Dawn The Best Time For Discovery While The Other Tourists Sleep In, Head Out And See The Cities And Beaches Come To Life

Sometimes jet lag can be your friend. Recently, on the first morning of a trip to Hawaii, I was wide awake by 4:30 a.m. From the balcony of my Waikiki hotel I could see tiki torches still flickering along the beach and the pink light of dawn creeping up behind Diamond Head.

Unable to go back to sleep, I tossed on some clothes and went for a walk along the beach. I’d expected it to be deserted at this hour, but it was full of Hawaiian fishermen - white-haired old men and teenagers with elaborate, swirling Polynesian tattoos on their backs.

“What are you fishing for?” I asked a young man.

“Opakapaka and uku,” I think he said, using the Hawaiian names for pink snapper and gray snapper. (I could have gotten it wrong; the unfamiliar words flew past me.)

“What about the humuhumunukunukuapua’a?” I asked. When one goes to the trouble of committing the name of Hawaii’s official state fish to memory, one works it into the conversation at every opportunity.

“No, brah,” said the man with a smile.

As the sky lightened I stood and watched the fishermen, who have been feeding their families from this spot for generations. In a few hours this same stretch of sand would be festooned with beach towels, boogie boards and basting tourists, but for the moment it belonged to the Hawaiians. It was the same piece of real estate, but at dawn it was an entirely different place.

Long ago I learned that this is, without a doubt, the most rewarding time of day for sightseeing. In even the most heavily touristed places on Earth - and Waikiki is certainly among them - the cities, villages and beaches are the dominion of the locals before 8 a.m.

In the hours just after dawn, fruit and vegetable markets spring to life in market squares and plazas. Old women dressed in black shuffle out of bakeries with loaves the size of Louisville Sluggers. By 9 a.m., when eager tourists spill out of their hotels, it’s all over.

Years ago, in the Tuscan hill town of San Gimignano, I went out for a run at dawn. The narrow streets were nearly deserted, and in the less-visited “back side” of the town I came up behind a garbage truck making its rounds. A strange sound came from the back, and as I got closer I realized it was one of the garbage men singing an aria. He grinned broadly and gestured for me to jump right in and sing along, but all I could do was shrug, smile back and move on.

By 9 a.m. San Gimignano would be invaded by a convoy of tour buses, and the town would be transformed once again from a place where people lived, worked and sang into a tourist attraction.

In Bangkok, the famed floating markets are full of boats selling cabbage and chiles at 7 a.m.; two hours later, the produce is gone and the boats re-stock with Fanta soft drinks, counterfeit Rolex watches and other staples of the tourist trade.

A few hours after arriving in the Thai capital, I went out for a jet-lagged walk at dawn. The infernal tuk-tuk taxis were silent and the air was blessedly cool and sweetly scented. Within hours, I knew, the rising pollution would make my eyes water and the air would be so hot and humid you’d think you could grab a handful and wring it out.

I was headed to a 7-Eleven to buy a cup of coffee, and my walk took me down Patpong Road, Bangkok’s notorious red-light district. (Visitors are often startled to discover that Patpong is located right in the center of the city; there’s a Pizza Hut at one end and the 7-Eleven I was looking for at the other.)

The last of the drunken tourists had staggered back to their hotels, and bar girls in streaked catwoman makeup were sitting on the curb, enjoying a few moments in the cool, fresh air before heading home to sleep.

For all the wantonness of the sex clubs, it was a surprisingly sweet scene. As bouncers swept broken glass from bar fights out into the street, the girls were massaging each other’s necks, braiding each others’ hair and giggling over stories. Several were gathered around a newspaper; as far as I could tell, one was attempting to teach the others to read.

Two young monks in orange robes came down the street, carrying their alms bowls. They stopped and chatted with the bar girls. There was much smiling and laughter; they seemed to know each other. It was almost impossible to reconcile the scene with Patpong’s lurid nighttime action. Same real estate, different place.