Hi all, I went to Hawaii last week to watch my 24-year old sister get married on a beautiful Lauai beach. The wedding was very, very nice, but dealing with IBS in Lauai, wasn't so much nice.
As an IBS-D sufferer, I thought I'd share my experience in the Hawaiian island of Lauai in case you ever have to go there or in case you were planning on going there for a vacation some day.
The island I spent the entire week in was Lauai, the oldest island and also the least developed island. Other islands such as Oahu and Mawi probably offer much different features in regard to bathrooms and food options because they are much more developed.
Anyway, my biggest complaint with Lauai is that the bathroom facilities were ridiculously inadequate. For me, knowing that there are a high number of easily accessible bathrooms in any given building reduces my stress considerably and almost completely reduces the chance of me having an IBS attack.
In Lauai, there seemed to be a bathroom epidemic. Two of the five restaurants I ate at did not have a bathroom inside but a bathroom in a completely different location. Of the restaurants that did have bathrooms, there was only one stall per bathroom or there was just one single dinky closet-sized toilet. And these restaurants were huge, holding 120+ people.
My worst bathroom experience was having to wait in line for a bathroom in a restaurant with particularly intestinal-triggering foods, a place with food so offensively greasy and raw-fish-y that even people without IBS would be given problems. When I finally got into the one-toilet bathroom people were knocking on the door and fiddling with the door-knob every minute. I was currently have an IBS-D attack, so I really, really needed to a) use the toilet and b) focus so I could stop freaking out, but the situation was just too dire. I ended up making my family end our dinner with the new husband and wife early and rush me back to the hotel room.
The second worst experience was one of the most offensive bathrooms I've ever been in, and it was truly offensive because it was the only bathroom in an entire strip mall area. 50 stores, a lot of them restaurants, had this one terrible bathroom for all its customers.
The bathroom's main door was propped open, which made me anxious whenever anyone passed by... because there was just one stall and one broken urinal in the entire bathroom. I had recently eaten at a ridiculously terrible restaurant with undercooked chicken (it was my parent's choice, not mine), and I didn't realize my chicken was undercooked until I was halfway through with it. This triggered my anxiety, so I had to make it to the bathroom fast, and when I found that this was my only bathroom option, I tried to do what I needed to do but the bathroom was just too much for me to handle. I took some preventive Immodium and begged my parents to take me back to the hotel.
My experience in Kauai was most likely made more complicated by the fact that my sister and my parents controlled when and where we ate, so I didn't have a whole lot of say in what kind of establishment we ate at. Luckily, my parents are somewhat sensitive to my IBS struggles, so except for the one place we at at with the undercooked chicken my parents picked modernized and relatively un-greasy places to eat. Even still, the lack of appropriate bathroom facilities made me ridiculously anxious.
Also adding trouble to this experience was that it was a risk every time we walked into a restaurant because we really didn't know what to expect menu-wise. There was a lot of papaya offered, which is certainly not good for my system; and the emphasis was obviously on fish, but I was too nervous about drinking Hawaii water with it different-than-mine bacteria so I never ordered fish. It was chicken all the time for me.
My advice if you're going to Hawaii is that doing any sort of restaurant-selection planning is almost null because a place that looks good on the outside or in the pamphlet may not actually be good at all. Also be prepared to deal with utterly inadequate bathroom facilities and, if you plan on going on a trail or driving through the beautiful scenery, be prepared to completely leave civilization behind for several-hour stretches.
Anyone have any alternate Hawaii experiences to share? Is there a list somewhere with the best and worse locations to travel to if you have IBS? 'Cause I'd be interested to see where Lauai ranks.
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A warning: IBS in Lauai (Hawaii)
