Hitchhiking Molokai

By: By Jamie Brisick | December 17, 2009 | Travel

I’d heard much about Molokai: that it was sleepy, that the locals were friendly and hospitable, that it was one part of Hawaii that had yet to be spoiled, thus I should get there as soon as possible. I also heard that it was fully hitchhike-able, which was enticing.

If travel is about immersion, tossing yourself to worlds other than your own, then what better way to experience the Friendly Isle than by thumb? It was a whimsical decision, made late at night in a blurry state, but it was one I intended to stick to.

I arrived into Molokai Airport on a sunny Friday morning, marched straight past the rent-a-car kiosks and taxis and turned right at the airport loop where a colorful sign greets arriving passengers: “Aloha. Slow Down. This Is Molokai. Mahalo.”

I aimed my thumb in the direction of town and got picked up by the third car that passed. Roger drove a gold Nissan pickup. He had long gray hair and was warm and chatty. Along the red rolling hills of Highway 460, he told me that Molokai was like stepping back in time, that the people here were incredibly self-sufficient and militantly anti-development.

“Molokai folks don’t like change,” he said, as we passed a grove of spindly palm trees.
He was kind enough to give me a brief tour of Kaunakakai, Molokai’s largest town, which consists of an L-shaped strip of a dozen or so mom-and-pop businesses. It was refreshing to see no chain stores, no traffic lights and no buildings higher than two stories.

I drank a scrumptious banana, mango and pineapple smoothie at Outpost Natural Foods, asked a Crocs-wearing customer for directions to Hotel Molokai and learned that it was 2 miles east. I walked out to Highway 450, stuck out my thumb and got picked up by the second car that passed.

John was a ponytailed, Rutger Hauer look-alike who not only pulled his dusty Toyota sedan into the parking lot and dropped me off three steps from the Polynesian-themed check-in counter, but also handed me his business card and told me to call should I need anything during my three days on Molokai. From there it was one interesting encounter after the next.

***

Crystal wore a maroon hospital gown and a white sun visor.

“Excuse my face,” she said as I climbed into her gray sedan, the center console strewn with various skin creams. “I have skin cancer.”

She looked to be in her 60s and had swollen eyes and purple scabs on her nose. She said she worked as an herbalist and moved to Molokai “right after Woodstock.” She told me that “Molokai taught me about forgiveness, made me get over my own stuff.” She said that she hasn’t been “off-island” for three years and that she has no desire to leave. With a kind of conspiracy theorist’s conviction, she said, “Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are going to get into it, and there’s going to be some really heavy, dark times ahead,” then added that “You’re lucky you have friends in Hawaii. This will be an important refuge for you when things get worse.”

***
Sis drove a raised, brown Chevy Blazer and wore a white baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses. She was portly, soft-spoken and the mother of three. She waved to every car, person and dog that we passed, and exuded a satiated calm that suggested strong pakalolo — weed.

When I asked her about Molokai she smiled and pointed her finger downward. “My favorite place is right here,” she said.

“Do you get to the other islands much?” I asked.

“No need,” she said and added something about the other islands being overpopulated. “In Oahu, they don’t even wave at drivers,” she grumbled. “It’s like the Mainland!”

***
“Aunty” had a pockmarked face and rotund body. She drove a rusted out, mid-’80s Dodge Dynasty with stalactites of loose fabric falling from the ceiling. I suspected something was slightly off when her friend, a pinched-faced, toothless woman of about 30, was riding in the backseat not the front. She nervously twirled an unlit Kool between her fingers and asked if I had a light.

I have been on middle-of-the-day drug runs on Oahu, and there’s a certain nervous anticipation, a flickering of eyes, furtive glancing over shoulders and peering into houses from big menacing trucks parked in front and blurting out, “Finally, those fuckers are home!” that these girls clearly exuded. Nevertheless, they went out of their way to drop me at my destination.

There is something introspective and Old Worldly about hitchhiking. It demands patience, humility and a willingness to dive into conversation with people you’d never speak to otherwise. It also inspires a peculiar self-consciousness. You see yourself as your prospective ride might. Are my pants zipped up? Is my body language too humble/desperate/cocky? Have I successfully veiled my inner serial killer?

And then there are all the oddities you find strewn about the side of the road. At 45 mph all looks fairly clean and well maintained, but on foot it’s a bit like taking a magnifying glass to your kitchen floor. I saw countless beer cans, li hing mui (salty dried plum) wrappers and Menehune water bottles. I saw a kid’s hand puppet made of Popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, a Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler bottle that looked to have been discarded around 1986 and a fingerless black leather glove of the Michael Jackson variety. In a half-mile stretch, I saw a narrative: first, six-packs of Heineken and Coors Light, then an empty condom wrapper, then a squashed pack of Marlboros.

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