This summer, Masako and I visited Palau for snorkelling with some  colorful fish, coral, giant clams, and even dolphins.  She got to see some great scenerey on the day tours, and I tried scuba diving.

I'll present our Palau trip in more or less chronological order, as we experienced it ourselves.  It gets better and better the further you scroll down!  There's a lot of photos here (and a lot more I didn't include in this tabblo) so if you want to see more or have any questions, just ask in comments below.

To get to Palau, first we took a highway bus to get to Tokyo, then a train to get to Narita International for the direct flight.  Here are a few photos of Niigata's Shinano river, and the ever-annoying "That's" building.  I think this may be a company that makes soap products or something like that.

There it is- "That's".  That's what?  That's all.  What is that?  I don't know, it's just "That's".  I pass this every time I go by car or highway bus to Tokyo.

Once in Tokyo, we had a nice lunch in Shibuya at the El Torito's, and got to Narita with plenty of time to open up our suitcase at the luggage check-in, to pack the toothpaste tube that was in my carry-on.  The three underwater cameras we bought got to stay in my carry-on though, in the photobag, after openning and showing them to security.

The flight had turbulence, but the worst parts were take-off and landing- one of the worst landings I've experienced actually.  However, on the movie screens, they displayed a view from a camera that was situated under the nose, outside the plane during takeoff/landing, which I hadn't seen before- that was pretty cool.  I also saw the movie "The Inside Man" which was really good, and played a few video games of go.

We got to Palau very late at night, and had our airport shuttlebus take us to the hotel.  The speed limit is something like 40 miles an hour at most I think, but usually 25- the main roads are concrete but have more potholes and bumps than Boston so everyone drives slow, sort of like on a military base.  At first we couldn't figure out which side of the road they drove on, because for one, the steering wheels in cars are common to be on both left and right sides, and also because of how much maneuvering needed to avoid the many rough patches in the roads.  (They drive on the right.  Usually.)

The first day, we didn't have a tour planned, so we took a taxi to another hotel that had a nice beach to do snorkelling and sight-seeing.  First we had lunch on this shaded terrace (above).

There's actually a lot of swimming pools like this one- what possesses people to enter them when they have perfect tropical, clear water right next to them is really beyond me.  That's worse than bringing sand to the beach, that's bringing water to the beach.

We sat over to the right of this view >

Next, we went into the water for snorkelling.  We saw a lot of namako (big and fat, sort of worm-shapped things, that don't move too much), tropical fish, and coral.

The fish were there, but you had to get out to them, and walk over dead coral and around some plantlife to get to them, a little difficult as the tide got lower.  We were well-prepared with our water-sneaker style shoes, I forget what those are called.  Oh, speaking of things I don't know- if anyone can tell me what kind of fish any of these are throughout this tabblo, please do!

We got to this beach by taxi cab.  The driver was called from our hotel's front desk, and whenever we needed a taxi the rest of our stay, he was there.  I worried at first about his attempts to obtain a monopoly on our taxi needs (how much is he overcharging us?  Maybe I want to meet other locals etc) but it worked out well enough I guess, no complaints on the old guy.  I must say he made efforts to point out what we passed along the way, and was friendly- although he would usually just tell us the names of hotel buildings (we already had a hotel, thanks).  We took a small detour once so he could show us the city hall area of the, well, the entire country (pop. about 10 or 20,000).  The president's house is across a bridge from the main offices.  One interesting thing he told us was that his daughter is in the US Navy, which I didn't realize could even happen (Palau is an independent country, although probably has a protection agreement with the US military).

Instead of wading through the plantlife you see in the above right photo, where I had to sometimes stand up to get over/around some area, I found a way around it.  (You're not supposed to stand on the fragile coral.)  I found a way to swim around the plant area in a little bay off to the right side of the beach, and circle around to deeper water, and swam back to the central beach area.  I got to see bigger and more fish this way.

That night, we had dinner at the Taj, a great Indian restaurant.  I think this is the best place we ate at while there.  Most of the dinners we had were by candlelight- not by design but because of the rolling powerouts the main island experienced daily from 6pm to 9pm.  Palau is not on a power grid and the local paper said a crankshaft broke last week.

The next day, we had our first planned tour- a boat trip to Ngermeaus Island for my first introduction to scuba diving!  I got 2 instructors, one guy from Monterey, California who had only started diving 3 months ago, and another Japanese girl who had 3 years of experience but her English wasn't so good.  Normally that's fine but when my life is at stake, I want to understand as much as possible.  Ah well, we were saving about $50 with this company's tour!  The initial instruction covered being able to find your "regulator" (the thing you breath through), always to breathe out when you don't have it to your mouth, and finally how to remove some water if it leaks into your mask by blowing out through your nose.  Decompression sickness was described, so I know not to rise to the surface too fast.

The first 10 minutes of scuba diving were certainly a little scary.  I did a little reading about it before our trip, but didn't tell my instructors that lest they assume I have a clue.  I knew you had to get a license to even rent equipment, but getting that would take at least 3 days, time I didn't have, so this Intro Dive deal was my best option to experience it.  I think the most important thing to remember is to not panic... but that also means there may be stuff to panic about.  So if the equipment fails, I can't just swim right up to the surface... I have to slowly breathe out and swim up slower than the bubbles rise.  During the second dive, I did notice a kind of thinning of air from my regulator.  I cocked my head to the side, pointing to the octopus on my back, and got back an OK symbol but I really didn't know if the air would improve- it did, after a breath or two.  I think the air was a Nitrogen and Oxygen mix.

That night, we ate at Bandidos, a Mexican restaurant.  It was very good, but again by candlelight.  The chips seemed very synthetic though, with food coloring to make them either dark green, or dark red which didn't taste as good as the naturally-colored third of them (get into Mexican by eating flag-colored chips!  reminds me of a David Cross stand-up routine).

The next day, we went to a museum in the morning, then I went to swim with dolphins while Masako shopped around downtown.  Below, is a model of a traditional house called a "bai".

The museum explained about the history of Palau, nearby islands and cultural artifacts.  Palau is known for its storyboards, which are wood carvings.  Masako got one in the gift shop.

This was our hotel.  On this day, Masako chose to go shopping in downtown and sightsee rather than swim with dolphins.  I have a full roll with me and the dolphins, which I'll save until the end cause they're my favorites- but here's one for now just to keep the order of the story right:

This one photo on CD cost me 15 bucks- I hope at least some of that went to dolphin research or something like that.  For the picture, you could choose either the dolphin kiss, or the dolphin handshake, as seen here.  Almost everyone else went with the dolphin kiss for their cross-species gesture (I had just eaten garlic for lunch).

For our final day in Palau, we took the Rock Island South boat tour.  This included several snorkelling spots, beautiful scenery, and a barbeque lunch.  We didn't get to see the famous jellyfish lake though, where you can swim with hundreds of non-poisonous jellyfish.  Masako just assumed I wouldn't want to anyways, which was initially true, but it would have been nice.  Maybe a little reminiscent of the original Nintendo game "Metroid" and the final stage.  I saw lots of fish though.  Here are a couple Masako took from the boat, above water:

We approached the German Channel, Masako's favorite part of our trip.  This was built during Germany's control of the Island about a century ago for easier access to the island we would reach.

Palau's Animals

...my biggest health risk during the whole trip is on land?

We saw many friendly, lazy dogs like this on Palau, as well as chickens and some baby turtles.  This dog pictured above came up to me and licked my hand, but later I noticed a puddle of diareah he had made on the sand- but fortunately, that was all the diareah I was to see on this trip.  After the tour, the boat docked at their office and I saw a friendly monkey of the tour company tied by leash to a birdhouse.  He climbed up one of the tour guides, who said it was ok, so I let him climb on me too.  He playfully bit but mostly harmless.  On one of the Japanese women, he climbed up behind her head and picked at her hair.  Monkeys were introduced to Palau by the Germans, I'm told.

Here we're standing on Long Beach, Palau- a long stretch of sand and clear water all around.  We waded in from the boat anchored nearby.

The giant clam, pictured above, was about 1 to 2 meters long, and there were at least 10 or 20 more giant clams like it-- but unfortunately, we just ran out of underwater camera film by this point, our final snorkelling point on the last tour.

OK!  Now for my favorite part of the trip... diving with

dolphins!

Dolphins Pacific allows all people to interact with dolphins (they even have a jetski lift modified for wheelchair use).  I wasn't sure something like this was even possible to do, outside of becomming a trainer at SeaWorld or something.  Snorkelling and swimming around underwater with fish is something I enjoy a lot, and to experience it with dolphins was truly wonderful.

They also had a habitat area set off near the lagoon for mudskippers and other fish to lay eggs.  On the tour we learned about the goals for sustainability and some of the other sealife of Palau.

Currently, Dolphins Pacific is researching Noni (a plant indigenous to Palau and nearby islands with health benefits) to see if it may provide some benefit to dolphins as well.  It was all very impressive.

The dolphins were trained to help humans get to the surface.  You could stroke their back and they wouldn't swim away.  Before swimming with them, the trainers had us practice free diving so we didn't splash too much.  It only lasted 15 to 20 minutes I think, but still well worth it.

Well, that was our trip.  The flight back to Japan was much smoother, but no movie, noseview cam displays, nor games at my seat display.  The flight took off at about 3 or 4 a.m. and I got to Tokyo just in time for a meeting (Masako returned by Shinkansen). 

Tabblo is awesome.  Leave a comment and tell me which photo you think is the best!