KEY POINTS:
"Okay folks," says bus driver Kawi Ka, "you remember the movie Blue Hawaii with Elvis Presley?
"The scene with the grass hut on an idyllic sandy beach?" Ka points over to a small, idyllic sandy beach.
"Well, that's not it."
Ka roars at his own joke and, well, as he's a very jolly and infectious tour guide, we passengers just have to laugh too.
He's been cracking jokes since the moment we boarded this day trip around the island of Oahu, one of Hawaii's 132 islands and the most populated.
Around 900,000 of Hawaii's 1.3 million people live here and, at just 48km wide and 64km, long the island is small enough to drive around in a less than day and still have time to get off the bus and take photos.
Just don't be late getting back on. Stragglers get a burst of Ka humour which includes plenty of jokes about walking back to Waikiki, the part of the island dedicated to tourists and shopping, where most of us got on.
It's a pleasure to be on Ka's bus. After staying on the 21st floor of one of Waikiki's many skyscraper hotels looking out over a tantalising blue sea but also over building sites and other skyscrapers, you get an urge to explore the real Hawaii. With limited time, Ka's bus trip is a great way to get a tiny taster.
Waikiki is fun and buzzing, and the shopping is great, but it's hard to forget the town is a man-made haven of hotels and shops built on land once under water.
The beach itself is nice enough, though not a patch on other beaches around the island. On the other hand, if you want bronzed bodies crammed into tiny togs sprawled on a rather narrow strip of yellowy sand imported from Australia, then Waikiki is for you.
Away from the artificiality of Waikiki, the rest of the island is a revelation. It's so diverse you're passing volcanoes one minute, rainforest the next, then the famous Sunset Beach where the world's coolest surfers come to catch giant waves and hang out.
Ka's commentary is a revelation, too, and after a while you get a pretty good hunch about what's true and what's a load of old Hawaiian blarney.
In between the jokes you also get a pretty good sense of Hawaii's history. You'll hear from Ka about the other side of Hawaii, the history not usually raved about in tourist brochures.
Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898 and, after many years, was proclaimed the 50th State of America. Not surprisingly, the native Hawaiians lost out big time. There is an independence movement and Ka says land rights battles are looming as the many native groupings begin to unite.
But, in the meantime, he is cracking another joke: "Here, off to this side of the motor coach, we have a nudist beach."
Some people start to lean over and eagerly squint out the window.
"Sit down," says Ka. "No, it's not a nudist beach. But I know what kind of a bus I have now."
A little further on he says out this window is the beach where a famous scene from From Here to Eternity was filmed.
"This is where this beautiful young lady lay on the beach as the waters lavished her body and this handsome man in his white, tight shorts embraced her in a wet kiss." This one's true.
We're driving past the rainforest now which has an other-world feel. "Can you folks remember the scene in Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs are jumping over the foothills? These are the rolling hills in which it took place. Look familiar now?" It does. This one's true as well.
But then Ka points out to the sea on the other side of the bus and says deadpan, "You folks remember the movie Finding Nemo? Well, that was filmed here off to the right."
Sad to say there's a pause before people begin to laugh and Ka says, "It was a cartoon. That gets the Aussies every time."
He drives us past crazily expensive real estate where movie stars and lawyers live, but not native Hawaiians who can hardly afford to live on their own island, it's so expensive.
Later in the trip he says no doubt we noticed the tents off to the right. "You folks probably call them, what, homeless? We don't call them homeless here in the islands. The reason for that folks is that most of these people are Hawaiians, okay? Now, how can Hawaiians be homeless here in Hawaii?"
But you can be houseless and Ka says that's a whole different story. The average rent in Hawaii is between US$1800 ($2298) and US$2100 a month and that doesn't include utilities. Some people hold down two or three jobs to survive. No wonder people live in tents.
Along the way Ka also talks about how Hawaii was settled and, given that bus driving is his second job and that he teaches Hawaiian culture at the university, I'm inclined to believe his version of the history here.
In the very early days, he says, his ancestors were mostly vegetarians who were seven foot tall and lived to 100. There was no disease and no war but this would change with the arrival of more Polynesians and then white people.
He talks about the many hula dances and chants which served a purpose beyond entertainment. Before the missionaries came there was no written language and knowledge was passed down by kahunas.
A boy child was chosen at birth and throughout his life was tasked with studying different chants and hula dances, some of which could go on for hours.
Then, at the age of 30, he had to recite everything he had been taught and if he got anything at all wrong he would be killed.
"This might seem harsh," says Ka, "but remember the apprentice kahuna was teaching the next generation how to sail to the different islands, how to find them, when to sail, when to plant taro and how to harvest and take care of the taro."
Life and death information: if the apprentice kahuna forgot even a tiny bit the consequences would have been dire, possibly death for the sailors or starvation for the people.
But life was largely laidback and peaceful until the arrival of the missionaries in 1820. Then everything changed.
Ka reckons the first missionaries went ashore to find the local people having a festival and having fun. "They were welcomed and fed and the locals tried to teach them how to surf."
Okay, he might be joking about the surfing but the rest has a ring of truth. The story goes that as night fell the men got up on stage and performed a traditional dance naked but for grass skirts.
"It might have been a windy night, who knows," he says sadly, "but the missionaries saw something they didn't like and for the first time in history they banned the Hawaiian language. They viewed the language and the art of dancing as a form of paganism and worshipping the devil."
There's a reminder of a more recent tragedy when Ka drives us past Pearl Harbour which, because the day has turned grey and rainy, is covered in fog.
Ka's thoughtful no-holds-barred narration has been fun and informative and given us a glimpse of the real Hawaii.
* Catherine Masters visited Hawaii as guest of Cunard and Hawaii Tourism.
GETTING THERE
Air New Zealand flies direct from Auckland to Honolulu three times a week for from $1499 return per person plus taxes.
WHAT TO DO IN OAHU
Ka's Grand Circle Island Tour was one of a list of attractions accessed by buying what is known as a Go Oahu Card. The card is a great idea if you have limited time. You buy a card for one, two, three, five or seven days and admission is covered for water activities, historical attractions and many others.
Learn more at www.GoOahuCard.com.
MORE INFORMATION
Check out www.hawaiitourism.com.au for information relevant to New Zealanders and Australians.