Ngardmau Waterfall is Palau's largest waterfall - dropping over the edge of a cliff about 30 meters. The main island in this country is by far the largest - yet it is still very small. You can drive around this entire island in about an hour. One of the highlights to the north is definitely this waterfall - its about a 30 minute hike in - or for those who prefer not to walk, jump on the small single engine mono rail and move along at a snail's … [Read more...]
Peleliu Island Palau
This island has seen much pain - it was scene of intense battles fought in WWII between Japanese and American forces. Initially the Americans thought the fight for the island and its airstrip would take a couple of days but ultimately winning the island took over 2 months. Existing limestone caves and new ones specially built as hide outs were constructed by the Japanese. A group of Japanese even lived undetected in one of the caves for 2.5 … [Read more...]
Kayangel, Northern Palau
Today we visited Kayangel - the northernmost coral atoll island in all of Palau. The scenery here is much different than the rock islands to the south - yet just as stunningly beautiful. We went line fishing for an hour and almost every time we dropped the line we pulled it back up with a fish on the other end. We caught White snapper, grouper, a long fish the locals called a "marijuana fish" and other colorful fish. We dropped anchor on a … [Read more...]
Pretty, Pretty Palau
Have hundreds of photos of our trip so far - but no time to upload them. Will do so as soon as can catch a break. There's plenty of perspective to be found in Palau - the island is made for outdoor adventure. Today we spent the entire day on or near the water. Rock Islands are located south of the main island and capital city of Koror. These are a series of many small limestone islands completely covered with tropical vegetation - with amazing … [Read more...]
No Journey, No Perspective
We touched down in Koror Palau on a cloudless evening - with a full moon blazing and reflecting off of the wings of the plane the entire flight over from Guam. We had arranged a homestay ahead of time and the owner was going to pick us up. We arrived at 130am, waited until 2am then called our homestay. The father of the owner spoke no English. We called back with someone from the Visit Palau doing the talking. He told us, "oh she's not here - she … [Read more...]
Giant Prawns & Birthdays
Syy got up at 330am this morning to drive an hour to pick up some huge prawns from local farmers. The government provides the baby prawns and then these farmers raise the prawns until they are full grown. The "prawn" market is only in a certain town and each farmer apparently only has a limited supply. Oh and for some reason the market is only open in the wee hours of the morning! Anyway, tonight we celebrated several family birthdays by … [Read more...]
Back to Thailand
We landed back in our home base of Thailand after an amazing time in Africa - enjoying such a variety of activities and experiences that only this continent can deliver. This was in my top 5 best trips taken so far. My heart is still in Africa while my body is in Thailand enjoying the Thai spices of life which include the food and the 5+ hour spa's in Bangkok. We arrived back in Bangkok mid day from Ethiopia. Lucky we had our yellow fever cards … [Read more...]
Fishing Time
Every year around this time the villagers drain one of the local ponds into an adjoining rice field. This takes all night - a couple guys stay up all night with the pump. Then in the very early morning about 15 people gather at the banks for a mud infused assault on the fish. This is not clean work - they jump into the mud, sinking up to their waists and crawl around with small nets and buckets collecting all the fish. By mid morning its … [Read more...]
Changes in the Village
I've been coming to our village in Eastern Thailand every at least once a year for the past 10 years (we own property next to the village). Things change so fast here. In the last 4 years we now have land line service and a 10mb Internet connection (that's 4x as fast as we have at our place in California). Oh and we have 24/7 running water. Prior to this we had to walk 5 minutes to the local pond, turn on the pump for water and then walk back … [Read more...]
Village Updates
Our niece Puk Boong shows up promptly every afternoon around 4pm dressed in her school uniform. She is attending a private school where English is taught at a younger age than a public school. The scope of her English so far is in song - she can vaguely sing the words to a number of songs - and has perfect tone. Today, the 29th of December apparently was Christmas Day at her school. She had to wear the "Christmas" uniform and happily performed a … [Read more...]
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