pals. Afterall, what you’re supposed to do for the Remover of Obstacles is leave an offering of fruit or flowers for him before you visit the temple so why not visit a roadside fruit stand and make my own little offering?

So this morning I pulled my car over on to the side of the road in front of a modest little house with a broken down trailer in front of it that somebody had modified into a fruit stand. In the back of the trailer was a wooden cabinet, covered with corrugated tin, that said FRUITS and beneath that a sign with an arrow pointing to a little slot that said DONATION and leaning against the trailer was another sign that said GOD BLESS U.

Perfect, yes?

There wasn’t much in the way of fruit at the fruit stand—five or six avocados and some past-their-prime papayas. But I didn’t care because I didn’t really want the fruit. On an envelope from my hotel I’d written FOR GANESHA and inside I put a five dollar bill and slipped it through the donation slot. And left. With just one of the avocados. Hoping I’d finally appeased the gods.

An outrigger canoe on the Hanalei River. Photo by David Lansing.

Years ago—like in the early 90s—I paddled a kayak up the Hanalei River. Back then, there was just this one little guy from Hanalei who had a handful of rentals and he’d hang out at the beach by the pier and for a few bucks he’d let you take out one of his sit-on-tops. I remember spending about an hour or so paddling back to a little fern grotto at which point the river became too shallow and narrow to go any further. Not once did I see another person on the river that day.

Now there are all kinds of vendors in Hanalei where you can rent kayaks, outriggers, aqua cycles, and stand-up paddle boards. There are a couple of vendors right along the highway as you’re driving into Hanalei and a couple more down by the pier. I thought about taking a kayak out one morning but changed my mind after watching a guide try to give paddling instructions to a dozen Japanese tourists who obviously didn’t speak any English. Since the river is so narrow, the idea of fighting my way through the throngs of kayakers getting their first lesson seemed less than inviting.

Instead, I went over to the Dolphin restaurant, which is right on the banks of the Hanalei River, and had some fresh ahi poke and a local beer. I sat at one of the outside tables, munching on my poke and watching the river enthusiasts slowly pass by. Sometimes it’s mo’ bettah, bro, to stay on the bank and just watch the river go by.

The zen temple near Hanapepe. Photo by David Lansing.

Driving from one end of Kauai to the other (several times), I’ve noticed three things: One, there is a lot of road construction going on, which makes driving particularly miserable; two, there are lots of honor-system fruit and flower stands along the highways (more on that later), which is kind of cool; and, three, there are a shitload of churches on the island.

If you Google “churches Kauai,” as I just did, you’ll discover that there are anywhere from 82 to 101 churches on the islands (either some people can’t count or they simply don’t count certain types of churches; for instance, none of the lists I looked at included the temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery where I got in so much trouble last week).

A couple of things about the lists of churches that interested me: There is only one Mormon church (and aren’t they supposed to be the fastest growing religion in the world?) but there are ten Catholic churches (aren’t they declining?). There’s a Bahai church, two Charismatic churches, and nine Buddhist temples or missions. So I guess the Buddhists are kicking the Mormons asses. At least on Kauai.

One of the most intriguing churches to me is the Soto Zen Temple near the turnoff to Hanapepe. I keep driving by it so yesterday, after hanging out at the nearby salt ponds, I stopped by. It’s a very intimidating place. For one thing, you never see anyone on the grounds. It’s like a ghost temple. For another, there are all these signs and chains and traffic cones warning you not to go on the property. I mean, they don’t want you getting within a hundred yards of the place. Which just seems so un-Zen-like, don’t you think? Of course, despite all the signs advising me to stay away, I crawled over the chain guarding the driveway to take a picture of the temple. I hope this doesn’t get me into trouble with Buddha or his pals.

Me holding a handful of sacred salt from the Salt Ponds. Photo by David Lansing.

Two years ago when I was on Kauai I spent an afternoon at the salt ponds near Hanapepe and got lucky when I met a family that was working their pond, which had been handed down from generation to generation, who was generous enough to offer me a bag of just-harvested sea salt which I took home with me. Well, that bag of salt is long gone so one of the things I wanted to do last weekend was go back to the salt ponds and see if I could get lucky again.

At the salt ponds, the ocean water passes through salt water aquifers that feed wells called punawai. From here the water is either pumped or, using buckets, carried into ponds that are like shallow bath tubs, called wai ku (literally “water standing”) shaped by hand into the red clay soil. For several weeks the water is allowed to evaporate until a slushy layer of crunchy salt crystals form. This is then slowly raked into big mounts before being collected in 5-gallon buckets.

But the most interesting thing about all this is that this isn’t a commercial operation. In fact, it’s illegal to sell Kauai’s sea salt because Hawaiians have always considered it a gift from the sea (that said, it can be bartered). The other cool thing is that only a handful of locals—families who have been farming the sea salt for many generations—are allowed to work the salt ponds. In short, this is kind of like a sacred area (after the salt has dried, a small percentage of it is mixed with red volcanic soil, usually from secret valleys inland, and that red salt, called alaea, is considered sacred and is used for healing remedies that call for purification ceremonies. The alaea Hawaiian red sea salt you pay a fortune for at your local gourmet store is a commercial product that has nothing to do with the actual harvesting of Hawaiian sea salt).

The salt ponds, which are adjacent to Salt Pond Park, one of the best snorkeling beaches on the island, are marked off by green wind fences but that doesn’t keep tourists from just wandering in and sticking their hands or feet in the ponds which, as you can imagine, sort of drives the Hawaiian saltmakers crazy. It’s like having a vegetable garden where people come in off the street to squeeze your tomatoes.

Anyway, when I got to the salt ponds there was only one family out there raking the salt. Which didn’t really surprise me since the salt is generally only harvested during the summer months when the intense sun quickly evaporates the water in the ponds. I explained to a young guy out there working with his auntie that I’d been here two years ago and “Dwight” had given me a bag of salt to take home and how I’d really cherished that salt but unfortunately it was now all gone.

“Oh, you know Dwight?”

“Yeah. He’s the guy that gave me the salt.”

“You want some more?”

“Man, I would love that.”

And so the guy gave me a small bag of salt. True aloha spirit.