A First Taste of Magical Palau

(above: at one of Palau's isolated beaches)

We started our experience of Palau at a tour agency called Sam's Tours that accommodated yachts and that housed a bar/restaurant beside the waters. Ali and Tim immediately jumped at the opportunity for a proper Western burger, while I had my first taste of Palauan seafood in a juicy Yellow Fin Tuna cooked medium-rare. I wasn't disappointed, and haven't been since on the seafood meals around here. They're so fresh they might as well jump off my plate and back into the sea!

After lunch, we set off to explore Koror town, Palau's most developed state where we were also staying. We were told that the only way to get transportation around the island was to either call a cab or hitch a ride with any passing cars, so we decided to be cheap and try our luck with the hitchhiking. It was quite fun to see that Palau didn't have any laws on which side of the car was the driver's side; some cars had the driver's side on the left and others on the right. But then again, the country doesn't have much accessibility to goods, so it takes whatever's available...in other words, whatever at all can be delivered into the island.

We had to walk quite a distance before we finally found a friendly Palauan man willing to take us the rest of the way to the city proper. Upon getting into the car, we got engaged in a friendly conversation with him, and then after awhile, found out his true intentions for giving us a ride when he asked, “You guys smoke weed?” So he was dealing. We refused, the Straight-And-Sober (or Not-So-Hip-Oldies...take your pick) that we were. He then asked us where we were headed, and we replied that we needed to get to Immigration to pick up our passports, which we had temporarily surrendered on entering Palau. He looked uncomfortable, but took us there nonetheless. Apparently, a police station was situated in front of the Immigration building, so right after we thanked him, got out of the car and closed the doors, he sped off faster than a bullet. Great first hitchhiking experience in Palau anyway.

The city of Koror is very clean and orderly. It's small enough that a bike ride around it would perfectly suffice, but large enough that shopping centers, groceries, an abundance of restaurants and hotels, hardware stores, and other conveniences are readily available. I love the fact that the sea often possesses the view. A walk around the city always gives me the pleasure of crossing bridges built over clear, green waters and a view of the rock islands scattered closeby. The city park even accommodates a small pool of sea, complete with coral reefs, where picnickers often like to take a dip.

We had dinner one night at Carp, a Japanese/Palauan resto that was recommended to us by another Palauan who kindly gave us a ride there. It's a Japanese-style residential home that the owner had turned into a quaint and cozy restaurant. We wanted to try some Palauan food, and the most exotic one was supposedly the Bat Soup; eat at your own risk, we were warned. Ali and I had eaten bat during our Survival Camp days and had found it very tasty, so we were excited to try the famed Palauan soup. We ordered a couple of other dishes as well, such as the clam cake and deep-fried tapioca dumplings, which were delicious but very heavy on the stomach (I could see why most Palauans were well-endowed in all parts of the body). But we were surprised - and to be perfectly honest, quite horrified – when the bowl of soup came with a bat the size of a grown rat...and looking a bit like one too, as it bared its large, hideous fangs in our faces.

We timidly tried the broth at first, well avoiding the sneering bat on top of it, but then decided that the local food experience wouldn't be complete without at least having a taste of the dreadful-looking thing. We asked the waitress to chop the bat up for us and throw out the head, so that we could at least pretend it was just chicken or some other regular meat. The waitress did chop it up, but still left the head on the plate...for our money's worth, I suppose. What can I say? The bat didn't taste awful, but it definitely didn't go on my list of favorites. The meat was dark, stringy and a bit tough, and the taste was something akin to cooked, then frozen, then reheated chicken, on the verge of going bad. Anyway...the broth was delicious.

On another day, we took the dinghy out to motor around the Rock Islands, a series of many tiny islands clustered closely together. It was a nice little thrill to feel like we were going through a maze, complete with ducking our heads while the dinghy passed under small rock openings in some of the islands. Reefs are scattered everywhere across the waters, so we stopped every once in a while at a small lagoon to snorkel around. Fish of many kinds and colors are abundant, and we spotted a sea turtle too in one of the lagoons. There are also quite a few caves around. I particularly liked one cave with glistening stalactites and stalagmites, and a ceiling that went as high as an old church's. Then we stopped for a lunch of packed sandwiches at one of the many tranquil white-sand beaches around, and enjoyed having the place to ourselves for awhile.

On our way back home, we made our last stop at a lagoon that possessed a shipwreck in shallow waters - perfectly visible for the snorkeler - so I got to see my first shipwreck without having had to dive; which I'm excited to tell my diving friends who have persistently nagged me for the past few years to get that cumbersome diving course so I could see those darned shipwrecks already. Well I've gotten to see a few now, minus the sharks and other big, scary aliens wandering the deep. Palau has an abundance of WWII Japanese shipwrecks. In fact, there are even a couple of them in the very lagoon that the sailboat is anchored at, the top part of one sunken ship just hovering above the water.

On another day, we decided to rent the car of a nice Filipino lady working at Sam's Tours restaurant (funnily, Palau is filled with Filipinos so that sometimes I feel like I never really left the Philippines!), to do a land tour of the island. This time, there were four of us: Tim, Ali and me, and Dave, a new friend we had made at Sam's tours who was living in Guam but had come to Palau to help a friend fix a boat, and then on impulse, decided to purchase his very own mono-hull sailboat. He's extended his stay in Palau another couple of months to do some repairs on his new second-hand boat, and his wife is still patiently waiting for him to get his butt back home. Meanwhile, we're enjoying his company and his many stories of all kinds of engines. I honestly didn't know there was so much to say about engines. I mostly let my mind wander off while Dave goes on and on (and on) about them, but I'm amused anyway with his knowledge and enthusiasm for all things mechanical.

The drive around the island is very pleasant, with a picturesque scenery of the sea, islands, little town shops, local residential areas that are eerily quiet (maybe because everyone likes to take naps in the hot mid-afternoons), and lots of greenery and tropical flora and fauna. Our first stop was a traditional Palauan meeting house, called a Bai, where elderly men once sat around to talk about community matters. Traditionally, women were not allowed in these Bai's; but this doesn't mean that women held a lower status in traditional Palauan society. Women had their own meeting place and were responsible for keeping the village running smoothly, as well as deciding who would be the community chiefs among the men. The men mostly held meetings regarding the safety of their village...meaning, they plotted war tactics against other tribes. Before Palau was taken over by foreign countries, the local tribes were always at war with each other. Peace only started taking place when the Spanish came and eliminated the inter-village wars. But though the wars had ended, I could sense that this hasn't stopped the competition among the villages. The man who toured me around the Bai raved about how that Bai was the best one built out of all the villages in Palau, because the Bai's in other villages didn't have this-or-that.

The Bai cost $10 per head, just for a tour of the place that would last all but a few minutes, so we decided that just to make the trip worth it, I would go in and report to the rest of the guys what I saw after, with pictures. The thing about Palau is that everything costs money. After our tour of the Rock Islands earlier, it came to our attention that anyone wanting to tour the Rock Islands actually had to secure a permit and pay $100 US per head. Boy, were we lucky to have toured it free without getting caught! Ignorance can be a great thing sometimes. Anyway, I liked the Bai. It had nice tribal paintings all over it, two fire pits inside, and it was made purely out of natural stuff. No nails, hammers, or any of that new technology was used to build Bai's; just sticks and stones.

(above: at the Bai - traditional Palauan meeting house for men)

After the Bai tour, we moved on to see Ngardmau falls, Palau's largest waterfalls. It was a bit of a jungle trek down the mountain, but we opted for it instead of the little tram that would've saved us a walk, albeit, at $30 per head. Halfway to the waterfalls, rain clouds started moving in our direction, so we took shelter for awhile at a shanty. 

(above: couple's bench)

(above: The Lover's Tree - two trees inter-twining)

(above: the $30 tram for a lazy trip to the waterfalls)

(above: mixing lime powder into a Betelnut for chewing; a favorite Palauan pastime)

(above: waiting at the shanty for the rain to stop)

We then discovered that there were guides at the shanty for the Zipline adventure, for anyone wanting to glide over the jungle in dreams becoming a bird, even for just a few seconds. Admittedly, it's been one of my dreams to be like those birds I so often watch soaring over the sea and mountains; so I eagerly volunteered to try it with Ali. Our two other friends couldn't be bothered to shell out another $20 to have their feet uncomfortably off the ground by a few hundred meters. I guess becoming a bird isn't for everyone. So when the sky cleared up again, Ali and I were properly harnessed and led up to the wooden landing of the Zipline. I remember our last same thought as we looked across the expanse of jungle far below us: “What was I thinking!?” Nonetheless, it was one of the greatest thrills of our lives...especially mine! Now I can boast to the birds that I've been there, done that too.

After another half-hour of walking down the trail, and through rivers where we found Palauan girls chatting away and scrubbing the river rocks so that no one would slip on them (what a novelty!)... 

(above: Ngardmau Falls in the midst of jungle)

(above: Palauan girls scrubbing away moss on rocks)

...we finally reached the waterfalls and were not disappointed!

I did bring a bathing suit for the occasion, but in my excitement, couldn't bother wasting precious time to change, so I followed Ali's lead and ran straight to the falls. I did actually think that I would only get a little wet if I ran fast enough past the falls to get behind it. But nope, I got SOAKED. But, I did bring an extra shirt, knowing the kinds of things I was prone to do; I'm no stranger to myself. And it was an exquisite feeling to be behind the falls, watching the water fall from high above. Ali and I stayed under the falls for a few minutes before finally making our way back, this time in an arduous trek to get back up the mountain. Ali, who's not quite the Girl Scout that I am, had to go back in soaked clothes; but that's not new to him either. We ended the tiring but satisfying day sipping on refreshing local coconuts.

The past week has met us with lots of rain, so we haven't been spending much time out in Palau's Nature; mostly just buying groceries and other fun stuff in town. We've also been trying out different restaurants that range in cuisine from Western to Indian to Chinese to Japanese to Thai to Chinese. Some restaurants sell food too painful to the wallet to be considered delicious, while others are as affordable as their humble building exteriors suggest.

On nice mornings, we go around the maze of islands on a kayak, which is a real treat with such calm, beautiful waters and secluded lagoons everywhere. And some nights, we hit our favorite hangout spot, Kramer's bar, where we get to drink the local draft beer called Red Rooster and watch the occasional and very rare live music in Palau. I wouldn't really call it local though, as the band members are Westerners who have taken residence in Palau...so my search for the native Palauan bands has so far still been in vain. By comparison, Philippines is a candyland when it comes to live local music, which I miss terribly. But then again, Palau has its own unique and interesting things too, if not an abundance of local music.

We still have much, much more to explore here, both in the culture and natural wonders, but are taking our sweet time since we will be here for another month or so anyway. So far, everything has been a very pleasant and refreshing change from the 9 months of boat repairs we had previously endured. I can't stop being ever so grateful for that!

We're now starting to settle in nicely again with a daily schedule of usual chores and work activities, which inevitably become disrupted during our travels. Ali has been catching up on work for his business, and I have gotten back to my writing projects. But errands and other daily activities are of course going hand-in-hand with further explorations of magical Palau, so stay tuned!

(above: our new backyard)

(above: hanging at Kramer's bar for local draught beer and Saturday night band)

THE SAIL FROM PHILIPPINES TO PALAU

(picture above: sunrise sailing)

After almost a year since we decided to sail to Palau, we have finally reached this beautiful place that has been ever-elusive to us. If you've been keeping up with my blog, you might remember that Ali and I left Palawan, Philippines in September, 2011 with the intention of sailing to the country of Palau in the Pacific Islands. But as circumstances had it, we got stranded, first in Boracay for 6 months, and then in Carmen, Cebu for 3 months, due to boat repairs and long-overdue maintenance. Now I'm happy to report that everything is well, the boat in fair working condition, and we finally touched down in Palau as of 7am on June 15, Friday...just two days ago.

Tim, an Australian friend that we had met in Boracay, flew to Cebu to join us on the sail. An hour after he had checked into the Philippines, he had to check out of the country again with us to prepare for the journey to Palau. We bought a year's worth of food - canned goods and sacks of rice – for storage, since we knew that goods would be much more expensive in Palau, as American dollars were the country's currency. After a week of final preparations, we said our goodbyes to good friends we had made in Cebu on June 6 and started our sail toward Siargao Island on the easternmost side of the Philippines – the last island we would be able to stop at before Palau.

We sailed all day for two days and took a rest each night by anchoring at islands along the way to Siargao. The first island we stopped at was a quiet, pretty little island with clear waters, rocks, and a lot of coconut trees. There were some residents on the island, but they lived on the other side of it from where we were anchored. It was a great feeling to be in a peaceful island again, after 3 months of town life in Cebu. I did love being around people and meeting new friends in Cebu, of course – especially meeting the young German couple circumnavigating the world, Martin and Corina...Corina becoming my best friend at the marina, whom I spent afternoons playing guitar and painting toenails with - but that time always comes for me when I just need to retreat once again from the busy world of people to the silent one of Nature. And so my little soul found rest at our first island stop.

(pictures above: our first island stop, south of Cebu)

In two days, we touched down in Siargao, an island best known as a surf destination. It wasn't hard to see why, as we were met by miles and miles of coral reef upon getting there...which makes for great surf waves but bad boat anchoring. It took us hours of tension-filled motoring across the reefs trying to get as close to shore as possible, hoping against hope that we wouldn't hear that dreaded SCRE-EEE as the bottom of the boat hits a reef. We did manage to find a spot without incident, but it wasn't close enough that a kayak ride to shore wouldn't take at least an hour. So we took the dinghy to reach land instead. More trouble came, with the dinghy engine refusing to start, which took another 2 hours; and then when it finally did start, we had to leave the dinghy about 10 minutes away from shore and walk the rest of the way in knee-deep, jellyfish-filled water, as we might have had trouble if the tide got even lower, leaving the dinghy stranded on sand. The dinghy is not a light boat. It takes at least four people to push it back into the water once it's on sand.

Our first stop at Siargao was Bayud Resort, a quiet, relaxed place, where my brother Johanne was staying for a week to facilitate a surf-yoga retreat. We got to meet the people participating in the retreat and were invited for a few spectacular vegetarian meals after that. Ali, Tim, and I borrowed Johanne's rented motorbike for the afternoon and checked out the sites around Siargao, all three of us scrunched together in one motorbike – Filipino-style. Siargao is a very laid-back island, with nothing more than resorts and restaurants as a sign of development. As I've mentioned, it's known as a surfing destination, so other than the locals, we saw nothing more than surfers upon entering a restaurant called Ocean 101 for dinner. On our way home, we found that our problem with the dinghy was just the opposite of what we were worried about earlier. The tide had gotten high, and the dinghy was now in deep water. Ali decided to swim to get the dinghy to shore and fetch us. It was already dark by that time, so he couldn't see his way very well and had to endure the harmless yet no-less-painful jellyfish stings...better one person get stung than all three of us anyway, was what we decided.

The next day, we invited Johanne's retreat group to come on the boat during their free time. They brought lunch for everyone, and we all had a generally nice time just hanging out on the boat, chatting, swimming, kayaking, and trying out the new paddle board that Ali had purchased online a few months back. There were many pretty islands around Siargao that we could've sailed to for the afternoon, but maneuvering around the reefs wasn't a feat that Ali was up to taking again. But despite that we stayed in one spot the whole afternoon, everyone enjoyed themselves immensely, just being surrounded by the ocean. In fact, when it was time to go, Johanne had a bit of a problem gathering everyone up, as the retreat people kept bargaining for a few more minutes on the boat. “It's turned into more of a vacation than a retreat, really,” Johanne joked.

(pictures above: my brother with the yoga-surf retreat group)

The next day, we decided to go for a bike ride around the island. We had sold our motorbike in Cebu and had purchased bicycles instead...much easier to get on shore than a motorbike. Tim had also purchased a bicycle for himself, which he could readily sell in Palau before he left. We had a drink at Ocean 101 and walked to the surf spot to check out the waves and surfers, and possibly do some surfing ourselves. Ali and Tim wanted to try out surfing; I, having been surfing a number of times in the past with my surf-enthusiast brothers, wasn't too excited for it anymore, as I knew all-too-well how much muscle-work and endurance it took to get past the waves and far enough out, just to get a few seconds' worth of riding the waves. I was open to the idea though, in case they decided for it, since I do recall the excitement I felt once I was out there. At the surf spot, a long boardwalk had to be crossed so that the surfers could be in deep enough water to avoid getting towed by the waves into the shallow reefs. It was mid-afternoon and extremely low tide, and we found no surfers around. We had to get back to the boat by late afternoon to start our sail to Palau, so we decided to abandon the surf idea and stick to our bike ride instead.

The roads around the island are mostly dirt roads along the coast, and we were having a pleasant time enjoying the quiet scenery of shores and little shops in the towns, when my one of my bike pedals broke off. We spent a good while trying to fix it, Ali and Tim coming up with all sorts of improvising, but nothing worked. In the end, Ali and I exchanged bikes, and he rode my bike on one pedal. He was not a happy camper by the time we got back to Bayud Resort, let's put it at that. Well, so much for China-made bikes. I'll just have to get a better one at some point.

Once at the resort, we found the dinghy now stranded on the shore due to extremely low tide. We waited for the tide to rise and relaxed at the nice resort. The tide didn't rise until 7 p.m. though, which meant that we could no longer start our sail to Palau that day. It would be too tricky getting past the reefs in the dark. So as always with life on a boat, a change of plans was necessary. We rose at 5 a.m. the next morning (okay, Ali and Tim rose at 5 a.m., and I rose at 6 a.m.) and set out for the 4-day/4-night nonstop sail to Palau. We decided that we would each take 4-hour shifts in watching the boat. I got first dibs in choosing my watches, so I chose the 6am-10am and 6pm-10pm shifts. That would give me a proper night's sleep, from 10pm-6am, which was my usual bedtime anyway. Ali chose the 2pm-6pm and 2am-6am shifts, so he could catch the sunrise and sunsets. That left Tim with 10am-2pm and 10pm-2am shifts, which he was happy to take, since he liked to go to bed late and sleep through the morning. So we were all content with our shifts.

(above: taking pictures at chilled out Bayud Resort while waiting for the tide to rise)

Except for hours of trying to maneuver around the reefs and out of Siargao, our first day was a clear, sunny, and relatively uneventful one. One of the boat engines did break, but there was enough wind for us to sail without engine. We just had to forgo the speed we originally intended to go. By my night shift at 6pm, Ali went to bed to get his rest before his early morning shift, while Tim accompanied me on my watch. Later in the night, a guy from a cargo ship in our vicinity came on the radio, greeting us in Filipino with “Kabayan...over” (“Fellow countryman...over”). We decided to have a bit of fun, so Tim radioed back, saying, “Magandang gabi” (“Good evening”). The guy greeted back, and then a guy from another boat joined in as well, saying something in Chinese. We decided to abandon the radio then.

Weather-wise, everything went lethargically the first day, but by my morning shift the next day, the winds got stronger due to some small storms lurking around. This was good news, as long as the storms didn't hit us directly. The winds got the boat sailing a little faster so that we were able to make up for lost time during the first day.

We had set up a couple of fishing rods at the back for trolling when we left Siargao, in hopes of catching some tuna, but had gotten nothing except false alarms so far. When Ali called us for about the tenth time in two days that he thought a fish had been hooked, Tim and I started joking about “the boy who cried wolf”. Wouldn't you know it. There on the hook when Ali reeled the line in, was a big, fat yellow fin tuna, about a foot-and-a-half in length; more than enough for the three of us to have a proper meal. Unfortunately, in our excitement to get the fish on the grill, none of us remembered to take a picture. So I'll just have to leave that to your imagination. We decided to stuff and grill the head part of the fish, and make sashimi out of the tail part. It was a glorious lunch that refueled our bodies and spirits for the arduous journey. By the second day, there were no longer any islands around us – just sea and sky – and we knew this would be a constant for us in the next few days. So we were grateful for the gift from the sea.

Maybe the fish meal was an advanced compensation for what was to come, because later in the afternoon, the radar broke, and Tim, having good background in electronics, had to try and fix it. Repairs being in vain, Ali resorted to climbing halfway up the mast to try and fix the sonar. That didn't work either, so we hoped for good weather at night, at least, since without the radar, we wouldn't be able to see the direction the storms were headed and would therefore not be able to avoid them in time if they came our way. And that night, starting on my shift again (I did think for awhile that it was some kind of joke being played on me that things should start happening on my shifts in particular), ominous clouds started looming overhead. That kept the boys up all night, while they allowed me to snooze through the rest of the night once my shift was over. I must have been very tired, since I slept soundly despite the hard rain and the waves rocking and banging violently at the boat.

(picture above: Ali climbing up the mast to fix the sonar)

The third morning awoke me to a very tired boat crew, but a bit of hope, with better weather and the exhilarating sight of ten or so dolphins feeding by the boat and swimming a bit of the way with us. Our third day, though wavy, proved to be all sunshine. We each got to rest well that night after our respective shifts, as the sky was clear and stars were fully out.

(pictures above: a relaxed third day at sea)

The fourth day brought an overcast sky, so we kept on our toes for possible storms. A few were brought our way, but thankfully, nothing more catastrophic than some large waves knocking kitchen stuff over, with a glass bottle breaking and spilling cooking oil all over the floor, while I held on tightly to the pan and kettle of water simmering over the stove, which had threatened to fall over too. What else could we do except finish cooking the dinner over slippery, oil-soaked floor filled with shard glass, while cleaning up the mess. The storm got worse at night, and again, Ali and Tim both stayed up all night, relieving each other of duty every 2 hours by turns. I left my shift half an hour earlier, got out of my rain-drenched clothes and into some dry ones, and went straight to bed at 9:30pm. I was thankful that Tim was with us, since of course he had far, far more strength and endurance than I did, which allowed me quite a bit of slack from the boys regarding my boat tasks.

(picture above: sailing past storms at 6 knots with the tiniest bit of sail ever!)

By 5 a.m. on the fifth day, we finally caught sight of the island of Palau. We were overjoyed by the sight of land. We could feel a proper rest getting closer and closer. Tim woke up still shivering from the night before, when hard rain unluckily fell for a very long time on his watch, but he was equally happy that we had finally reached our destination. It had been a long journey that had felt like weeks, with the boat continuously on the move day and night. Towards the end of the journey, we had started to ask why the sea was giving us such a hard time; there had been more storm than good weather. The answer, of course, is that the sea was simply doing its thing, as it always has, and we were the guests who had decided to brave its many moods; what right or power did we have to make it other than it was? The sea is what it is. A woman, they say, in many ways. One can never completely predict its moods, yet we love it anyway.

(picture above: WWII shipwreck at the reefs on entering Palau)

Palau's breathtaking beauty of rock islands scattered across still, green waters let us know that our journey had been well worth it. We passed through quarantine, and I held my breath in fervent hope that Customs would not confiscate my plants - two of which I had been taking care of for 2 years already. Ali saved my plants by telling Customs that I had painstakingly grown them from seed. So Customs ended up asking us to take the plants inside the boat, and took our fresh fruits and vegetables instead, which held the possibility of carrying insects and/or possible disease into the country, should we mistakenly bring the food to shore. And then finally, we were able to anchor at a peaceful, pretty lagoon, where other yachts were also anchored.

That night, the typhoon that the weather forecast had warned about prior to our sail finally hit Palau with a vengeance. It simply passed over during the night and headed toward the south of the Philippines - the course we had been on. So we suddenly realized just how lucky we actually were to have gotten to Palau in time. It wouldn't have been possible had it not been for the smaller storms that gave us good wind, and therefore speed, along the way. Our sailing troubles immediately turned into blessings that had spared us from the big typhoon. Nothing can convince me now that what we see as troubles are not actually blessings in disguise!

So here we are today, in Palau, after a very long and patient wait – 9 months, to be exact - sitting in an open Internet cafe called The Drop Off, in front of close-by islands with lush forests and a tranquil sea of green. As I write this blog, I'm enjoying a refreshing iced coffee and a burrito that I know I won't be able to finish. After a bit more rest, we will be ready to fully explore this wondrous country of outstandingly friendly Palauans and a maze of picturesque islands to get lost in. Our sailing adventure from the Philippines to Palau has now come to a close, and a new one is about to begin. And I will be back soon to tell you of it!