Blog Archives

Chomi in Yosemite

Posted on January 3, 2008
by


December 23. The winter moon, full and bright as day, is still riding high as Chomi and I set out for Yosemite National Park. Over time, I’ve become accustomed to making a day trip out of a visit to Yosemite National Park. Most visitors have not the time for an extended stay there or are older or not capable or interested in the physical activity of hiking or camping; in Chomi’s case, it was because Shanthala would be alone at home since she couldn’t accompany us. I like to leave by 6 AM for a return around 7 PM. My part time job allows me to make the trip on a weekday which cuts out the crowds in summer. The visit is only of the Yosemite Valley with a possible hike to Mirror Lake, time to wander about and explore the meadows and take lots of pictures. I also take them to Glacier Point in summer but venture only till Tunnel View point in winter. I prefer to go when snow on the ground in winter. Most visitors we’ve taken have not seen snow before in their lives and having Yosemite be the place where they experience snow for the first time intensifies the experience, catapulting it into one of life’s most memorable moments.

I’ve tended to take Rte 120 to the Big Oak Flat Entrance to the valley after initially going via Rte 140. I get to the park entrance in about three and a half hours or at most four, if we stop for a longer breakfast. Like a tour operator, I’ve worked everything out for maximum efficiency. Breakfast is at a Starbucks cafe in Oakdale, lunch is pizza at Curry Village or packed lunch at the picnic benches near Swinging Bridge, coffee just before we start back and a stop at Oakdale again if it’s an older crowd that can’t deal with a non-stop four hour drive. I found that going to Glacier Point (and Tunnel View) first saves time. I don’t usually stop at Bridal Veil Falls unless the folks are waterfall nuts.

In winter, the sun doesn’t rise until 7 or 7:30 in the morning and as we drove over the East Bay towards Livermore, we watched the sun first peek over the horizon, throwing its orange blaze out in a most distracting way. Anjani Thomas is crooning “Every night she comes to me, I cook for her, I pour her tea, She was in her thirties then, Made some money, Lived with men”. The song is perfect. The winter sun also casts a much more beautiful light than its summer sibling. Driving through the Central Valley is typically the most boring part of the drive, you’re either driving through farm lands or through barren, brown hills, all in an insufferable heat. Since the sun rises much later in winter, the gentle glow of sunrise still lights the landscape, rendering it in pastel colors that makes the lights in the farm houses look warm and inviting, the hills take on an attractive golden color and the brown earth look rich and life-giving. I watch the families come out, dressed in their Sunday church dress, heading for the morning mass, some walking quickly to the cars to escape the cold while others shuffle calmly on.

I had little sleep the previous night as I’m a late sleeper and so the coffee at Oakdale is a welcome break. Since I really need my coffee, I’m picky about stopping at any restaurant. Something about American coffee makes it bitter and tasteless in most places, so unlike coffee everywhere else including Canada. So, it has to be Starbucks for me as it is the only coffee I can be sure of in a strange town. The things we do to encourage large corporations and deter small family establishments.

The Starbucks store in Oakdale is like any other Starbucks store. On one of the walls is some writing. “Sip, sigh, stay, be”, it said. We made it nothing more than a pit stop, a place halfway between home and stunning granite. “What does the coffee feel like ?” the writing continued. “‘It feels like home’, he replied”. It didn’t feel like home to me. The store has no toaster to brown the bagels and so we eat some muffin and banana nut bread along with coffee. Since it’s just the two of us, breakfast is a quick affair and we’re out in fifteen.

The drive from Oakdale to Yosemite Park Entrance is beautiful today. The coffee has made me alert and I focus on the road while stealing quick glances at the attractive countryside. The storm the past week had dumped enough snow in Yosemite, I had found out. We were carrying snow chains as was mandated during a winter visit, but I hoped that I wouldn’t be asked to use them. I had made plans with Silvano to use their four wheel drive if chains were required. No chains were required, I was told at the entrance, but it was very slippery and icy and so was asked to go very slow. I do that, not going over 20-24 mph as we drive over a road icy and not entirely snow free.


Once we get past the high point of Rte 120 at about 6200 feet and start descending, the road starts to clear up. There’s hardly anybody on the road. Construction work along the initial part of the drive from Crane Flat has forced a one-lane road with traffic lights to ensure that traffic is moving in a single direction. This and the snow covered pullouts prevent us from stopping by the snow covered Merced river and snapping some pictures. That has to wait till later.


Chomi is like a kid in a candy store. His eyes wide open, a big foolish grin hanging from his face as he looks at his first snow. The snow has hardened and so is easy to walk over. When I brought his parents many years go, it was winter too, but the snow had freshly fallen and was still very powdery. His parents acted like little children, gathering the snow, tossing it in the air, walking in it and wanting to be in it as much as possible, despite the cold and their sensitivity to such temperatures. When we first stopped at the first lookout on Rte 120 from where El Capitan and Half Dome are visible, Chomi can hardly hold himself. He takes some pictures, but seems more interested in just being there, eventually surrendering all photography to me as he enjoys himself.


The first closeup view of El Capitan always ensures an enormous jaw drop and viewing the largest granite face in the world, the reaction is no different this time. It was also the first place to get into the snow, in the snow covered meadows that surround the base of El Cap. I’ve come to Yosemite so many times, but the magic of the place never fails to charm me.


This year, I came first early in spring when the spring melt was quite significant and all the waterfalls were roaring. I even saw Ribbon Falls for the first time in all my visits to the park. I also saw a bear and two cubs for the first time in Yosemite. When I visited with my parents later in the summer, the scenery was a little different again and I got to see a bear even more closely than before. I have come to Yosemite about four times before in winter, but the last time was about three years ago, the memory has waned a bit. I’m charmed all over again, as if it’s the first time. While I snap away, Chomi wanders away and eventually has to be called back with some rather frantic shouting.

We stop by at various places along the way, taking time to walk in the snow and just soak up the atmosphere. I spot a bird, looking cute and cuddly, ducking and walking in the water. After some research on the web, I determine that the bird is the American Dipper and is rather well loved and popular. It’s not hard to see why.



We have an early lunch to beat any crowds that might show up. The pizza at Curry Village is quite decent and we had one with banana peppers and onions. By now, more cars have started trickling in. Afternoons I feel so sleepy that I need another shot of caffeine to make the drive back safe. As I pay for the Frappuccino, the store clerk asks me if I was having it to stay alert on the drive back. I said yes. He then advises me to consume it at least a half hour before we start our drive back. He recounts his story of how he once switched to some other caffienated drink over coffee to stay awake, had fallen asleep at the wheel and wrecked his car though he managed to survive, nary a scratch. William Dement, the father of sleep medicine, talked about the dangers of driving when sleep deprived and says that its more common than DUI. The famous crash of Exxon tanker at Valdez in Alaska a few years ago was also caused by a sleepy captain. Having had difficulty obtaining good coffee along the way till Oakdale, I purchase the Starbucks Frappuccino that is sold in most places today.



We drive back to the entrance leisurely, stopping at every possible point to snap some pictures or admire the scenery. For the first time, I also notice two beautiful pieces of rock, that I later discover as the Cathedral Spires.


I find it hard to ask Chomi to hurry as he lingers, but time is fleeting and I want to be down at the base of the hills, past Groveland and as close to Oakdale as possible before dusk. I don’t like driving in the dark down narrow, winding roads. The snow has melted sufficiently from the roads and the snow clearing machines are also operational, making the drive back much more faster. As we drive back, more cars are heading into the park and Chomi remarks that he is glad to have enjoyed the park with so few people. Fleetwood Mac is singing “I didn’t believe the ways of magic, but I have a feeling its time to try”.

The drive back is uneventful. A full winter moon keeps us company again. We pull into the garage by 6:30 PM or so, to the closing strains of Mark Knopfler’s Boom Like That. Chomi is still wide-eyed.

Leave a Reply ?

To Big Sur With Chomi

Posted on December 31, 2007
by

Chomi and I drove down to Big Sur on the 21st. Big Sur is one of the main stops in the little tourist itinerary that Shanthala and I put together for any friend or family who’s visiting us, San Francisco and Yosemite National Park being the other two. If you’re not a nature lover and would prefer to see architecture and art, then we’d probably be poor companions though we’ve been to a few of the museums in ‘Frisco. We’re both followers of Byron’s line “I love not man the less, but Nature more”. Big Sur is one of the most dramatic confluences of sky, sea and mountains that I’ve seen, a temperate version of the soaring snow covered peaks and behemoth glaciers that we saw in Alaska. For example, Cone Peak in Big Sur is considered the largest coastal mountain in the lower 48 and it rises over 5000 feet just three miles from the ocean. Big Sur is perhaps the only place where the majestic coastal redwoods grow within sight of cacti and animals such as sea otters and cormorants live near arid climate creatures like canyon wrens. While there are a couple of a beautiful mountain and sea combinations in India especially in the place called South Kanara in Karnataka, they’re not as dramatic or as large as Big Sur is.


Big Sur is the Anglicized version of the Spanish name of the place, “El pais grande del sur” (Big Country of the South). The names given by the native Americans who lived there, the Ohlones, the Esselen and Salinan, are probably lost to time. The famous Esalen Institute and Salinas, immortalized by John Steinbeck, are probably the only names of the native Americans still in common use around Big Sur. Everything else reflects the history of the place post annexation by the US following the Mexican-American War in 1848: McWay Falls, Pfeiffer State Park and Julia Pfeiffer Burns Park, Andrew Molera State Park, all names of settlers and pioneers or land grabbers of the wild west, depending on your inclination to label such people.

I haven’t been down to Big Sur in a while, probably last going there when I took my in-laws there back in 2001. The brain is a beautiful creation, a three pound gem, but it is not without its constraints, one of which is its memorization of an experience. To cope with a lifetime of memories, it digitizes an experience by remembering its peaks and troughs and filling in the res of the details on demand. So my recollection of Big Sur were only the highlights, a vague sense of thrill and a collection of wows. The memories were given a refreshing fill-in with this trip. As with any beautiful experience, words only go so far in communicating the experience.

Where Big Sur starts and where it ends is not fixed, but most agree that it starts as the road begins to climb past the picturesque town of Carmel, a town made famous by its residents such as Ansel Adams and Clint Eastwood, and ends as the road starts its descent past the Santa Lucia mountains. In between, it soars as high as Hurricane Point and the intersection of Nacimento highway – which leads down to the most remote of the original California missions – and drops down to almost sea level at many places such as near Point Sur lighthouse. The now rising, now dipping roads and the winding turns can make for some slow driving in many places, which is as well, it gives even the driver a chance to let his dropping jaw bruise his knee. There are numerous turnouts close to the edge that provide a never-ending opportunity to take the scene in and attempt to capture the three-dimensional drama of the place within the confines of a two-dimensional celluloid.


My tours are almost always whirlwinds, constrained by time. This time, it was more related to getting back early enough to rest a while before dashing off to a local concert. I also was unhappy to leave Shanthala alone by herself the whole day. In this late stage of pregnancy, she finds these long drives very discomforting and exhausting. Starting at seven in the morning, I hoped to be back by three in the afternoon or so. My plan included a heavy breakfast so that we could skip lunch and eat something only on return. My plan called for taking highway 17 to highway 1 and then followed highway 1 all the way to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park for a quick hike to see the unusual McWay Falls and then turn around and head back home. I managed to deviate from the plan on this trip.

Highway 17 is a beautiful winding road that goes through the fancy neighborhoods of Saratoga and Los Gatos to remote houses situated off roads branching off the highway without regular highway exits to summit at Patchen Pass before descending into the city of Santa Cruz. Throughout the drive, there is either a bangup view of the Santa Cruz mountains or you’re driving through them next to groves of coastal redwoods and other evergreen trees. I’ve read that most people can recognize more brand name logos than flora and fauna and I’m sadly among them. I had hardly paid attention to the trees and the birds around me when I grew up and not having parents who paid attention to them didn’t help me much. Now I struggle to recognize a few of the common ones. In writing these articles, I research the web for pictures and descriptions of what can be seen on the roads that I passed through and try and remember them for other times.

Highway 17 also happens to be one of the most dangerous highways in the state as it’s filled with commuters in a hurry to get to work or home and taking the curves a little too fast. Wikipedia reveals that the locals call the Northern part of the highway after the Summit “Valley Surprise” as many drivers hit the median on their hurried way to the valley. Chomi enjoyed the ride and was staring out of the window beatifically, like a child in a candy store. The sunlight filtering through the trees provides a magical play of light. I can see myself losing focus on the road with so much to admire around. I take the slow lane and take my time to make it through the highway. It’s only about 27 miles or so.

Highway 1 starting from Santa Cruz is somewhat boring, going through mostly suburbs and farmlands with nary a glimpse of the sea. You can feelits presence, but just can’t see it, probably till you get close to Moss Landing and go overElkhorn Slough and see the harbor with all the sailing boats anchored, awaiting their captains to journey to the sea. It’s not till you near Monterey that the sea starts playing hide and seek with you till you pass Carmel. Then, it’s right there, on one side all the time, beckoning you to stop at every possible turnout and gape in wonder at the dazzling spread that nature has laid out.


The road starts climbing and the beauty unfolds starting from the turn at Tickle Pink Inn. The weather in Big Sur is almost an invariant, the place presenting a magical charm in any weather. When I first went there, on a Memorial Day many years ago, the fog had yet to lift its head from the mountains and the place had a fairy tale land feel to it. When I went with my parents in 2001, the weather was bright and sunny and we tripped the light fantastic. The weather was again perfect when I ran the Big Sur Marathon in 2004, an exhilirating experience and a memorable one as I finished the marathon exceeding my expectations. On this trip, it was mostly azure skies except for some clouds in the initial part of the day.

Big Sur has been kept remarkably undeveloped thanks to the untiring efforts of the residents there. Robinson Jeffers, an American poet who popularized Big Sur in his poems and attracted the likes of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson, captures this attitude in his poem Carmel Point:

The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

Thanks to their efforts, Big Sur is still largely devoid of human constructions despoiling the gorgeous views.

This was my first time in Big Sur in winter. Ice plants, imported from South Africa to stabilize soil along railroad tracks and coastal roads, dot the open hillside. They’re an invasive plant, but they sure look beautiful.



Bixby Creek bridge, a spectacular bridge over a deep gorge, along with its twin Rocky Creek bridge, is one of the highlights of the drive. It is one of the most photographed bridges in the world.


The green in the hills was offset every so often by the whites of pampas grass. As we approached Hurricane Point, the culmination of a two mile climb in the Big Sur Marathon, the dramatic Point Sur lighthouse makes its appearance. I’ve never managed to come at a time when I could capture this scene effectively as the sun is always behind the lighthouse. It sits atop a volcanic rock and is still an active lighthouse. We just enjoyed the view from the turnoff. As the road approaches Andrew Molera State Park, taller trees including coastal redwoods become visible. The yellows, the shades of blue and green were eye catching. There was a pullout from where we managed to capture the winter colors.


The drive continued to provide its share of oohs and ahhs till we got to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. We disembarked for the short hike to see an instance of a remarkable type of waterfalls. Called tidefalls, these are waterfalls that fall directly into the ocean and McWay Falls is a brilliant example of such a fall. Falling from a rocky bluff into a iridiscently turquoise ocean. The setting is so idyllic, I find it easy to spend a really long time here watching the play of light on the waters. Unfortunately for us, the sun was positioned at the right spot in the horizon to spoil any possible picture of the scene and so you’ll have to take my word for it or look at some of the innumerable pictures available on the web. We also hiked to the primitive campground near the falls providing more spectacular views of the ocean.


We still had time and so I decided to take Chomi to the famous 17 mile drive just outside Monterey, which houses the world famous golf course, Pebble Beach. In the old days when Big Sur was just a name, we used to bring visitors to 17 mile drive to admire the spectacular coastal scenery. It is a private road and there is a charge to drive through it. The last time I was there, I was less enamored by its beauty, especially after seeing Big Sur. But time had erased any bad memories and I thought that the drive would be beautiful, though not as beautiful as Big Sur. It was largely a miscalculation. It is overhyped and though there I got a few beautiful snapshots of wildlife – such as that of a hawk below – and scenes of the restless sea, we felt that it was largely a waste of money.


We returned around 5 PM. Chomi said that he couldn’t remember when he last had enjoyed a day so much. It was only going to get more exciting. Next drive up was Yosemite which we tackled two days later.

Leave a Reply ?

The Cottage At The End of the Road

Posted on November 19, 2007
by


4981 Aliomanu Road, the place we stayed in Kauai. It is a rather largish property of about 2 acres which contains the main house, a garage with a small house and a cottage. The main house is used by the owners when they visit, the garage house is used by the caretaker and we stayed in the cottage. It’s a small place, maybe about 400 sq ft with the main room including kitchenette, living and dining room, a bedroom and a bathroom. There’s a wraparound deck which can be used to sit out in the cool evenings or to watch the startlingly beautiful and crowded night sky. “Oh my god, it’s full of stars”, that famous line from Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey can be used here quite appropriately.

Aliomanu Road was apparently a single road that’s been broken by the Aliomanu stream into two discontiguous parts. We’re at the south end of it. It is a very secluded street with mostly local residents though there are signs that a few more places are available as vacation rentals. Around the bend from the road is the Aliomanu beach which connects to the Anahola Beach at low tides and is separated from it by the Anahola stream during high tide.


Quite a few beaches in Kauai have a stream emptying into the ocean which makes the whole place look more scenic, at least to me. It also has the added advantage of providing a safe place for kids to play in the water during low tide. It reminds me of Varkala, that magical beach in Kerala that we visited when I lived in Kerala for a few years of my early childhood. There is a famous temple that is 3500 years old in Varkala that attracted my parents and the beach attracted me. It was probably the only holy place that I enjoyed going. The beach wasbeautiful and uncrowded, and a stream emptied into the Arabian Sea there, which provided a safe harbor for me to wallow in without getting my parents worried sick.

Aliomanu and Anahola beaches are a locals only beach and so are quite secluded. On a weekday, there’s hardly anybody though a few folks gather in the evenings, while on a weekend there are a few more families relaxing and having a good time at the beach, but still quite uncrowded. The waves seem quite rough though we saw quite a few surfers one day braving the ocean. Using an unmarked and hidden trail, we can get to another part of the Aliomanu beach from where we can hike past the Aliomanu stream to the northern part of Aliomanu Road, and continue walking all the way to Papaa Bay.


The property where the cottage sits is mostly grassy with a few coconut, a few betel nut and some banana trees. Cattle egrets and some Hawaiian moorhen (Alae’ula) are a constant presence on the grassy property. There are lots of hibiscus plants as well. Wild chicken which are a constant presence throughout Kauai have also made home on this property. Rising behind the main house, but partly hidden by trees is the famous Kalalea mountain, made famous in the starting scene of “Raiders of The Lost Ark” and which was the location for the shoot of the first King Kong movie. Though the property is on the mountain side, the ocean is across the street. You can hear the surf pound quite loudly and see the ocean from the cottage. From the upper deck of the main house, you can apparently watch whales in the appropriate season.

I befriended one of the locals when I went running one morning and he showed me the lay of the land as well explaining the different flora and fauna around. One of the houses that sits behind our cottage has been beautifully landscaped by its owner, Rene, who has even been contacted by Martha Stewart to profile the place. Rene has the place open for everyone to come and visit as long as they don’t disturb the people living there. She has a small hen house where she nurses injured chickens and roosters back to health or lets them live them till they die. She also has a few friendly cats one of whom paid us a visit a few minutes after we first arrived at the cottage. He appeared at the door and meowed loudly as if to say, “Open the door, I want to see if everything is OK after you guys have moved in”. We opened the door and he walked in calmly and proceeded to sniff and slink his way through the entire house ensuring that we had not damaged anything. He then demanded to be let out and he sat sunning himself on the deck, allowing us to pet him for a while before disappearing.

The place is far enough from the nearest town, Kapaa, to feel secluded, but close enough that you can drive there for eating or groceries. It’s also perfectly located to explore both South and North Kauai as it’s midway between the two. Only Waimea Canyon is on the opposite side of the island from here. Kauai itself is a fairly small island, smaller than its famous brethren of Big Island, Maui and Oahu. It still has a rustic and laidback feel to it, though we have not yet visited Poipu, the most touristy part of the island. When we went for dinner last night at Kapaa, there were even fewer people than usual. I was surprised to see so few people on a Saturday night.

Kauai is not only the Garden Isle, but also the Hiking Isle as there are lots of mountain ranges. The mountains of Kauai look more dramatic than those on either the Big Island or Maui. The mountains of West Maui do look spectacular, but imagine the same thing but spread all over the island instead of being concentrated in only part. There also is nothing like Mauna Kea or Haleakala that overpoweringly dominate the landscape. The tallest mountain is Kawaikini at 5243 feet is little over a third of Mauna Kea and about half the height of Haleakala. But Kauai does boast of the second wettest spot on the planet, the summit of Mt. Waialeale.

We spent much of our time in Kauai in this cottage or in its environs, walking on the beach, catching the sunrise, listening to the surf or watching the clouds and sun frolic behind the Kalalea mountain. It’s probably the most “just chill” vacation we’ve ever had.

Leave a Reply ?

Wiki Hour At The Farmer’s Market

Posted on November 15, 2007
by


Every place has its set of what appear to be strange customs and habits to an outsider. One that we discovered during this trip to Kauai is the operation of the farmer’s markets on this island.

Some background first. We’re serious farmer’s market shoppers, buying everything we want from there except for milk and some Indian vegetables such as chillies. We shop at the farmer’s market because we want to encourage local farmers, because it’s an environmentally conscious choice (maybe even more so than organic) since the average food in a supermarket travels anywhere from 1300-1500 miles before it hits the shelves and finally because it’s fun and helps engender a sense of community. In our travels too, we look for them and buy from there as much as possible.

Kauai has a farmer’s market, in a different part of the island, every day of the week. There are two kinds of farmer’s markets in Kauai, one called the Sunshine Farmer’s Market which is government run and is the larger of the two and the other is the Private Farmer’s Market. Yesterday we visited one of the latter that was held in Waipa, near Hanalei and today we went to the Kapaa branch of the former. The Sunshine versions are larger and better organized.

In the Bay Area, shopping at the farmer’s market is a relaxed experience. The atmosphere is convivial, even carnivalesque with free tasting at almost every shop, live music by some local musicians and even a clown is typically present to entertain the kids. The food ranges from fresh organic and non-organic produce such as vegetables and fruits to fresh fish, free range chicken eggs, meat of free range cattle, from baked goods to stalls selling fresh cooked food and even cosmetics such as mositurizers made from bee’s wax and real flowers, hand made soap etc. The market is quite large and makes for a good stroll. Forget all that in Kauai.


Given that the resident population in Kauai is about 60,000, the farmer’s market is quite small compared to the California equivalent. They’re open typically in the afternoon and last about two hours. The wares are almost exclusively fresh produce of vegetables and fruit with a slightly hefty tilt towards fruits. For mainlanders who have not been to exotic places such as Tahiti or SE Asia, the fruits are almost all excitingly new. The colors, the shapes and even the names seem to conjure up the romantic, the exotic. Longan, Rambutan, Mangosteen, Durian, Noni and Jackfruit sell alongside incredibly sweet pineapples, coconut water, bananas and tangerines. Even the bananas are flavored differently and go by the name of Apple Bananas. The produce is mostly non-organic except for the one at Kilauea.


Now for the strange customs. At some markets, the entry to the market is barred until the specified opening time. A rather large crowd mills around, with the gathering beginning anywhere from 15-20 minutes before the doors open. Once the doors open, everybody rushes in, trying to purchase very quickly before the wares vanish. Come twenty minutes late and most of the excellent quality exotic fruit is gone. Come an hour late and be prepared to find nothing. There’s little tasting before the purchase. While they do supply plastic bags (which seem to be recycled many times), the regulars come with their own. At some of the other markets, you can browse around before the specified hour, but no money can exchange hands. However, it is acceptable for you to decide what you want and have the vendor set aside the produce with your name on it. At the specified hour, there is either a loud yell “OK” or a car honks and money starts exchanging hands rather rapidly. So in these places, stuff can go even sooner since people have been buying before the specified hour. So, it’s always wiki hour (wiki means fast in Hawaiian) at the farmer’s market.

We’ve been feasting on the exotic fruits. Some such as Longan and Mangosteen were new to even us. We also got fresh coconut water with the shell being split after the drink is finished to feast on the delicious coconut meat. It brought back such happy memories, of growing up in India.

Leave a Reply ?