Maui island. Luau

On the island of Maui, my friends and I lived at the Sheraton Maui Resort & SPA 4 * (Rating of the best Hawaii hotels on the beachfront). In the lobby of the hotel there were many advertisements about the excursions available on the island: Pearl Harbor, a helicopter flight over our island, an air flight over an active volcano on a neighboring island, etc. We then made some of these trips. In the same hallway, on a large poster, we saw an advertisement for "Luau Party - Traditional Hawaiian Party". Luau settled on the territory of our hotel twice a week. The ticket cost $ 200, it seemed a little expensive for a party. Then, however, it turned out that the price included a performance, live music, a buffet with local cuisine, Blue Hawaii cocktails without limits, so the price is still acceptable. Friends said: "You should definitely go, there you will learn a lot about all the national characteristics of Hawaiians." We agreed.

But before buying tickets, like true practical Americans, they offered to save in the following way. They sold real estate here like in any other place full of disguised millionaires. According to the rule of resort places, if the client agrees to listen to offers and talk to agents, then they must somehow reimburse the time spent on this. In our case, 1 coupon per person was offered as compensation, with 1 coupon equal to $ 150. 

These pieces of paper can be spent on activities such as excursions. It turns out that if you listen to commercial offers about the delights of owning real estate in Hawaii (!), You can earn money for a party. We decided to keep people company, not without trembling, of course. It was necessary to portray Russian millionaires, ready to buy a couple of bungalows on the ocean shore, while not knowing a word of English. The guys reassured: "you just need to repeat from time to time the words and phrases" fine! "," Biutiful !! "," its true ... "," I'll think about it later ... " to open, but only to smile dazzlingly. "

And we did it !!! For three hours I repeated the phrases I had memorized, my wife smiled, and all this time they were describing to us the charms and benefits of acquiring a room in a first-class hotel. You can rent your room when you don't live there. We also listened to a lecture on the real estate under construction and already finished. As friends later told us, the offers were really profitable, and if the goal was to buy something, they would definitely do it.

So we're at the Hawaiian party. After standing in a small queue and presenting a ticket to beautiful islanders in beautiful outfits, we pass by tall wooden scary idols. Aboriginal women put beads made of small shells around our necks, which apparently corresponds to the sign of "admission to the table" and take us to where we will eat the food and watch the action on the stage. The tables were set on a green lawn next to the sandy beach, and we, sitting under the palm trees, enjoyed the cool breeze from the ocean, admired the calm water surface with a yacht near the shore and occasionally glanced at the current performance. While the guests were seated, musicians played on the stage, one of them with a small ukulele called Ukulele. The other was similar in build to the famous Israel Kaanoi Kamakavivooli, the famous singer and propagandist of the Hawaiian national culture.

The program of the evening: a show called "Laulau cooking" - a traditional Hawaiian dish, and a slightly theatrical production of the legend of the "Black Rock", which is located very close to the hotel.

Laulau is prepared like this: pieces of meat, in our case a whole boar, are wrapped in leaves and placed in an earthen oven Kahlua, hot stones are placed on top, also wrapped in banana leaves. After a few hours, the dish is ready. When later the "natives" took it out of the underground oven, all the guests crowded around and vied with each other to photograph and shoot a video. It seems that in this respect the American crowd is no different from the Chinese crowd or any other. 

Two handsome aborigines put the finished carcass on a stretcher, went up to the stage and for some reason demonstrated to everyone that the "hot" is ready.
The legend about "Black Rock" tells about unhappy (or happy?) Love. Key points of the story: dancing girls in skirts made of "like leaves" and bras made of halves of coconut, dancing men in picturesque outfits of banana leaves and bunches of the same leaves on their calves. 

Acquaintance of the groom and the bride: she, accompanied by her fellow tribesmen with burning torches, is brought to the groom's house, the bride dances very beautifully in front of the chosen one. Then, alternate dances of girls and men begin again, then all together. The whole action lasts three hours accompanied by a beautiful drawn-out singing, and already at dusk the young man for some reason throws himself off a cliff into the water ... In the end, they demonstrate a virtuoso "dance of fire" - an aborigine juggles one torch burning from two sides, then two, twists them first hands, then manages to repeat this action with his feet.

During the evening, the performance is sometimes interrupted and the host “works with the audience.

Rating of the best beaches in Hawaii

Ka'anapali Beach on Maui