The Best Hostel I Have Ever Stayed At

The best hostel I have ever stayed at so far anyway. I suppose if I do happen to find a better one then I would have to write another blog post with this title. As I'm typing this post now, I've been traveling 20 months straight and I checked into the hostel that I'm writing about near my 4 months of travel mark. Before that I was living with hippies in Hawaii.
So where is it?

Fiji. I knew nothing about it. I had only recently learned that the country existed before going there! It is a dot on the map. The reason I went there was simply because someone suggested it.

For awhile,  I had planned to go to New Zealand after Hawaii. I got a cheap flight deal To Hawaii but since it was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and not really near anywhere, I didn't find as good as a deal out.
And just in case any of you may be thinking I could have sailed or gotten a ride on a merchant ship to get a good deal like a skillfully cheap vagabond might consider, uh no. I had gotten out of the Navy about 6 months before and I definitely wasn't going to consider getting on any kind of ship just yet.
I found that a plane ticket to New Zealand was expensive. "You should go to Fiji first man, it's off the hook and you can see another country on the way!" my friend Kai said. He was right. Fiji is in between Hawaii and New Zealand and a little closer to Hawaii than New Zealand is and so a cheaper plane ticket. OK, why not?      
I bought the ticket to Fiji.

I didn't need a visa to go to Fiji. Actually, what is surprising is that I'm allowed to stay up to 4 months without a visa!
However, I did have to show an ongoing flight ticket out of the country.
Before arriving I booked a hostel online. Wow! Online the price said 6 US dollars and something per night.In Hawaii, the hostels are about $30 US dollars a night! 
The hostel had free airport pick up and I read that it had free kava parties. Kava? Kai had been to Fiji before and explained it was like a muscle relaxer that everyone drinks over there.
Should be interesting.

When I stepped off the plane the first thing that I thought was What the fuck?!!!  I thought I had stepped into an oven. I thought Hawaii was hot. Fiji was a super humid place and it was the first time I ever experienced that amount of the sticky type of heat. I arrived on December 30th and it was summer in Fiji.

They picked me up at the airport and for the first time in my life I got in a car designed to drive on the left side of the road and they drove me to Bamboo Backpackers.

well, here it is..

So what was so great about this place? keep in mind that this my personal opinion. But I must point out...

-Free airport pickup
well, that was nice.

-  Swimming
It has a small swimming pool and also it's on the beach. The humidity and the sun in Fiji was pretty intense but I would often go swimming in the ocean around sunset and the water was so warm, almost as much as a hot tub.

- bar/restaurant

-ping pong table

-fire on the beach

and sometimes fire shows!

- Volleyball

- Free access to kitchen
You can store your food/drink in a big refrigerator. There is a shop within walking distance of the hostel so I would buy my beer there instead of the bar because it's cheaper and store it in the refrigerator.

- Mango and coconut trees
they are on the property!

- Party every night
It was super hot in the daytime but every night is Bula time! Bula is Fijian for hello, cheers, and pretty much what everyone screams when they feel excited.  Every night I was there many people were socializing, celebrating and partying. but don't worry if you want to chill,  plenty of people just chill out too.

-lots of hammocks

- Kava
Free kava every night. But in Fiji, free kava is very common. I was even given kava in a store,.. before they aggressively begged for me to buy something. 
Anyway, it has been said "No kava, no Fiji."
I drank lots of kava while in Fiji and I never once had to pay for it. Kava seemed to be a huge part of Fiji.  So what is it? I've heard it called a muscle relaxer?
Well, it comes from a root that they smash into powder then they mix with water in a big bowl.
 

notice all the different sized bowls behind him.
this man gave me a welcome to Fiji kava ceremony.

Kava looks like muddy water and it also kinda tastes like muddy water. Drinking it is done in a ceremonial way.  It is scooped from the big bowl and drunk out a coconut shell and usually in a group. After drinking a bowl of kava, it is common to clap 3 times.  Before drinking a bowl of kava, people will usually say Bula and clap once. I was told, "Clapping is a sign of respect for the kava." 

 As with many things that are natural, there are also health claims about kava. I even had someone tell me that it has been used in cancer treaments.  I've also heard a few people tell me that their body did not respond positively to too much kava. Personally, I have no idea if it's healthy or not. 

Fijians have been drinking kava for years and many are proud of it.  At Bamboo Backpackers, they had kava every night. 

Before I tried kava, I thought that it might feel like a drug or something like that but it was very mild. The first thing people notice is that it makes their mouth feel numb.  Many people drank about 5 bowls or so and said they didn't feel much. 

After about 10 bowls, I was feeling relaxed. Kava has no alcohol by the way. At night many people drink kava, and the Fijians at the hostel play guitar and sing. They often play things like Bob Marley. One of my personal favorite songs that they often played is "Please Don't Touch My Papaya"

 The effect doesn't get you stoned like weed or fuck you up like alcohol can but it does make you relaxed. It's difficult to describe exactly. 

The Fijians typically stayed out there drinking kava longer than all the tourists. I would often see them still in the same place at about 2:00 A.M. still drinking kava!

- Good price
The price for the cheapest dorm room was 12 Fijian Dollars a night. About 6 USD. At least that was the price and the exchange rate at the time I was there.  That is for a bed in a 12 bed mixed dorm with fans. It costs a few dollars more for an dorm with air-con. Private rooms also available. 

- People
The hostel itself is great but what really what made my experience staying there great was the people that I met there.  

 I have made friends at other hostels around the world but never as many as my stay at this one. Perhaps If I went back there now, it wouldn't be as great. It depends on who's there at the time and maybe I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. 
Maybe the kava and alcohol contributes to the already social ambiance of the place itself.

Another reason other than the heavy social energy that it was easy to meet people was that the hostel was in Nadi, which is a main entry/exit point in Fiji.

Fiji has 333 islands!!! Most of those are small though. Nadi was on the major island. So the hostel was kind of like a home base. Travelers enter and stay there and go and visit other islands and usually come back before leaving Fiji.

Also, I'm not choosing my greatest experience while at a hostel. This is just the best hostel in my opinion, the actual physical hostel itself along with it's perks. It's possible to have an awesome experience at a not awesome hostel too. Even If one does have better experiences at other hostels that doesn't necessarily the hostels itself are better. 

Another exceptional hostel I must mention is on Mana Island, Fiji. I had a great time there. There are no shops on that island so 3 meals are inclusive with the price. I will write about Mana in the next post. 

What I didn't like:  Bamboo was advertised online that they had free wifi. They give you a limited amount of free wifi. 
I don't remember how long.
After using that amount of time, you can buy wifi by the day or for 1 week. It's not too expensive but many people figured out some glitch in the system and were able to easily access the free wifi over and over because of some technical reason.
 Some countries are stingy with wifi and some are not, maybe it's just Fiji because it was the same on Mana Island with having to buy wifi if you wanted it but don't let that detain you from having an amazing Bula time!  

Thanks for reading my blog/internet journal. By the way, yes I realize that about half of this post is on a white background and the other on a dark one. This was partly on accident but then I decided that I liked the way it looked. 
 I'll close this post by sharing a few pictures. I'll be writing more about Fiji and putting more pictures soon!

Living with Hippies in the Woods

Me looking cool

When I first arrived on Kauai island in Hawaii. I was alone and slept on the beach. I have to say, I'm proud of my sleeping hole/shelter that I made. I wrote about it in my previous post. I spent over 3 weeks on that island and I never stayed in a room even once. After, I had been on the island for a few days, I met a very important person.

I stunk. The look on that one ladies face in the convenient store confirmed it. I didn't have any clean clothes.  I hadn't yet mastered my vagabond lifestyle of super cheapness.
I actually decided to spend money on a hostel room for just 1 night so I could conveniently shower and do laundry and then continue camping out the next day. I had been walking around, exploring, and also sweating a lot. I was also carrying my big backpack with me.

I started walking toward the hostel I saw in that town earlier to ask if they had a bed.
 On the way, I saw a guy about my age sitting on some steps in front of a closed shop.
When I walked by him he looked at me and said, "hey man, sit down, I need somebody to talk to!" I was shocked. What a strange thing to say to a stranger on the street. Bwaaaahh! 
"Uh, I'm not a therapist" I replied. " No, I don't need therapy. I just want someone to talk to."
I wondered if I should keep walking, but I decided to sit down.

The man's name is Kaia or Kai for short. He said he recently had gotten out of jail, which is why he really wanted to talk to someone. He was from Big Island but had lived on Kauai before. It had been 8 years since the last time he was on Kauai but he came back because of drama on the Big Island. Just like me, he had only been on the island a few days and was alone. 
A couple minutes after meeting him, a hippie walks over to us from around the corner.
 "hey guys", he pulled out a big clump of marijuana and offered us some. By the way, he was a stranger and didn't know Kaia either. He had a guitar and was carrying several didgeridoos which he said that he made himself.  A little while later, he left and said he was on his way to Kalalau Valley. Somewhere that Kai knew about.

Kaia and I became friends rather quickly and got along. Although we just met, It felt like we had known each other a lot longer. I didn't get that hostel room that night. We were both homeless in Hawaii and we slept on the beach, showered in the public rinse off stations, and did our laundry at laundromats. 

 I also learned that hitchhiking was common on that island, which is something that I'd never done. It's not as common in mainland America and it was something that I never thought I would actually do. The bus doesn't go everywhere and we used hitchiking to explore some great places on the island. Like this place...

 

Kaia is an expert hitchhiker. He taught me how to hitchhike with Aloha!



                             

Ok,  so I suppose I should get on with the hippie part that is in the title of this post. 
The place is like an unofficial community living in the woods. It's not too easy to get to it though and that's something that makes it more rewarding once you do get there.
To get there you must go on an 11 mile hike which goes up and down and up and down and so forth! 
 Well, I guess it's possible to take a boat in but I don't have money or a boat and the waves and conditions can be monstrous! I saw the biggest waves I have ever seen along the Napoli coast. The trail is also gnarly and dangerous, people have died doing it before.
Just don't lean too much while on the trail...    or do it while drunk like I did once ^^ 
Anyway, the trail is beautifully fucktastic!

My shitty backpack.

Finally we arrived in Kalalau Valley exhausted. The beach and the waves there were HUGE!
Also, many people run around naked on that beach. Sometimes the waves overtake the entire beach! I met a guy who lost his wallet to the waves by leaving it on the sand at the wrong time.

caves

After collapsing on the beach for awhile, I set up my tent. Below is a pic of my friend, JP.

who slept in a hammock with tarps over it...   it didn't work out too well for him when a rain  

storm came.

Kalalau is a truly magical place. Some people stay there for months and years with no money and live off the land. Yes, there is so much food that just grows there on it's own and they also hunt wild goats and pigs and there is plenty of water from the waterfall.

Here I am with some goat horns

                                                                                   

meat!

goat eyeballs

It was very surprising how well we ate out there. Everyone shares and as long as you help hunt, cook, pick fruit and veggies, start the fire, gather firewood, and just help out with whatever is needed then you can eat! 

There are also hikers and temporary travelers that come and go. Some people visit every year or so around the holidays. People don't use money there but trade and share. So sometimes people will hike in with supplies like cheese and pepperoni and we have pizza.

I hope you are starting to see why this place is one of my favorite places that I visited on my long trip. 

Tobbacco, weed, cheese, spices, rice, alcohol, etc. are great things to bring to trade.

Now, let me tell you about some of the vegetation growing there. First, the Noni!
There are Noni trees Everywhere!

Noni is a fruit that is known as a super-food, it's supposed to be super healthy and full of antioxidants but...  it's super disgusting!
It smells kinda like vomit and tastes like Satan's ballsack! 

(I have no idea what Satan's ballsack tastes like, I'm just trying to be dramatic).

Well, that's my personal opinion. I like to call it the Oh No-ni. Some people develop a tolerance for it and/or mix the juice with lemon juice which makes it a little better... People also rub it on wounds to make them heal faster. 

Anyway, the leaves of the Noni tree are also edible and unlike the fruit, they don't taste bad, so everyone always uses the leaves as plates, eating the food and the plate too!
I ate spaghetti out of a leaf burrito! :)

                                      

Noni leaves taste great when cooked evenly over a fire to make Noni chips.
 They become crunchy like a chip and get stronger flavor when cooked.

   Anyway, spinach also grows there as seen being cooked in the pic below... 

As well as sugarcane, lettuces, mangoes, passion fruits (we call it lilikoi in Hawaii), lemons,  lots of oranges, and etc. It was Orange season when I was there and those were the best most awesomely fucktastic oranges ever!!! They taste Waaaaayyy better than any store bought orange or Any orange I have ever had and gave a jolt energy. They were like our Redbull. I was amazed at the power of those oranges. I probably ate about 20 day. Seriously, and there was still plenty more oranges there than we were able to eat. To gather them we have to climb and shake them out of the trees. I swear they always fall better when making monkey noises.

Me in a tree

Ok, so I've written A lot about food so far. Let's move on to activities and people.. well it has a great place to swim and jump off rocks.

They also play volleyball on the beach and every night many people gather around a fire and some play instruments, sing, and chant.

I also learned how amazing and powerful it sounds when a big group howls or OM's in sync. 

This is a special and fun place I will someday go back to. before I left we had a party... 

and this is what I woke up in the next morning.

For some reason a dog who I didn't know was also sleeping inside with me and please don't ask why there is a rock halfway in...  But that story is too long (and a little bit embarrassing) to put in this post so maybe Ill save it for an e-book or something.

So I think, I'll finished describing this place by describing the people. What kind of people are in this place? What can you expect? You might be wondering. 

           

Well, you'll see a lot of outdoorsy loving travelers that come and go. They are tougher than the typical tourist. You'll also see a lot of hippies and hippie-ish people and you'll see a lot of laid back people. Oh and also a few naked people as well.
I also noticed that people like to hug others quite a bit in that community. Even if they hardly know you.There was a guy who became really embarrassed because he got an erection in front of several others after a naked girl hugged him.

I certainly met some interesting characters. A few go by names like Izzy,Grizzly,Space Dog, Uncle T and Josh. Josh was an interesting guy.. Just not his name. 
I met a guy who actually told me that Shiva told him to go there. But don't worry, no one else I met was quite as Out there as him...  At least not that I know of.

Damn, there's so much I could write about that place and this has been my longest blog post so far. I hope you enjoy it. You probably have at least some if you are still reading this. It's been over a year since I've been to Kalalau as I write this now.

This post isn't over yet. I'll explain how to get there for anyone interested.

How to get there:

So, the airport in Kauai is in Lihue, The furthest the bus goes is to Hanalei. After that, If you don't have a car then you either have to hitch-hike or walk about 7 miles or so to the start of Kalalau trail, which is the very end of the road.

It was never too difficult to find a lift.

After that, there is one problem... as usual, it's the government.

Warning: this next part will contain complaining

Technically, everyone is supposed to have a permit to camp. and the price is an unreasonable $18 per night!  The hostel I stayed at in New Orleans was $16 a night. 

A hostel with a bed and a shower for Less than sleeping in a tent that I own in the woods?

I don't believe in paying for nature. 

Sometimes I don't mind paying a little for a spot at a campground because campgrounds have a bathroom and sometimes a shower and public facilities like a kitchen area and often an outlet that I can charge my laptop with. In my point of view, I'm paying for the facilities, not for the nature and it still must be less than a hostel price...   but Kalalau wasn't a public campground.  They Seriously wanted $18 a night to take a walk in the woods..  nature that they didn't create.

 $18 a night is ridiculous. 

So Kaia and I and 2 others that we also met, JP and Michael,  all went to the start of the trail and had some ranger in a green shirt walk over to us and demand we have a permit.

I didn't  know that a camping permit was required before arriving and I was shocked to learn that. Michael, who we met the night before already a permit. So, he said " well, later." and began the hike on his own.

"Ok, fine. I won't camp if I need a permit. How about I just leave my tent here and lay on my tarp on the ground?"  I said. "That's CAMPING!" he said angrily.  

"If you spend the night in the woods, you have to pay $18 a night for a camping permit!"

"I don't mind paying if it helps support the department of forestry" JP said and pulled out a 20 dollar bill. The man wouldn't take it. "No, you can't buy a permit here. You're supposed to buy one from the office building in Lihue." 

We were very far away from there.

Then that asshole made a suggestion. We were out of cellphone signal range but he said that if we walk 1 mile down the road there is signal and we could access the internet from a cell phone and then go online and buy a permit from the website and walk back and show him the receipt and then we'd be allowed to hike the 11 miles!

JP didn't do it, he ended up sneaking on the trail. Someone mentioned to us "hey, this guy gets off work at about 4 p.m. and then no one is guarding the trail."  So we came back later that evening and hiked in as the sun was setting.  We hiked in about 2 miles and camped when it got dark  and did the other 9 in the morning.

Well, I think that's finally all I have to say for now.  wow, this has been a long post. Thanks for reading.

The Overwhelming Homelessness in Hawaii

Hawaii is different from mainland America. One of the first things I noticed was the large amount of homelessness unlike anywhere I had seen before! 

After arriving, I walked out of the airport and decided to take a long walk and explore. During the beginning of my walk, I was next to a highway with overpasses. Underneath one of the roads that rose up was what looked like a homeless city. Many people lived underneath that road. 

Up ahead I saw a homeless man walk out of the darkness from underneath the large road and he turned and looked at me. He was a large man and had no shirt on and looked mean from a distance but when I got closer, he smiled and asked "hey, are you Amish?" Haha, I probably looked a little Amish because of my facial hair and my straw hat.

When I went to Hawaii my plan was to technically be without a home myself. Hawaii can be an expensive place and I did quite a bit of camping to save money on accommodation, however, that turned out to be a lot harder than expected because of legal shit. The government hates it.

I hope I don't sound mean or ignorant but from what I've seen in mainland America, I've always got the impression that the majority of homeless people are crazy or not quite right mentally. 

In Hawaii, I got a different impression. It actually seemed "normal". 

One day I was walking in a mall and I also was carrying my big backpack. A man working behind the counter of a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop asked me where I was from as I was walking by. During our conversation, he told me that he sleeps under the bridge. I was shocked to learn that he was employed and homeless! He informed me that a large percentage of people are homeless in Hawaii. I asked why. "because It's easy!", he said excitedly.

I guess It's easy to see why. There is lots of fruit, It's warm and It's beautiful.

Me chilling in a secret spot.

 As I was walking along the beach in Waikiki one night, I was surprised to see many people were sleeping on it. I even saw a mother with her kid wrapped up together in blankets and sleeping. I usually try to hide when looking for a spot to sleep but from what I saw, It didn't look like many people even made an effort to hide. Waikiki was a generally crowded and touristy place and not very easy to find a hidden spot on the beach in that area. 

Seeing so many sleeping on the beach gave me the impression that it might be safe... 

But, please don't sleep on the beach in Waikiki, you might get woken up by some extroverted tweaker at 4 a.m. like I was.

I know now the importance of hiding.  So, I was shocked when I was walking around and saw many people camping in the city, On the sidewalk!  What the fuck???  Why? 

 Later, I read somewhere that in 2008, they passed a law in Hawaii that forbids people from camping on the beach which is what a lot of homeless people were doing back then. Of course, the reason for the law is about money. The government was afraid that people camping on the beach would look bad to tourists and tourism is a huge industry in Hawaii. 

So they all got kicked off the beach and now they camp on the sidewalk in the city and technically there is no law that says they can't. 

Some people are pushing for a law to keep them from pitching a tent on the sidewalk too but luckily for the homeless, they haven't been able to get that law approved yet. 

I was able to camp on the beach successfully but I had to be super careful and hide and I was caught and kicked out of my tent once even though I was about a mile away from a town. I was surprised to learn that some people are paid to search for campers.

However, the extreme strictness is mainly in Oahu. Oahu is a touristy island. I also went to Kauai which is a lot different from Oahu. Still had a lot of homeless though.

As you can see from the picture above, Kauai is the garden island.
There are no big cities like Honolulu. It has more towns and more countryside and a lot of the tourists that go there go there for hiking. 
When I first arrived in Kauai, I was very paranoid about cops because I had just come from Oahu. I had gotten chased by the cops in Oahu for simple things like starting a fire on the beach(not allowed), drinking pineapple wine on the beach(also not allowed), and one other minor third thing that I'm not going to put in this blog post(yet again, not allowed).

Alright, so the beach is public and it's fine to be on it but not legal to set up any kind of structure, even if it rains.

That would be considered camping.

 So I just decided to dig a big hole. Here's a pic of the shelter I made...  

The hole I slept in for 2 nights.

It was comfortable and dark and it even did a decent job of protecting me from rain. 

After spending a couple nights in my special sleeping hole, I continued to explore the island and walked to the next town. That night I searched the beach for a good camping spot. I walked a little far and found a very dark area of beach. It was quiet and seemed like a great spot. Just when I was about to open up my backpack, I heard a voice say "hello"
"Whoa! I didn't expect anyone was here" I replied surprised. 
"Yeah, I sleep here sometimes" she said. "really?, I was thinking of sleeping here tonight too." I said. 
 When she learned that I had a tent,she seemed very surprised. "You have a TENT?!! I just have a tarp". She got out her tarp and unfolded it and spread it out on the ground and then with a distressed and sad voice she said, "Oh No! It's wet"
Even, though Hawaii is a warm place, it was December at the time and can get a little chilly at night. 
I was standing there awkwardly looking down at the homeless woman who was lying down on the middle of a wet tarp in a fetal position. 
She had a light jacket on but no sleeping bag or anything.
"... uh, you look cold" I said. "Yes, I am cold" 
Even though my vision was limited from the darkness, It was a pathetically sad looking scene. I knew there was only one thing I could do to help and I felt uneasy about suggesting it to this person I just met.       
"Well, my tent is big enough for 2 people if you want to share".

She was extremely grateful and when we got in the tent she said,
"It's so warm in here, wow, this is First Class!"
We both agreed that sand is a very comfortable substance to sleep on. Beaches are very enjoyable places to camp, well, if I don't have to worry about cops kicking me out. 
If you wish to read and have not already; I wrote about some of my camping struggles in an earlier blog post.
 --> Be-careful-when-camping-in-oahu.

I got the impression that homeless people don't get as much sympathy in Hawaii. A friend who I met in Kauai and who was also homeless at the time told me that his Mom had been homeless in New York City before and had to steal food to survive. Obviously, it was a lot colder there too. So he got 0 amount of sympathy from her.  
He said that his Mom would always tell him something like, "So what? You're in Hawaii, go pick fruit."  

In this post are just some of my experiences with homelessness in Hawaii.
Thanks for reading.