Palau Beach Vacation: Part 2

We are SO sorry it has been so long since we last blogged! We have been crazy busy... and a little lazy. :-) So it's about time we complete our story about our adventure to Palau!

We were able to visit some strange, pretty unexplainable monoliths on the North side of the main island.

According to our research and what the Palauans told us, there are several ideas for how these monoliths came into existence. One leading thought is that they were used in early trading days between the islands as a marketplace of sorts. 

Some of the monoliths have faces carved into them. (Pretty fancy if it was just used as a haggling table) They're interesting because they are super heavy and obviously did not originate on top of this massive cliff far above sea level... fascinating and curious.

Who are these crazies?!? :-p

That same day, Joel and I went hiking (in the rain!!) to a beautiful waterfall. The tough part was realizing the entire first half was down hill, so the whole time we were just dreading the hike back up. But, we saw some interesting things along the way, like this photo op for corny people! I guess we prefer kissing over monoliths to standing in a wooden heart.

There was a track that paralleled the walking path that could carry folks one at a time in a little car. Frankly, it looked a little scary. Glad we hiked. 

Part of the trail actually took us through some mini-rapids. It was awesome trekking through the river. 

Cool, huh? And so beautiful! (the trail, not Joel, LOL)

There were plaques explaining the Palauan story behind the waterfall. It was an interesting and odd tale about two fish that only had one eye each.

We made it! The waterfall!! Now time to hike all the way back up!

Next up: Our scuba trip!!! Apparently, Palau has some of the BEST scuba sites in the WORLD! We were told we were spoiling ourselves far too soon in our diving careers by coming here.And we were definitely the "noobs" on the trip. Divers are a special group of people, though, and are known for being super helpful. And help us they did. It'd been a while since we'd hooked up tanks and practiced breathing through the regulator. But, it came back to us eventually!

So, no, This is not a picture we took. But it should have been. We forgot the proper lens for our underwater camera so we will forever beat ourselves up for that faux pas! We did see white tip sharks ALMOST this close though, and it was SO FREAKY COOL! They couldn't care less that we were swimming around in their habitat.

We saw TONS of schools of fish. They let us swim right into their group. You'd think they'd let you touch them because you're so close, but I guess thay had to draw the line somewhere, LOL.

The dive trip was AMAZING. And we would go back just to dive again in a heartbeat!

For our last big dinner, we went to Mogmog. Seafood at its best, let me tell you!

The appetizer of the night was this special seaweed dish. It was really good actually - almost like miniature grapes that had a real salty pop.

When I saw this fried garlic dish on the menu, I HAD to have it. Worth it.

Joel got the seafood sampler. We can't even begin to describe how tasty every single thing was! Lots of crab, clams, ahi tuna, etc etc. DELICIOUS.

And I had to order snapper one last time with a great garlic sauce. Y'all can only imagine what my breath was like that night! :-)

The last image I will leave y'all with is something we DID NOT eat. You know we will try most things, but as a Pescatarian now, I definitely couldn't bring myself to eat a fruit bat and Joel wasn't feeling it that night, LOL. Apparently, it's quite the delicacy! 

Palau is a fantastic island and the real deal. You can spend tons of money and stay at one of the small, but posh resorts. But, that's just not us. We are so glad we had more of an authentic experience, met the locals, enjoyed the lifestyle and pace, and were able to have a wonderful break from reality. Thank you, Palau!!!

Palau Beach Vacation: Part 1

This past February, Kirk and I used our air miles to get to Palau! It's a tiny set of islands due South of Japan, near the Philippines and Guam. We love being able to jet around for free with our United miles. We flew into the Koror airport at 3am on Sunday morning, picked up our rental car, and met up with the owner of our bungalow who graciously met us so we could follow her to their guesthouse where we could crash until morning.

Since we arrived at 3am, and the bungalow we booked was still 45 minutes away from the airport, the owner allowed us to stay in a spare room at her home minutes from the airport so we could get a couple hours of sleep and a good breakfast before we hit the road up north. 

The guest room also served as an office... 

... and the office/guest room was inside a wood shop. The hosts were so gracious in allowing us to stay in their home, which they have constructed themselves over time and made into a giant family community house. So, from day 1, Kirk and I became familiar with the Palauan sense of family and connectedness. We felt so welcomed and included right from the start.

After an awesome breakfast that included Spam (gotta have Spam in the Pacific!), Kirk and I drove our rental car up to the North side of the island to the capitol city of Melekeok. FYI: most of the vehicles on the island are Japanese so the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. BUT, you drive on the left side of the road, so Kirk and I had a fun time re-adjusting once again to a new way of driving. 

This is the bungalow we stayed in! Again, constructed entirely by the family and maintained by the owner's brother-in-law, Ely, and his family.

It had 2 rooms - this is the front room/kitchen. Everything was rustic and basic. Just what we wanted. No frills. The real beach life.

Side view of the bungalow.

Low tide at the beach across the street. Notice the super long pier? It was awesome to walk out to the end every day to lay out, snorkel, or just sit and read. At night, with the wind, moon and stars, Kirk and I agreed we could do this permanently.

Resting area, literally. Throughout the day, Palauans would come here and sleep on the tables.

We were able to request meals from Ely and he made some amazing food! We had breakfast every morning, lunch the first day and a couple of dinners. He was definitely inspired by Filipino and Hawaiian food, which was fine with us! He always set up a table in his outdoor pavilion that doubled as his wood shop/laundry room/all purpose gathering place. It was the real deal - several of the nights, Ely and his brothers gathered to repair siding from one of the local meeting houses (will explain later). SUPER cool to observe.

Coconut water straight from the coconut with fried fish and cabbage salad. 

This is Sparky. He joined us everyday for feeding time, along with his brothers and sisters. Ely told us his name was Sparky, but Kirk named all the other pets and adopted them as her own for the week. They did love her (because she snuck food to them). They would literally wait outside our bungalow door for her to come out.

Ah yes. We played SO MUCH Settlers of Catan. Hours and hours and hours... nothing more peaceful (and competitive) than playing Settlers in Palau with our Japanese travel set.

Our Mazda Demio - great gas mileage and surprisingly good on inclines and through muddy back roads. 

Driving around, we found WWII remnants.

This is the Capitol Building in Melekeok. We were told that Palau law stated that the capital city had to change every so often, so it recently moved from Koror to here. However, most of the federal employees remained in Koror (which is the "happening" city in Palau) even though they built this stunning new center. Sadly, it's in the middle of NO WHERE. There is nothing around it except our bungalows and some residences. We never saw more than 2 cars parked there and they were probably Japanese tourists. It's on the top of a beautiful mountain with great potential, but extremely under-utilized. 

Behind our bungalow was a cleared path that went up the mountainside that we just had to explore.

Sparky the dog accompanied us the whole way

At the top of the hill was the local Men's Meeting House called a Bai. In ancient times every village in Palau had a Bai which served as the meeting hall for the governing elders, which each had assigned seats along the wall according to rank and title.

The view from the mountain top!

When driving from our bungalows back to the city, this is the turn that we made to go back to the highway, couldn't resist taking a picture they showed where they just stopped paving.

Our bungalow neighbor Justin, a Californian archaeologist, told us about a really great fish market where local fisherman bring in fresh fish daily. We decided to check out the Happy Fish Market for the Catch of the Day.

And this is what we bought...

Unknown Ugly Fish

Parrot Fish

Red Snapper

Unknown Red Fish

We took these fish back to our bungalow for a fish fry! It was a difficult endeavor considering what we had to work with, but we got them filleted, dredged in flour, and fried in oil on a pan/hot plate in our little kitchenette. Delicious! Kirk creatively came up with a potato/vegetable hash to accompany our fresh catch. Justin joined us for the feast and provided the blade for the filleting and good, archaeological conversation. 

This sign was in a a grocery store in Koror. Betelnut is a seed from the Areca palm tree that grows in the tropical Pacific and is chewed in betel leaves for its stimulant effect, similar to drinking coffee, but the juice is spit out similar to chewing tobacco. It is apparently a very popular practice in Palau however neither of us tried the nut to tell you if the stimulant effect is for real.

Getting ready to take off on our snorkeling tour for the day. It was just Kirk and I and a Japanese family on this boat for our Rock Island & Giant Clam tour. 

Kirk wanted her parents to know she didn't forget sunscreen!

This is a typical rock island.It's neat to see how the water has eroded away the base of the rock. There are somewhere between 250-300 Rock Islands total. They are made of limestone and a result of volcanic activity.

This is the famous rock bridge where the water has eroded away the rock to form a bridge.

We also saw the remnants of a Zero fighter plane from the WWII era that crashed on this rock island!

We stopped at the beach of this island for a shore lunch. Our guides cooked us grilled chicken, corn, peppers, zucchini, okra, eggplant. Delicious!

Eaten with chop sticks and a side of rice, of course!

The snorkeling was simply amazing! It's an entirely different world underwater.

This is not my picture, but these are the Giant Clams that we saw under water, they were huge!

Again, not my picture, but we saw so many blue star fish!

As you can see, the first few days of our trip were a combination of beach relaxation and some excursions and explorations. Stay tuned for our next blog post on the rest of our trip that included scuba diving, a day trip to the north part of the island where we discovered the waterfall and stone monoliths, and some really great Palauan food!