Molokai: the Hawaiian island without the crowds

Molokai has the largest beach in the state of Hawaii, three miles long, and you can have it practially all to yourself. There's not a single traffic signal on the island, no place where you have to pay to park, and no traffic anyplace. There is gorgeous scenery everywhere, mountains, beaches, rain forest, cliffs, reefs, and all of it without crowds.

Quick Tips:

LOTS more information about Maui sights, activities, restaurants, hotels and more at
www.mauihawaii.org

Best Way To Get Around:

You'll definitely need a rental car, walking shoes, and a good guidebook on Molokai. There's no public transportation and there is a lot to see.

This is Molokai's only luxury hotel. The Molokai Ranch Lodge is a two-story group of three wooden buildings, with a total of just 22 hotel rooms. It opened in September of 1999. We parked in the small parking lot and took out our single suitcase. The bellman immediately came all the way out into the parking lot to greet us with a friendly smile, introduce himself, and start chatting with us as if we were returning friends. He gave us fresh flower leis, picked up our luggage, took our photo (with our own camera, not something to sell us), and escorted us into the lobby on a leisurely stroll. (Nobody on Molokai is in a hurry.)

The lobby is a beautiful wood structure with a ranch look, comfortable soft western-looking sofas, a three-story high ceiling, and a large fireplace with tall stone hearth. The bellman introduced us by first names to the check-in guy, who sat down with us at a round table in the lobby to complete the check-in paperwork. He brought us orange juice and hot hand towels. He was as friendly and warm as the bellman and everyone else we encountered here on the Friendly Isle. But this is the only time I ever had to sign a "Waiver, Release and Indemnity Agreement" (three pages of fine print) when checking into a hotel. (It claims that I understand that ranch activities such as hiking, biking, camping and swimming are dangerous and they are not responsible if I get injured or die there!)

The check-in person asked what activities we would like to reserve (we mentioned dinner that evening, cultural hike another day, brunch on Sunday), and he immediately took care of all arrangements. Then we rode on the only elevator on the entire island of Molokai, from the first to the second floor of the Lodge, to see our room. For more about our room, see my next posting about this hotel. (Limits to length do not allow me to include room description here.) If you're going to Maui as well as Molokai, see this great website:
LOTS of information about Maui sights, activities, restaurants, hotels and more at
www.mauihawaii.org

I started the description of this hotel in the other entr, but didn't have space there to include the description of our room, so here it is.

After having heard for months that there were no luxury hotels on Molokai, we were amazed when we entered our gorgeous room. In the center of the room was a queen-size four-poster bed, with a colorful hand-quilted bedspread and throw pillows of various designs with a ranch theme. The bed faced the lanai (balcony) and the end of the room that was rounded and had windows on all sides. Skylights let the sun shine directly onto the bed. There was a television hidden in a low cabinet that popped up at the touch of the remote control, coming out of its cabinet and rising to the proper level for viewing from bed. But who needed TV? The view from the bed, and the more panoramic view from the large lanai (balcony) was the spectacular scenery of the Molokai ranch, sloping down to the ocean five miles away, sunset, and the island of Oahu in the distance (about 30 miles away). The bathroom was not large (only one sink), but it had both a tub (with feet!) and separate stall shower. There was fruit and bottled water provided for us in the room. Lying in bed after dark, we could see stars through the skylight. And later that night romantic moonlight shown directly on our bed. So Molokai does finally have one small luxury hotel.

If you're going to Maui as well as Molokai, see this great website:
LOTS more information about Maui sights, activities, restaurants, hotels and more at
www.mauihawaii.org

We had dinner that first night in the Maunaloa room, the restaurant at our hotel. My wife started her meal with the vegetable barley soup, which was served in a miniature cast iron kettle. I was happy to find an appetizer on the menu that I had never tasted before, but had been wanting to try: opii (pronounced oh-PEE-ee). Opii is the Hawaiian name for limpet, a mollusk with a hard round shell about the size of a quarter. The reason I wanted to taste this little ocean delicacy was because I liked a funny Hawaiian song about it, some of which says: Please don't eat me,
I'm just a small Opi'I . . .
We think to eat us is offensive,
Besides we’re really quite expensive . . .
Have something meatier and moister,
Why don't you go suck on an oyster.
The opii was served over chopped tomatoes and onions on five little ceramic spoons, arranged in a circle, with spicy soy sauce in a cup in the center. I didn’t care for the opii’s taste or consistency, but it was fun because I was singing the silly song to myself. The rest of our dinner was better (we each had fish, mine in a Mediterranean preparation with olives and tomatoes, my wife’s in an oriental preparation with spicier sauce). Presentations of the fish dinners were elaborate and colorful. My wife had chocolate soufflé for dessert, but she only ate it because it is her mission to compare chocolate soufflés at various places throughout the Hawaiian islands. We ate on the outside porch of this elegant restaurant. There were only a couple other diners in the room.

If you're going to Maui too, there's lots of helpful info at:
www.mauihawaii.org

We drove to the area and then walked through the forest to the top of a cliff where we could look down on Molokai’s most famous sight, Kalaupapa. This is a 2-mile-square peninsula backed by a 1600 foot cliff, and surrounded on its other sides by the ocean, on the north shore where the huge waves make a swimming escape impossible. It is here that Hawaiians with leprosy were literally dumped ashore beginning in 1866. It is here that the Belgian priest, Father Damien, cared for these abandoned people from 1873 until he died of their disease in 1886. (Today leprosy can be controlled, so no one is forced to stay at Kalaupapa. But a few of the older patients are still there, since this is the only home they have known.) The only way for tourists to visit the peninsula is to ride a mule down the steep cliff, hike, or take a tiny plane. We turned down all those possibilities.

If you're going to Maui too, there's great information at
www.mauihawaii.org

The longest beach in the entire state of Hawaii is three-mile-long Papohaku Beach on the west end of the island of Molokai. I didn’t believe the guidebook, but it was right about how deserted this would be. It was Sunday afternoon at 2 PM, but ours was the only car in the parking lot. There was only one other couple on the entire beach, and they were over a mile away from us. (They must have parked somewhere along the road, since their car was not in the lot.) This is a beautiful empty endless expanse of wide light-colored sand, and you can have it all to yourself!

If you're going to Maui as well as Molokai, take a look at the great information on this website:
www.mauihawaii.org