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Blogs from Koror, Palau, Oceania
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August 3rd 2011
Every once in a while something comes along so good it just completely blows your socks off. As a youngster, full of the joys of spring, this sort of thing happens all the time: Sparklers, Scalextrix, Star-Wars, and Special Brew spring to mind, hopefully roughly in that order. As time slides by, though the spacing of these superlatives starts to stretch, and it becomes significantly harder to find the next Best Thing since Sliced Bread, new attractions plowing a steady downward path from the perfect to the paltry to the downright pathetic: Pop Tarts, Pay TV, Paris Hilton and Pension Plans, until ultimately your biggest thrill is a poke up the posterior at your annual prostate check. So it was with a certain sense of skepticism that I booked a trip to the paradise of Palau. ... read more
March 11th 2011
17:30 we are at the Palm Bay Bistro – a worried waitress – there had been an earth quake in Japan. We order our dinner. Next time she passes by: there is a tsunami coming at 18:30. They turn their TV to a local channel. There is a Tsunami warning – all Palauan on coastal areas are to go to higher grounds. And it is a bit later - at 19:25 that it is coming. We had arrived back an hour ago from Carp island – an isolated island 1 hour away by speed boat. Thinking if we would have had the information if we had strayed there today. The staff are obviously nervous. The restaurant is right at the harbor with the serving area over the water. We quickly finish our dinner and halfway run ... read more
March 7th 2011
Expectations were high for today – visiting one of the world’s wonders – the Jellyfish Lake – only found this one place in the World, a small lake in the rock islands of Palau. It was partly cloudy. We were picked up by a bus with Japanese and at the IMPAC office there were even more. Hmm. All equipment were included, and we supplied our stock. People were divided out in boats, by the activity they were going to. Our boat included Win as our guide and another Japanese guide for the 14 other. No problem. The boat slowly left the harbor and powered up the two big motors. The rock islands were right around you – lime stone rock with jungle, as small drops in the ocean. Similar to Halong bay in Vietnam? Passing a ... read more
November 21st 2009
Now I am contemplating whether or not to write this blog or not. I mean, do I tell you, do I not? I want to tell you about this beautiful, beautiful place but I don't want to wreck its cozy and lovable feel. I mean it's still a non-commercialized, non-super-touristy place, where the locals say hello to you as you pass by and cars stop to let you cross the street. It's so beautiful half of you readers have stopped reading my blog and have breezed through the photo's. Don't deny it! I don't blame you either though. Anyways, I'll tell you a bit about my Palau adventures but you have to promise me not to ruin it. I'm going back one day to check on it so don't think I won't notice if it has ... read more
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Palau -The most amazing place on earth....so far.
Published: February 10th 2009Oceania » Palau » Koror
February 10th 2009
Dear all, Where to begin?? We arrived here in Palau in the early hours of the morning feeling sleepy but excited. We had finally arrived at one of our dream destinations!! Palau is a group of islands and we stayed in Koror as its a good jumping off point for all of the divesites. Next morning we were up early even though we had barely slept as we were eager to explore Palau. We wandered into Koror town and I was feeling a little disappointed....it was just a town, where was my amazing tropical island?? Next day we got on a dive boat and that was when I realised that you have to go out to sea to realise that the other parts of Palau are beautiful...totally beautiful and like nothing that I had ever seen ... read more
September 17th 2008
September 10, we spent one day in Manila, where we got the best massage ever, before we got on our plane to Palau, Micronesia. Palau is an island in the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles east from the Philippines and 2.000 miles south from Japan. Palau is not just known as the laziest country of the world, but it's also famous for scuba diving. some of you might know it from the TV show Survivor. We stayed a week on the island of Palau and at a place called DW Motel. We couldn't post this blog earlier, because we didn't had a proper internet connection. The first two days we spend scuba diving. All the dives we saw plenty of fish, sharks, turtles and beautiful coral. We were impressed by the diversity, definitely one of the best ... read more
June 20th 2008
Hopefully this will be my final enty for the Palau Blog... The day after our last dive in Palau we spent the day at the Palau Pacific Resort just snorkeling on the private reef there, which was fantastic, I spotted a moray eel, and searched again for the octopus we had spotted a couple of days previously. Grae had developed a very sore ear infection which wasent helped by the doctor stabbing him in the ear with the instrument meant to inspect the infection. It bled quite alot and Grae was in alot of pain so he absolutley couldn't get his ear wet, which was lucky that we had finished our diving but a shame that he couldn't snorkel anymore. So while I was snorkeling Grae hired a Kayak for a hour or so and pulled ... read more
June 15th 2008
During a conversation with Simon the Frenchman (Ed's flatmate), we talked about where to dive in asia. Simon had been an instructor in the area for several years. Philippines? ok. Thailand? very touristy. I mentioned our plans to fly to Palau and Simon's response was "don't quit diving after Palau, eh? You'll never think diving is good elsewhere again!!" With this in mind Lauren and Simon arrived at 1:30am on Saturday morning to a stifling hot airport (at least it didnt smell like vomit as in Manila) and were taken to a transfer hotel where they collapsed. Simon's impression was that Palau was supposed to be a remote archipelago in the middle of the pacific but its proximity to Japan meant plenty of old Japanese import vehicles driven by burly islanders. Just like South Auckland, but ... read more
June 4th 2008
First, just a small note about my last entry on Tubbataha...I forgot to let you know that not only did I see a whaleshark, easily between 8 to 10 meters long cruising at 21 meters deep...but I had also two of the best night dives ever. Quite easy to understand when you see the amount of fish. But this time, you can imagine that in a single torch light, I had the chance to see at the same time a huge turtle, as well as 2 white tip sharks cruising just below the turtle...amazing! But let's go back to Palau... If you are a diver, you heard of Palau...if not, you may wondering where is this place. Easy, 3 hours (1035 miles), west of Manila. 20,000 people for this independant state...not much behind great Ahi Tuna ... read more
