Pics from Palau & Guam

Hey all, just a quick post to put up some pics I've taken around Palau & Guam. 

 

Guam

TGI Friday's in Guam. We had to do it.

Belau Games Tree Climbing comp

Dehusking using a stake wedged in the ground

Belau Games Coconut Husking/Grating comp

Champion!

Coconut grating

This is Henrietta & her chicks. They got stuck in our apartment area for days as the chicks couldn't jump back up the stairs. Don't worry, we were feeding them and Amanda helped them out today.

Mini Update Part III: The Racist

Last Tuesday after picking Amanda up from work we were driving back along the main road. The traffic was heavy and moving very slow. As we sluggishly moved through one of the “bigger” intersections the traffic that was joining from the side road was merging 1 for 1 with us. As I let a car in front of me, the guy in car following that one floored it, trying to jam his way in front of me. Somehow we’ve both ended up braking and now both cars were side by side. We’ve looked at each other through open windows, I didn’t say or do anything but I probably had a cranky look on my face. I’ve then pulled ahead of him, he’s pulled in behind and decided to let fly with a string of racist comments like “f%ck you, white motherf$cker!” etc etc etc. He spent the next good few minutes and couple of kilometres with both hands off the wheel giving me ‘the finger’ and carrying on like an idiot. He calmed down a bit when we drove past a cop car and soon after he decided to use the middle ‘turning lane’ to speed past us and eventually turned off down a side road. Amanda noticed that when he sped past us he’d now wound up his window. Sounds like a gutless prick if you ask me. 

It’s not the first time I’ve copped some form of racial abuse, I’ve heard the odd comment muttered before in my travels overseas (nothing too serious) and I’ve also copped the odd comment when walking to or from work through Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. This time seemed a bit different though, maybe it was the length of this guy’s rant that did it but this one didn’t roll off the shoulders like the others have. It was a very strange incident to happen in Palau seeing how nice everyone has been to us here. I’m not sure what the guys deal was but by the way he acted and carried on he’s got a screw loose and/or is on something.

For anyone living in Palau: The number plate was Koror state, numbered 12140 (I believe) and the car was a light coloured, right hand drive, recent model station wagon or one of those short vans. (maybe a Volvo or Honda). The guy was young, probably early 20s, he turned onto the main road at the court heading towards Airai and turned left down towards the bakery just before WCTC. I would love if it someone knew who this was. Maybe you can ask him why he has an issue with skin colour.

Mini Update Part II: Rock Islands & Jellyfish lake

Last Friday we had our best day so far in Palau. Unexpectedly we were invited along on a trip out to the rock islands & jellyfish lake (two of the major tourist attractions in Palau). We knew about half the people on the boat and quickly became friends with the others. The ride out from Koror to the islands was in overcast conditions with frequent showers and stayed that way until mid-afternoon. Despite the weather the water was calm and it was truly incredible to finally get to see just how many islands there are. They are seriously everywhere, from small little mushroom shaped islands to massive long ridge lines. I honestly don’t know how the guys navigate through then without a map or GPS, I had no idea which was we were going for most of the day. We saw all sorts of cool stuff like birds diving down into the water for fish to flying fish who seem to defy gravity for an unfeasible period of time. 

Our first stop was Jellyfish lake, an inland lake populated by thousands of sting-less jellyfish. After a short but steep walk up and down the ridge line we arrived at the lake. After a short swim out into the lake we started coming across jellyfish, after pushing out a little further we were completely surrounded by them. They are all over the place, they slowly move in every direction and are constantly bumping into you. And no they definitely don’t sting.

It was an extraordinary experience to be floating around with thousands of these creatures all around. I can’t wait to return with a waterproof camera and on a sunny day. One thing I quickly adjusted was my method of swimming around. Once getting in the middle of the jellys I noticed I accidentally kicked a few, so I ended up using a modified front-paw only, slow doggy paddle. Even then occasionally I’d send one spiralling away, at least I wasn’t wearing fins! I’ve heard people can actually kill them when belting them with fins. For some reason that I don’t understand the use of fins aren’t banned in the lake however they are quite particular about you wiping off sunscreen and washing your feet in a bucket (before walking up & down to the lake)…

Our next stop was having some lunch on a small beach in the middle of the thousands of rock islands. It was a great little spot but due to overcast conditions the couple of pics I took really don’t do the location justice.  

After lunch it was time for some snorkelling. We headed to an area called German Channel, I’m not sure when but at some point in Palau’s history (most likely prior to WWI) the German Navy bombed a long channel in the corral between various rock islands. The spot is now favoured by divers hoping to swim with Manta Rays. In my limited snorkelling experience this is by far the best spot I’ve ever been to. The corral was incredible and there were lots of varied aquatic life. The highlight was following a 1 metre+ white tip reef shark around for a good few minutes. Apparently Amanda had a turtle come within about a metre of her as well. 

All too soon it was time to head elsewhere, we checked out a significant sized cave that formed in one of the rock islands when a section fell in and another marine lake with only a small channel running out to the sea. Our second and last snorkelling spot was a place called the cemetery. There appears to be a lot of dead corral at this little corner off the end of a rock island. For some reason that doesn’t stop a huge amount of fish hanging around. Again I was lucky enough to follow around a very large Napoleon Wrasse for around 5 minutes or so. 

The day was amazing and I’m very thankful we were able to tag along on the trip. It’s reminded me that whatever I end up doing over here has to involve the water in some way.

Stay tuned for the next mini update about how I got racially abused (yep, really).

Mini Update Part 1: The fence, the dog & the rooster

Welcome to another episode of Pieces of Eights: As I seems to write rather lengthy blog posts I thought I'd try to split the latest one up into a few mini updates that I'll post successively over coming days.

Today was day 17 of construction on the Great Fence of Palau

progress pic from a few days ago

. I'm happy to say it appears to be FINALLY near completion. The guys have had one day off since starting on the 5th of July but at least their working hours have decreased from the 13 hour days they were doing early on. This hasn't really stopped my frustration levels as it's still been constant noise, concrete dust & welding smoke all around our home. The fence has now taken shape as a chain link fence with 3 lines of barbed wire on the top. This only goes around 3/4 of the building, so is COMPLETELY pointless (and not to mention unnecessary). 

Now onto the dogs & roosters: It all came to a head last Monday night. After night after night after night of poor sleep due to constantly being awoken by dogs late night then roosters early the next morning it finally got to me. The neighbours dog was barking & howling endlessly at around 2am, I finally cracked it and bellowed a massive SHUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUPPPPP! Which of course did absolutely nothing, the dog gave me a cursory glance then kept going. No one else seemed in the neighbourhood seemed to stir. 

I was pretty much at my wits end with the constant lack of sleep. So I ended up going out for a drive in the early hours of the morning. Mostly I just found lots of stupid dogs sleeping on the road (no I didn’t kill any) but I did come across a late model Honda HR-V on its side at a main intersection in town. The cops and a towy were all around it with no driver to be seen. Watching the cops and the towy attempt to right the vehicle was comical. Twice they managed to drag it sideways along the road before they got lucky and managed to get it back on the wheels. They seemed to miss the concept of needing to pivot it off the two wheels that were touching the ground.

taken soon after sunrise

Anyway back on topic, after having some of our closer Aussie friends over for dinner & drinks on Tuesday night we discussed the noise problem and were informed that electricity doesn’t cost as much as we’d been quoted. It sounds like the $200 per month that we were previously told is if you leave your whole house air conditioned constantly. One of our friends gets $140 bills and that is with some significant air con use. So since then we’ve run the wall banger aircon unit in the bedroom at night. Even on the low fan setting it’s quite loud so we aren’t hearing anything from outside. Each night since we’ve been sleeping better and it’s making a big difference.

Ok that's enough for now, stay tuned for my recap of my best day in Palau so far: A trip to the rock islands & jellyfish lake. 

SERENITY NOW!

Our first full month is Palau has ticked over early this week and we seem to be finally settling into normal every day life. We've had some success with Amanda's contract finally being signed off (by the president no less), our visas are now completed and we've got our social security cards as well. Our drivers license test is booked for this coming Monday morning too.

WTF are they building? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Along with some wins we've had some frustrations as well. Since last Thursday our unit block has essentially been a construction site. For some completely pointless reason they've decided to build a fort knox style fence around 3 sides of the building. We've had a team of guys (regularly working 13 hour days) creating this monstrosity of a fence and concrete jungle. They don't seem to have gotten very far despite being into their 9th day of solid work. And I still don't understand exactly what they are trying to build, nor what the finished product will look like. The biggest problem with this work is the constant noise from power tools; grinders, hammer drills, compactors, welders & endless bashing with hammers. And not to mention the constant yelling. So if it's not the roosters and dogs waking us up all through the night Amanda & I have to put up with this nonsense ALL day long. At least Amanda gets a break at work :o

Just in case the noise aspect isn't bad enough they seem to like taking the grinder to task against the concrete blocks, creating clouds of concrete dust going EVERYWHERE. This has caused me to have to close up half or even the whole house for long periods. Don't forget it's typically 30 degrees and 90% humidity here. Multiple times I've had to madly drag all the washing back inside to avoid it being covered in concrete dust too. Of course there has been no communication nor consultation about the work, we've got no idea what is going on. Hopefully they finish the bloody thing off soon however and i can get back to complaining about the roosters & dogs.

my phone really didn't do justice to how nice this looked

Away from home we've had a good week with a number of social catch ups. The American 4th of July party under the KB (Koror - Babeldoab) Bridge was a good opportunity to meet some more people. Then we had an awesome Sunday Aussie lamb roast at the Aussie Navy compound called Aussie Acres (oi oi oi). Monday evening was the Belau Games baseball final (a good game with Koror beating Ngatpang 4-0). Tuesday was a Palaun public holiday called Constitution Day, this day hosted the Belau Games event called MAA (no, not MMA). MAA stands for Micronesian All Around and is comprised of a number of events like, free diving, coconut tree climbing, spearing and coconut husking & grating. We saw the tree climbing and coconut husking, both were very impressive. 

Rounding out the week we've had a nice Japanese dinner with some new friends and our regular Friday night drinks with fellow ex-pats. Hanging out with such great people has really made this experience for me so far.

This blog post has been inspired by and brought to you courtesy of the dulcet tones and gentle fragrance of the concrete mixing truck that has been parked right outside our living room window for near 2 hours with no sign of moving anytime soon. Stay tuned for the next edition of pieces of eights when Nathan finally loses his marbles (and I'll post some pics of the MAA events).