The Thai Hale is lovely, tucked into the jungle and fairly remote, which we loved. It would get super dark immediately after sunset, and then the roosters would wake us up at about 5-6am, so we would watch the sunrise from bed and have a nice lazy start each day. We felt so connected to the earth and our own natural rhythms because the environment supports that.
I’ll offer a caution to people who are used to a more resort-like experience… when you are living in a jungle, there are certain inevitabilities in the environment beyond your total control, specifically, sharing space with ants, spiders, lizards, etc., and we also saw a roach or two in the middle of the night. There are lizards living inside and they’re cute, but they’ll poop on your stuff.
This is not a reflection of the host’s efforts to provide a clean space, but a feature of jungle living that needs constant management. If you’re squeamish about that kind of thing, either suck it up or stay somewhere less immersed in nature. We were fine with it. The ants are easy enough to manage if you wash your dishes, take out trash, and don’t leave food out. Wipe off the poop if they do it on your stuff. And the spiders were amazing. We had three or four golden orb weaver type spiders living on the porch railings, and I found them fascinating. If you go outside at night, you can observe them eating and rebuilding their webs.
We did not get to explore the property as much as we would have liked, but we did find Kutira and the volunteers on the property to be very accommodating and helpful. We have super strict dietary restrictions, and they cooked an anniversary dinner for us that rivaled any restaurant meal we could have gotten in town, and everyone on the property was so friendly and accommodating.
The property is about 30 minutes from Paia, and 45 from Makawao or Kahului down a small road off the Hana Hwy. the road is passable by a non-4wd vehicle, but it is rough, with about a mile of gravel, so not ideal for people with serious back problems or who struggle with rough roads. We were in a Camaro and did just fine. It’s a gorgeous drive in, so if you don’t mind remote living, it’s great. Just make sure you have everything you need before you go home or you’ll end up doing a ton of driving heading back and forth into town.
We would absolutely stay here again and highly recommend the Maui EcoRetreat!