Trafford man David Prior is into the second month of an adventure of a lifetime - a four months round-the-world trip taking in some of the most exotic locations on the globe. This is the second of his reports on his travels.

ALOHA from Hawaii, home to hula-girls and crazy shirts, and the next stage of my round the world trip.

Sitting 2500 miles off mainland USA, it's a world away from the glamour and glitz of Los Angeles, my first port of call.

For those not quite up to scratch with their Pacific geography, the state of Hawaii is in fact a group of eight islands, with Honolulu - the capital - located on the most popular of these, Oahu. All of them, I am told, are completely different.

After a bumpy landing in Honolulu, I spent a couple of nights down at world famous Waikiki Beach (although I confess I had never come across it). A complete tourist trap, with prices doubled accordingly, it was nevertheless beautiful.

However, it was no place for a penniless backpacker like myself and I soon hot-footed it to the other end of the island, the North Shore surfers' paradise.

That was four weeks ago, and barring a few nights here or there, I haven't moved. The hostel is more a handful of little villas a stone's throw from the beach and the only entertainment within eight miles is the supermarket next door.

To live here you must be able to do one thing if nothing else, surf. Unfortunately, I probably never will attain an upright position on a surfboard - and even if I could I would be reluctant to go anywhere near the 20 and 30 feet waves that pound these shores throughout the winter.

You have to see then to believe them. I tried swimming in them, which is fun until you mistime a wave and enter a kind of washing machine mode, emerging bruised and confused about 100 yards from where you started.

After the commotion of LA, it was quite nice to discover upon arrival at the hostel that my 'villa' was full of English lads. Fortunately, we instantly got on, and six of us decided to spend the next 10 days doing Hawaii together.

First up was a trip south to a coral reef beach called Hanauma Bay, a popular snorkelling spot. Now usually we would have been inclined to get to the bay through a public entrance. However, in the hands of our newly acquired young Hawaiian friend Cheri, life was never going to be that easy.

Cheri led us on a fairly hairy cliff-side hike before we gingerly scaled some rocks and arrived at an unusual hole, where our guide pointed and announced: "Here is the Toilet Bowl, where we're all going to have a swim." Not on your life we thought, as the waves smacked the rocks showering us with water.

For the 'Toilet Bowl' is all too accurate a description of a 10 feet deep hole in the rocks, about as wide as a large bath, that in the blink of an eye fills and empties as the waves come and go, courtesy of a small tunnel at the bottom.

Egged on by Cheri, we soon all jumped in, and I convinced myself that my time was up. What followed was a strong vacuum effect followed by a burst of water that propelled us all about 15 feet skywards. This was repeated every 10 seconds and with seven of us in there, thing got a bit hectic. Soon we all clambered to safety and collapsed in a heap on the rocks.

A couple of days later we decided to catch a flight to Maui, one of the neighbouring islands, proclaimed by the pilot as having been voted the best in the world. I have to say we weren's disappointed.

After two days spent whale-watching and waterfall-diving (it's a hard life), we borrowed the hostel-owner's van to make the two hour journey to the summit of Haleakala, the world's largest dormant volcano and Maui's main attraction.

It was completely awe-inspiring, like something from the set of 'Star Wars' as we took six hours to walk half of it, moving among steaming rock of all colours to jet-black valleys dotted with massive silver flowers unique to the crater.

Ten thousand feet into the clouds, hardly any wildlife can survive here, with the result being total, eerie silence.

I'm back now in the beach hostel on Oaju, only a few days from my next destination of the Cook Islands. I'm on my own again, accompanied only by the sounds of the Crater Boys - Hawaii's flip-flopped version of Simon and Garfunkel - and the latest addition to my record collection. It's just a typical tropical Hawaiian day...yeah!

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.