Ramblin' 'Round Molokai with Rudy

We were a group of 10 who spent two full days and two half-days on Moloka'i, the quieter, more traditional neighbor of Maui and Lana'i. As a prelude to a conference on Waikiki, where I am now, we saw, did and learned a lot, largely thanks to driver-guide Rudy Dela Cruz (right, giving the traditional Hawaiian shaka sign of greeting). When I have time to organize my thoughts, I'll post a more extensive report on our entire time on the island. It is one of the last bastions of "the real Hawaii," but meanwhile, I'm cyber-introducing Rudy and Roots of Molokai, his new guide service. Born and raised on Moloka'i, Rudy is half-Hawaiian (mother's side), half Filipino (father's side). He is a big, extroverted man with a big voice, an interest in and knowlege of all things pertaining to his island, and enormous enthusiasm for sharing it. Truth be told, I'm usually not the greatest fan of guided tours, but Rudy's are an exception. He's memorized his facts and he has his stock of stories, but his passion for the place the that is his lifelong home does not seem canned or contrived

Rudy recently launched Roots of Molokai, a tour company with a twist. For considerably less than a conventional sightseeing program, particularly for a small group or family, you can book a rental car and arrange for Rudy to be an additional driver. He pays for the collision insurance and additional driver fee for the day of the tour. The best part is that he'll take the wheel and drive you around to this low-key island's highlights. It's like being driven around by a friend of a friend. By the time you leave, you'll feel that Rudy has become your friend too. We did.

If you're lucky enough to be staying on Moloka'i for a few days, he provides a great orientation. If you are doing a day trip on the ferry from Maui, you'll see a lot and learn a lot from this effusive, ebullient guide.

Kaua'i on the Mellow Side

Kaua'i's best-known activities and attractions are high-profile: a boat trip along the high cliffs of the Na'pali Coast or perhaps to the nearby private island of Ni'ihau, river and/or sea kayaking, a snorkel tour, driving along or flying over Waimea Canyon, beach-going, playing golf and other popular pleasures. My husband is recovering from an emergency appendectomy, so mellow rather than hard-core physical activities were in the cards for us. On Kaua'i this week, we...

• Took a train ride - Historic Kilohana Plantation, just a few miles from Lihu'e, is worth a visit even if you don't ride the tourist train that began operating in February. The narrow-gauge train features gleaming passenger cars pulled by vintage locomotives that gently sway on three miles of track. It passes fields planted with all sorts of tropical fruits that are marked, botanical garden-style. Even if you already know how pineapple grows, cashew nuts will surprise you. As the train approaches an enclosure, goats and pigs make their way to the fence-line where they know the train will stop. Passengers disembark to feed the animals, which is a whole lot of fun. We are all cautioned not to feed wildlife, but feeding domesticated animals is A-OK. The two noteworthy things about this attraction is that it is reasonably priced ($18 for adults) and available to all, from very small children to mobility-impaired visitors (there's a modern wheelchair lift to board people on this old-style train). 3-2087 Kaumualii Hwy., Lihu'e; 808-245-5608.
• Bird-watched at the Kilauea Point Lighthouse - This decommissioned lighthouse (built in 1913) on Kau'i's northeast shore is the centerpiece of the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. You can drive to an overlook and gaze down at the lighthouse or pay $3 per person to walk to it. the cove just to the south of the point is prime seabird habitat. We saw wedge-tailed shearwaters, red-footed boobies and great frigatebirds. Two rare Hawaiian monk seals basked on the tide-rinsed rocks at the head of the cove. A pair of Laysan Albatross had nested among the trees just north of the point. Most of the land is off-limits to visitors, because it is, after all, a refuge for wildlife. At some times of year, humpback whales and dolphins can be seen off-shore. The US Fish & Wildlife Service has free binoculars for visitors to borrow. The refuge is just a few miles off Kukio Hwy, near mile marker 23, north of Lihu'e. Turn at the gas station and follow the signs. P.O. Box 1128, Kilauea, HI 96754; 808-828-1413.
• Walked on the beach - Anahola Beach is a mile-long drive-up beach, largely favored by locals. Actually, it was favored by fewer than a dozen people when we were there -- quite a contrast to the crowded slivers of sand at Poipu on the south shore. We saw just four or five surfers, one fisherman and a couple of people just sitting and gazing at the sea. Camping is permitted, but no one was doing so when we took a lovely walk there,listening to the ocean and watching waves wash up on the sand.
• Visited a botanical garden - There are two US National Botanical Gardens on Kaua'i ( one each on the north and south shores), but we visited Na ‘Āina Kai Botanical Gardens instead. This privately established, not-for-profit venue combines formal gardens and an effort to create a viable crop of harvestable and sustainable tropical trees to sustain it. Several tours are offered. We took a really enlightening 2 1/2-hour tour led by botanist Marty Fernandez downhill through the hardwood forest to the beach, and following a ride back up on the bus, a walk through the formal gardens. The property is peppered with 90 bronze sculptures, so it's botany + agriculture + art. Tour reservations are required. Our tour costs $35 per adult. Access to the gardens is between mile markers 21 and 22 of Kukio Hwy. P.O. Box 1134, 4101 Wailapa Rd,, Kilauea; 808-828-0525.
• Learned about local history - I love local museums, and the Kaua'i Museum in the center of Lihu'e is no exception. It houses a wonderful and informative permant collection of historical and cultural artifacts, plus displays of geologic and natural history. The current special exhibition, "Dark Clouds Over Paradise," documenting the experience of internees of Japanese heritage during World War II. Admission is $7 per person, but look for two-for-one coupons in some of the visitor publications. 4428 Rice Street, Lihu'e; 808-245-6931.
• Took a hike - Toward the end of the week, my husband felt up to a short hike. We drove through Wimea Canyon, stopping for a short, dry and badly signed nature trail, and continued up the road to Koke'e State Park. We drove to a sizable parking area with a short handicap-accessible trail to a viewing area overlooking the dramatic cliffs and coves of the west coast. The trail follows the ridge crest with mountains in the mist to the east and the clear blue Pacific to the west. The views are stunning, but the trail conditions were really awful -- and it wasn't even raining. It is one of the most eroded trails I've ever seen. Deep trenches in the middle of the trail and mud hardened into uneven steps here and there bespoke a spectacular lack of maintenance. I know it rains a lot, but still.... We hiked out from the parking area for about 1 1/4 miles on the Kukui Trail, enjoying the views but watching our steps all the way.
• Drank champagne at sunset - We bought a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and took it to a west-facing lawn at Princeville and toasted our good fortune at viewing a beautiful sunset from there.
  

Car Rental: Beware of Early Returns Fine Print

We are tooling around Kaua'i in an Alamo rental car. I sure hope that we have no unanticipated reason to return it early. In the most recent Tripso travel report, consumer columnist Christopher Elliott shared the plight of a couple who had to return their car three days early due to a death in the family and were charged a whopping $513, which they discovered when receiving their credit card statement. They had booked their car on Alamo's website, and understandably were shocked at the differential.

"The early-return policy on Alamo's Web site says something about a fee of $15 per day for early returns, but our weekly rate was raised from $152 to $513. My husband and I were not made aware of the higher charge when we returned the car. We did not authorize it or sign a receipt agreeing to pay that amount. Alamo claims that we broke our contract when we returned the car early, but I feel this is a classic case of bait and switch," the aggrieved traveler from Michigan wrote to Elliott.

Elliott replied along that vein that I would have if I were an ombudsman, "Raising your weekly rate by $361 because you returned your car three days early makes no sense. If anything, Alamo should be offering you a refund for bringing one of its vehicles back early, thereby allowing the company to rent the car to someone else."

He investigated and discovered that a couple of years ago, Alamo "made a small but significant change to its return policy." In addition to the a $15-per-day early-return fee, which most travelers would probably find acceptable, Alamo now recalculates the rental rate and charges the usurious rate that they impose on walk-up customers who rent without prior reservation. "In other words," Elliott explained to the travelers, "you would owe Alamo the penalty plus the rate difference, which in your case is an extra $361."

He likened the policy to airlines whose discounted, advance-purchase fares carry a hefty rebooking fee and the likelihood of a substantially higher fare for changed tickets. He noted that, "You could have prevented this excessive surcharge by carefully reading the terms of your rental contract and asking about the early-return fee when you made plans to go home early. If you had asked, you might have been able to explain your situation to a manager, who would almost certainly have adjusted your rate in a more compassionate way."

When contacted by Elliott, who writes a nationally syndicate columnist and also is the ombudsman for National Geogrphic Traveler magazine, Alamo agreed to honor the original weekly rate and issued a refund. The moral of the story. Yes, read all that 4-point type if you can (but who ever does?). Yes, explain any such unexpected situation to the highest-ranking manager at any airport or car rental location and hope that they will accommodate your needs on the spot. Also, if you have travel insurance, check whether it will cover a situation like this and let the insurance company and the car rental firm duke it out. If all else fails, turn to an influential ombudsman who can cut through the red tape.

The aggrieved and astonished traveler did not indicate where this stealth overcharge took place, but I sure hope it wasn't on this Hawaiian island, where if anything, Alamo is short of some categories of cars.

Coming to Kaua'i

Two weeks in Hawaii -- part timeshare trade/vacation, part upcoming travel writers' meeting. We left home at 4:00 a.m., departed from Denver early (6:20 a.m.) and arrived at our destination on Kaua'i around 9:00 p.m. (1:00 a.m. at home in Colorado). The long travel day partly was due to three flights. Partly it was the fact that while my checked bag arrived on Kaua'i on our flight, my husband's came in hours later. We decided to wait for it rather than rely on Aloha Airlines' transport service.

With time to kill at Honolulu International Airport, we had lunch there. It's just as well that we had a long connection, because the airport's Wiki-Wiki shuttle buses were slow-slow. A tight connection would have been impossible, and the terminal is stunningly undersigned and we saw no airport maps. Some information boards contained no information (right). In fairness, there does seem to be substantial construction and/or renovation, but Wiki-Wiki is supposed to be quicky-quicky, regardless of other projects.

When we arrived at Lihu'e, Kaua'i, Alamo was short of cars, so they upgraded our rental by two categories. We paid for economy and are driving a mid-size. With time to kill in Lihu'e, we had a bite to eat there too. When we finally had retrieved his bag, we drove up the eastern coast to Princeville in the dark, passing what would in daylight surely be wonderful scenery. Now it's rainy and drizzly, but we're OK with a day just to veg out.

Want to Visit Saudi Arabia?

If you want to, it seems as if you now might be able to. I am fascinated by eTurboNews, which covers the travel industry news from in Asia, Africa and the Middle East that are off the normal American tourist route. Still, having read about the appeals of Albania or prospects for Oman to become "the next Dubai" for tourism, I am still sometimes taken aback. Today, for instance, a headline proclaimed, "Saudi Issues Tourist Visas." Saudi Arabian Airlines has a "Discover Saudi Arabia" promotion, and 18 tour operators from who-knows-where are reportedly licensed to bring tourists into what is described as "the elusive kingdom."

The article, by one Aftab H. Kola, also reported, "Though the government of Saudi is still apprehensive about mass tourism considering its religious sanctity because of Makkah and Madina, Islam’s two holiest sites, measures are being taken to steadily allow tourists to visit the kingdom.....The government has stared issuing group visas through licensed tour operators for foreign tourists desiring to visit Saudi....The minimum persons traveling in a group should be five.... The minimum age for women to get visas is 30 if they are not traveling with their close relatives."

I'm over thirty. Where do I sign on? Only kidding. Only kidding. Many years ago, I met a couple who had recently returned to the US after living in a foreigners' compound near Riyadh. They weren't in the oil business or with the US government. Rather, he was a pilot working for the Saudi state-owned airline, and she languished in what I think of as a foreigners' ghetto. Women were not permitted to drive, or to sit in the front seat if they were driven by a male relative, but she said there weren't many places she wanted to go. Expat women with children had plenty to keep them occupied, but this couple was childless. He went flying off. She sat around and did jigsaw puzzles. It sounded so grim. It seems not to have changed too much.

Passport: Yes? No?

More than two months ago, I reported that new passports and even renewals were taking up to 10 weeks, thanks to the Western Hemisphere passport initiative that practically required passports for travels farther than around the corner and the US Passport Agency's failure to prepare for the crush. Travelers who applied for but did not received their passports began complaining. The State Department and the Homeland Security Department, instead of cleaning up their act and managing, somehow, to catch up, have "temporarily" relaxed the passport requirement for air travel to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean.

So far, "temporary" is through the end of September. Government-issued identification, such as a driver's license, plus a receipt from a State Department website showing a person has applied for a passport will suffice. In other words, only people whose passport applications are in the works will be permitted to fly to those destinations. This latest example of government bungling and ad hoc repairs to the process seems to assume that the State Department is actually tracking the applications it has received. And, oh yes, passengers with those receipts can expect "extra scrutiny" from our friends at the Transportation Security Agency when they travel.

The passport people claim to have processed 12.1 million passports in 2006 and expect about 18 million in 2007. Didn't the agency anticipate a surge after the new regulations were passed? Evidently not. A State Department spokeswoman told reporters that the department hired 145 people last month to work to reduce the backlog and would hire 400 more this quarter. Gee. The backlog has been building all year, and they're finally hiring. Target turnaround times for passports have already been increased from six to as long as 12 weeks, but 500,000 applications have already taken longer, said the spokeswoman. And it's unlikely to improve soon.

There have been complaints to members of Congress, and those from both parties have been commenting to the media.

"They have got an awful mess that they can't handle and they're going to have to put this whole notion off for another year, If there is a mistake to be made, I'm sorry to say DHS will make it," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., whose district lies along the U.S.-Canadian border.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said Congress had given the State Department the flexibility to wait until June 1, 2009, to carry out the land and sea passport requirements. He strongly urged officials to wait "if it looks like what happened this summer becomes a possibility this winter."

"We've been in this situation since January, and I think every member of Congress' office has been flooded with emergency calls," said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wants the State Department to refund the $60 fee it collects for expedited applications, since many of those are also stuck in the backlog. "It's very simple — if you don't get the service you paid for, then the State Department should give you a refund," Schumer said.

Many citizens cross only to neighboring countries, the State Department is reportedly "still working on creating a cheaper, simpler "passcard" alternative for land crossings." Still working on it? Did no one anticipate this? This is the same administration that has anticipated little else, whether a big hurricane, the escalation in global warming or what would happen in the Middle East when Iraq became destabilized, so I suppose a Passport Agency screw-up shouldn't be a surprise. At least this one is mostly exasperating and easier to fix -- in theory, anyway.

Taliesin West & Frank Lloyd Wright's 140th Birthday

Yesterday was the 140th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday -- so I'm a day late in this tribute to a man whose imprint on modern American architecture was larger than life. Born in the Midwest, he left a significant body of work in that region, particularly in Oak Park, IL, which boasts the largest number of Wright buildings still extant (25 built between 1889 and 1913).

Wright built Taliesin East in verdant Spring Green, WI, in 1911, where he developed his signature, low-slung Prairie Style homes, with particular attention to lighting, heating, climate control and simple, built-in furniture. But my Frank Lloyd Wright pilgrimages don't take me eastward. They take me to the Arizona -- specifically, to Taliesin West, which served as his home, his studio and an architecture school that survives to this day.

In 1937, Wright began Taliesin West as a “desert camp” for himself, his family and his apprentices. That makes 2007 its 70th anniversary year. Seventy years ago Wright 70, so visiting Taliesen West this year has an elegant symmetry. Remarkably, Wright;s creativity and productivity never flagged, with one-third of his 1,100 works during the last decade of his life, the years of Taliesin West.

Rewind to 1937. It was the middle of the Depression, when what is now the sprawling Phoenix area was then an agricultural backwater, and Taliesin West was definitely off the grid. During the first four years of Taliesin West’s construction, life on 600 arid acres was beyond rustic. It was primitive. There was no electricity or heating. Water was hauled in from a nearby ranch.

As it was being built by apprentices from materials found on site and scavenged from the small city of Phoenix and even smaller Scottsdale in the valley below, Taliesin West had a camp feel. The roofs were made of white canvas, filtering in natural light by day. There was no glass on the windows, just canvas coverings that were pulled down to protect the interior and its occupants from wind or occasional downpours.

Like migrating birds, Wright and his entourage moved between the two Taliesins at the change of seasons. One of the apprentices’ tasks each spring was to lock all the furniture into secure, roofed storage rooms, to be taken out again in fall.

Apprentices also were, and still are, required to design and hand-build their own small abodes. Cabin, lean-to, tent and other structural forms dot the property, and at the end of the year, apprentices demolish their handwork, so that their successors can do the same thing.
Even while it seemed to be on the edge of the wilderness, Taliesin West was a cultural oasis, with such diversions as music, drama, dance and even dress-up dinners. Wright believed that architects needed social graces if they wanted to win commissions.

You don’t have to be an architect to admire Wright’s genius and make a pilgrimage to Taliesin West too. I visit it every time I'm in the area, and I sort of wish I had been there for this birthday that marks another decade since his birth. Wright’s home and studio are open for tours (daily though June and from September, daily except Tuesday and Wednesday in July and August. For information, go to www.franklloydwright.org, or call 480-860-1700.

Travel Agencies: Where Are They Now?

"Still Flying High" proclaims the headline on the lead story in the 'Business Plus' section of today's Boulder Daily Camera. I'd add "despite clipped wings." As writer Mark Collins points out, post-9/11 fears and the Internet boom have changed the way we plan our travels -- a sea change in the commission structure that travel agencies used to rely on for their revenues have changed the way the business was done. The article quoted James TravelPoints' Andy James' observation, "Airline tickets are pretty much a commondity now. Whatever the lowest fare is, is pretty much going to drive the consumer to that product."

By impliction, the article indicates that not only do people book online, either directly with travel providers or using portals/booking sites, but anyone can become something of an expert on any destination via the Internet. Since commissions have eroded and even disappeared, many agencies charge clients booking fees for their services -- fees that might be added on to the price of an airline ticket, hotel room or rental car, while cruise lines or tour operators still tend to pay commissions. James TravelPoints, the article said, now assembles complex travel agents into custom trips and also services corporate clients.

Many travel agencies have abandoned their storefronts festooned with seductive travel posters and stocked with brochures, and many agents now are lone eagles, often working from home offices. Heather Ross owns Heather Ross Travel, a scaled-down operation from the days of Via Travel, with space and several agents in downtown Boulder. I used to book tickets and occasional rental cars with her colleague, Debbie. Ross said that she is seeing clients who are wearying of do-it-yourself reservations and returning to travel agents.

When I spend entirely too much time noodling around on the Internet, I too miss the days when I could call Debbie or drop in at Via Travel and get the best fare available.

Majestic Line Joins Cruise Line Trade Association

The Cruise Lines International Association has just announced that Majestic America Line has joined, becoming the 22nd cruise line on the CLIA roster. I'm not sure whether any cause and effect is in play here, but just a few weeks ago, a Majestic ship called the Empress of the North ran aground near Juneau -- the fourth mishap for that particular vessel in considerably less than four years. I really have to wonder whether the line decided that membership in the cruise industry's trade association might, to coin a phrase, calm the waters of its image.