51. Conference and Hawaii Sight seeing

 It is for the  first time that  I was abroad, and  the first time attending a conference abroad. Naturally, I was a bit tense. Immediately after registration, the very first thing I tried to find is whether  there is any Indian attending the conference. Only when we  go out of our country, we feel thrilled to see a brown coloured  man or woman among the audience. You will  not bother to see  whether  he is a Mallu or  Northie, Marathi or Bengali whatever.  I wanted to see an Indian badly.  Soon, I  found from the  list  of participants  in the  printed proceedings that there  is one lady from  Bengal and one Reddy from an American University. After travelling  through an aerial  distance  of 13,122 KMS from  Kozhikode, just to see an  Indian was thrilling. I reached out for them  soon and  got  acquainted. Prof.Reddy’s  paper is on the first day, mine  in on the second day and our  Benga-bandhu’s on day three, last session.  We found that  most of the  paper presenters  come with a  back pack and as soon as their presentation is over, they go to the rest room, change  into a  half trouser(Bermuda)  and jump into the water hardly 100 meters away  from the hotel lobby. The famous Waikiki beach  was so close. What you see  in the beach is  like Havva   beach in Kovalam, most of the  gents and ladies bathing in the sun, half-naked.

 

First  day went  off peacefully, returned to  the East Coast University   apartment  by a bus. My paper  was  on the second session on the second day. Presented the  paper  reasonably well, within the allotted 15 minutes. A few  questions  were asked and answered satisfactorily. It was only 11 o’clock then. During the coffee break met  our Prof. Reddy.  He had  originally planned to  come with his wife, but she dropped  out in the last minute. He had  booked a ‘Rent a car’ for going around the  Hawaiian island. The interest in the conference  had already waned  out  once our  duty of presenting our paper is over. Prof Reddy suggested “ Mohan, why don’t we go around  the island  and come back by evening in time for the  banquet?”. He was  not very keen to go alone  in a totally unfamiliar place. I caught  on the wonderful idea to go  to the  other side  of the island which I had read that quite windy, unlike  the Waikiki  side  of the Oahu island.  We took some hot water, tea bags and sugar cubes  from the conference   refreshment counter in typical Indian style and started  on our detour of the  island. 

 

 

Once we moved out of the city, an excellent  road  was  taking us through the pineapple  fields on either side. Most  of the  people  in the island live on the  leeward side  where  the wind is not very strong. On the windward side as expected the wind was  blowing  very strong. Very strong waves  on the  sea. On the way  we stopped at a small  restaurant  like  our Punjabi  dhaba or our Kerala  thattukada. The  menu  for the lunch was one burger, Pepsi and French fry ( potato finger  chips fried   in oil). The  cost was  only 15 dollars , almost an equivalent of Rs.700/. As  my friends was earning  in USD, it was okay for him, for me it was big enough to burn out  whatever  I ate  in a few  minutes.

 

The  50^th state  of United States of America  is totally isolated  from the  mainland and the distance  to the  mainland is about 2400 KMs , good enough for another five hour flight. This is the  only part of USA in the  middle of the ocean which consists  of 8 major islands. Among the states, this state is 8^th among the smallest and in  population it is  in the 11^th position. It is a  beautiful place with large number of neatly  maintained beaches  which can be  freely used with beach side resorts, aquatic life  conservatories and active volcanoes in a few of them. The  beach  itself is about 1000 KMs . The tallest mountain in Hawaii  is Mouna Keya whose  height is 4205 meters  with its base  deep in the Pacific  ocean. If the  submerged  portion is also counted, this mountain will be taller than Mount Everest in Himalayas. The Hawaiian Islands are  formed by molten lava from the volcanoes solidifying and even now  more land is created  in some of the islands where  active  volcanoes exist. This  river  of lava  is called  Hawaiian hotspot.  

 

Animal life in Hawaii  has  some special features.  Most  of them must have been brought  ashore  from other  areas, by wind  or ocean streams. Because of the  peculiar climate, different on different  islands, considerable diversity  of life exists. Because  of this, some of the regions are   protected  areas to keep the species nonextinct. There are  eight national parks  in the  Hawaiian Islands.  Out of these,   the  major ones are  the Haleakala national park in Maui, World War II Valor in the Pacific national monument in Oahu and Kalaupapa  national historic  park in Molokai. The climate  here is similar to those of the tropical  areas. Due to the strong wind across the island, the highest temperature  recorded and the lowest 11C . There  is  significant difference in the  weather pattern on the windward and leeward sides too.