Pieces of Eights: Swiss Family Robinson in Palau

So it’s suddenly February and despite not working much in January I somehow ended up only putting up one blog post. Time to catch up a little:

Back in late December while my parents were here we took the opportunity for the 4 of us to stay at the ‘Treehouses’ in Palau. I think the official title is the Coconut resort or similar however. The Treehouses is located right on the beach at Ngiwal, about halfway up the east coast of island of Babledaob.

First impressions of the treehouses were that of reading Swiss Family Robinson as a child, they looks pretty damn awesome. (Note you don’t actually stay in the trees but a house next door). There were two large multi platform ‘treehouses’ going up into a couple of large trees. If the multiple levels of the two treehouses didn’t give you enough choice as to where to have an afternoon beer the various spots around the garden would make it almost impossible. My first thought was how awesome this place would be for a bar. I estimated you could fit 200-300 people between the treehouses and garden spots. Not to forget the nearly completed Flintstone style design Galleon for the little (or big kids).

We had a nice chilled out afternoon and evening drinks & dinner on various levels of the two treehouses. Unfortunately this is where the couple of days seemed to sour.

Whilst the treehouses and gardens seemed well maintained it’s unfortunate that they haven’t kept up this level inside the house. From the outside it looks ok but inside it’s in a serious need of a clean. Overnight the kitchen was absolutely crawling with cockroaches and both tiny bathrooms were rather disgusting desperately in need of a full bleach from the ceiling down. We were previously told that we didn’t need to take anything up and it was all supplied. The kitchen contained one small electric hot plate and one pot. Yep, just one pot, no fry pan or anything else. A toaster was provided but it looked as if it had been left on a shelf through the apocalypse. Of the three bedrooms one had a wall banger aircon and some thin curtains. The others only had fans and no blinds. The beds were small doubles with very thin mattresses. The rather basic beds & bedrooms probably could have been overlooked without the other issues.

Overnight I somehow came down with food poisoning or a stomach bug. Between that and the rather bad state of our accommodation we cut our stay in half and came back home a day early.

In addition to the new Galleon being built a new long building is under construction on the far side to the house. It’s going to be quite a large dwelling which could house quite a few people possibly in a barracks style. The next property up the road appears to have an almost finished restaurant and covered outdoor bar with a pool table. Is anyone else thinking this is going to be Palau’s new hostel accommodation?

I think it’s a real shame that the same level of maintenance hasn’t been spent on the actual house as it has on the treehouses & gardens. I’d love to have a big party there at some point (maybe for my 36^th Birthday) but the new building will have to be significantly better maintained than the existing house.