Hawaii Hotels

The islands of HAWAII , with their volcanoes , palm-fringed beaches , verdant valleys , glorious rainbows and awesome cliffs , hold some of the most spectacularly beautiful scenery on earth. However, despite their isolation, two thousand miles out in the Pacific, they belong very definitely to the United States. If you expect your South Seas idyll to be completely unspoiled, forget it; the fantasy of a dream holiday in Paradise remains firmly rooted in the creature comforts of home. With seven million tourists per year, including honeymooners from all over the world, frequent fliers cashing in their mileage, and almost two million Japanese, the islands can seem like a gigantic theme park.

Honolulu , by far the largest city of the fiftieth state, and with its resort annex of Waikiki also the main tourist center, is on Oahu . The biggest island, Hawaii itself, is known as the Big Island in a vain attempt to avoid confusion. Maui and Kauai also attract mass tourism, while smaller Molokai remains far quieter. All the islands share a similar topography and climate . Ocean winds from the northeast shed their rain on the windward coast, keeping it wet and green; the southwest, leeward (or "Kona") coasts can be almost barren, and so make ideal locations for big resorts. While temperatures remain consistent throughout the year at between 70°F and 85°F, rainfall is heaviest from December to March. That is nonetheless the most popular time to visit, enabling mid- to upper-range hotels to add a premium of at least $30 per night to their standard room rates. A visit to Hawaii doesn't have to cost a fortune, however; there are plenty of budget facilities if you know where to look. The one major expense you really can't avoid, except possibly on Oahu, is car rental - rates are very reasonable, but gas is pricey.

Each of the Hawaiian islands was forced up like a vast mass of candle drippings by submarine volcanic action, all fueled by the same "hot spot," which has remained stationary as the Pacific plate drifted above. The oldest islands are now mere atolls way off to the northwest; the process is continuing at Kilauea on the Big Island, with lava exploding into the sea to add new land day by day. Until two thousand years ago, these unknown specks in the ocean were popu-lated only by the descendants of what few organisms had been carried here by wind or wave. The first known human inhabitants were the Polynesians , who arrived in two separate migrations: one from the Marquesas in the eighth century, and another from Tahiti four or five hundred years later.

No western ship chanced upon Hawaii until Captain Cook arrived at Kauai in January 1778. He was amazed to find a civilization sharing a culture - and language - with the peoples of the South Pacific. The Hawaiians, too, were amazed, having long since lost contact with the outside world. Cook himself was killed in Hawaii in 1779, but he had started an irreversible process of change. The first Polynesians had brought the plants and animals necessary to create a self-sufficient way of life. Westerners took things further, and in reshaping the islands to suit their economic and agricultural needs decimated most of the indigenous flora and fauna - as well as the Hawaiians themselves. Cook's men estimated that there were a million islanders; the popu lation today is roughly the same, but a mere eight thousand pure-blood Hawaiians are left.

As well as bringing venereal and other diseases, Cook's voyage opened the fur trade between the Pacific Northwest and China. Passing ships traded arms to the Hawaiians, and within a few years, Kamehameha became the first king to unite all the islands. The sudden advent of capitalism was devastating. When the fur traders realized that Hawaiian sandalwood fetched enormous prices in China, the mass of the population abandoned taro-farming and fishing.

With the dislocation of traditional ways, Hawaiian religion fell apart. After the death of Kamehameha in 1819, the female regent Kaahumanu set out to break the kapu ( taboo ) system that held society together. Her public defiance of the injunctions forbidding women to eat alongside men, or to eat bananas or pork, threw the islands into moral anarchy - just as the first Puritan missionaries arrived from New England in 1820. Their wholehearted capitalism and harsh strictures on the easygoing Hawaiian lifestyle might have been calculated to compound the chaos. White advisers and ministers soon dominated the government, and the children of the missionaries became Hawaii's wealthiest and most powerful class.

Although the Civil War severely disrupted whaling , which once the forests were denuded had supplanted sandalwood as the island's main source of revenue, it triggered a Hawaiian sugar boom, to replace Southern sugar in the markets of the north. From then on, the machinations of the sugar industry to get favorable prices on the mainland moved Hawaii inexorably towards annexation by the US. In 1887 an all-white group of "concerned businessmen" forced King David Kalakaua to surrender power to an assembly elected by property owners (of any nationality) rather than citizens. When, after his death, his sister Liliuokalani announced her desire to proclaim a new constitution, the businessmen called in the US warship Boston and declared a provisional government. US President Cleveland (a Democrat) responded that "Hawaii was taken possession of by the United States forces without the consent or wish of the government of the islands & (It) was wholly without justification & not merely a wrong but a disgrace." The provisional government found defenders in the Republican US Congress, however, and declared itself a republic on July 4, 1894.

On August 12, 1898, Hawaii was formally annexed as a territory of the United States. At this point there was no question of Hawaii becoming a state; the whites were outnumbered ten to one, and had no desire to afford the natives the protection of US labor laws, let alone to give them the vote. Consequently, Hawaii was for the first half of the twentieth century the virtual fiefdom of the Big Five , conglomerations started by the missionary families and rooted in their massive landholdings. By controlling agriculture, they also dominated transportation, banks, utilities, insurance - and government. The inevitable integration of Hawaii into the American mainstream was hastened by its crucial role in the war against Japan, and the expansion of tourism thereafter. The islands finally became the fiftieth of the United States in 1959, after a plebiscite showed a seventeen-to-one majority in favor. The only group to oppose statehood were the few remaining native Hawaiians.

Support has been growing over the last couple of decades for the concept of Hawaiian sovereignty , on the basis that those of Hawaiian descent should gain at least the rights already held by Native American nations on the mainland. In 1993, the US Congress and President Clinton issued a formal apology to native Hawaiians "on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii"; debate rages as to what form restitution might take, with some campaigners arguing for a complete restoration of independence .

Roughly sixty percent of the million-plus modern Hawaiians were born here. Around one-third are Caucasian (many of them US military personnel), one-third Japanese and one-sixth Filipino, with 200,000 claiming at least some Hawaiian ancestry. The traditional reliance on agriculture seems to be in terminal decline, with sugar and pineapple plantations closing one after the other, and the need to import virtually all the basics of life has resulted in an extraordinarily high cost of living . In particular, the cost of housing is so high that many islanders find themselves either obliged to work at two jobs, or simply to sleep on the beaches.

Visitors in search of the ancient Hawaii will find that few vestiges remain. What is presented as "historic" usually postdates the missionary impact. Although the ruins of temples ( heiaus ) to the old gods still stand in some places - notably on the Big Island - and committed campaigners work to revive traditional philosophies, the "old towns" are pure nineteenth-century Americana, with false-front stores and raised wooden boardwalks. The two biggest festivals are the Big Island's week-long Merrie Monarch Festival , honoring King David Kalakaua (mid-April), and the statewide King Kamehameha events (around June 11). Authentic hula dancing is a powerful art form, but you're far more likely to encounter it bastardized in a luau . Primarily tourist money-spinners, these "traditional feasts" provide an opportunity to sample Hawaiian foods such as kalua pig, baked underground, and local fish such as ono, ahi, mahi mahi and lomi-lomi (raw salmon). Poi - a paste made from mashed taro root - remains a staple of the diet, much as it was when one of Captain Cook's men described it as "a disagreeable mess."

The Hawaiian language endures in place names and music. At first glance it looks unpronounceable - especially as it is written using a mere twelve letters (the five vowels, plus h, k, l, m, n, p and w ). Usually, each letter is enunciated individually - glottal stops indicate a pause for breath. Long words often break down into repeated sounds, such as " meha-meha " in "Kamehameha." Hawaii itself is more correctly written (and pronounced) Hawai'i , but for visual clarity we've omitted the glottal stops in this guide.

Honolulu, just under six hours by plane from the US west coast, is one of the world's busiest centers for air traffic; return fares from LA, San Francisco and Seattle start at around $350. There are also direct flights from the mainland to Maui, the Big Island and Kauai. Many flights to the US from Australia - such as those on Continental - include free stopovers in Hawaii. European travelers should buy all-inclusive tickets from Europe.

The principal inter-island carriers are Hawaiian Airlines (Oahu tel 1-808/838-1555, US tel 1-800/367-5320, ) and Aloha Air (Oahu tel 808/484-1111, US tel 1-800/367-5250, ), together with its subsidiary Island Air (Oahu tel 808/484-2222, US tel 1-800/323-3345). They connect all the major islands several times per day, with standard one-way fares of around $85. Discount travel agents, and virtually all resorts, hotels, B&B agencies and even hostels in Hawaii can arrange discounts on inter-island flights.

All the airports have car rental outlets; with the exception of Oahu, bus services on the islands barely exist.