Palau: Random Observations #1

We are very quickly coming up on a month in Palau, I have been writing down little things I’ve noticed so I can blog about them before they become the norm and I just consider them part of everyday life. I thought I’d start today with a few examples:

LANGUAGE

While pretty much everyone speaks English at a decent level both Amanda & I have been surprised to find that everyone talks Palaun to each other. I incorrectly thought that after being taken over by USA in 1944 that English would be the first language and Palaun a traditional 2^nd. It’s kind of nice that they’ve been able to keep their language but it also makes it a little hard for us at times. Amanda has found that a number of meetings & events at work are conducted all in Palaun, I also had a glimpse into what it’s like to be a Russian hockey player in Montreal when I had a baseball training run a language I don’t understand. We have had a one hour language lesson but it’s not an easy language to learn at all, it sounds very African to me when it’s broken down and there are so many different little tricks to pronunciation. Eg. a ‘ch’ in the middle of a word is a slight pause but at the end of word it’s a normal ‘ch’. After one lesson I’ve given up hope of being able to learn any Palaun, it’s too difficult. 

BUILDINGS
I've noticed here that there are a number of buildings seem to be half built. The concrete shell is complete but nothing else and they look like they've been left like this for a while. It's as if they build in stages when they have the money or they start projects without being fully organised and run out of money half way through.

The photo of the front of this hotel from a few weeks ago makes it look quite run down but most places seem this way from the outside. The hotel is a little old but clean and has a fairly new bathrooms. But when checking out the hotel from the back we've noticed how the concrete is exposed (no paint or rendering) and the steel rebar wires are all sticking out a couple of feet. This too is common, I'm not sure why things aren't finished. I don't know if it's laziness or lack of money. Some buildings also seem like they were due to be another level higher but have been put on hold.

CARS & DRIVING

Everybody drives cars here, we've only seen a handful of push bikes & scooters and there is little walking from what I can tell. Most cars seem a bit run down, we even saw one a few weeks ago that looked like it was on fire (while still being driven along). We have see a few flash cars though like a Bently owned by one of the hotel moguls who lives here. A median price for a car is about $4000 and typically they hold their value well. 

Like a lot of things here, driving reminds me of the 80s in Australia. Palau like USA drive on the right side of the road however most cars are imported from Japan so the driver is seated on the right side of the vehicle therefore driving in the gutter. But there are also US cars here too, so it’s a weird mix. You don’t really notice how much you look at drivers in other cars to make sure they have noticed you until you can’t work out which side of the car they are in. 

Seat belts seem to be a suggestion and not compulsory here. I’ve noticed kids climbing all over the place and hanging out of windows. While I don’t like to see this it doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue here as the max speed limit is 25mph aka 40kph and often through the busy sections you are just plodding along at about 20kph (for no apparent reason). I understand there is a low rate of accidents and most of them are drunk drivers running themselves into a tree. The alcohol limit is double that of Australia at .10 and I believe they don’t test unless you have an accident. There is a big ongoing campaign to stop people drinking & driving but I doubt it’s overly successful. Along with the lack of compulsory seat belts you’ll often see a bunch of boys or kids sitting in the back of a ute just like Australia in the early 80s.

Drivers are very passive here as well, frequently letting other people in and even slowing down to let pedestrians cross the main street even if they aren’t near a zebra crossing.

Did I mention there are no traffic lights as well? Apparently they were implemented at some point at 2 or 3 main intersections. There was a massive campaign leading up to this to inform the locals on what to do: green means go, yellow means prepare to stop, red means stop. However once implemented this became an issue, because some sections of the main road are long and straight It meant you could see the traffic lights from quite a distance away. When the light went red some drivers would stop hundreds of meters away from the lights because they could see it was red. So instead of re-training everyone they decided to rip the lights back out. Honestly I don’t think they really need them due to how passive and slow everyone drives.

Along most of the main street there is a middle lane that is used for vehicles to turn across traffic or to pull into when trying to turn onto the main road. It seems to work fairly well but there are still a few spots where it gets interesting, again lucky most people are pretty passive. It’s nice to see how so many people can drive without getting annoyed at each other but I do get frustrated at someone doing 20kph endlessly in the 40kpd zone, especially when you are stuck behind them for kilometres. I’d love to see this policed as it definitely causes some of the traffic issues through peak hours. 

INFORMATION

Something that has been driving me nuts of late is the lack of quality information around the island and viable ways to find said info. The Belau (Palau) games are on at the moment, it’s like Palau’s own internal Olympics with sports including things like Baseball, Swimming, Basketball, Weight lifting, wresting, canoeing, fishing and MAA (not MMA) Micronesian All Around. It’s a pentathlon event with sports like spear fishing and coconut tree climbing. The games seem to be a pretty big deal, but how do you know what is on… We’ve been able to find a list of what days certain sports are on but little other details. 

There seems to be no central location that you can look to find this information. There are some notice boards at various locations like the grocery stores and post office which are heavily used in an official and unofficial fashion but these have no games info.

A few weeks ago when I enquired about playing baseball I was given a schedule. So far the schedule has been vaguely accurate. We caught a game on the first day that was to schedule but I was told about night games that weren’t listed. Tuesday I went to see a second game, it started half an hour late. Yesterday I’ve twice gone to the field and there has been no one there, the schedule and even yesterday’s newspaper list a full day of games back to back. WTF?!?

This is just one example of the frustration of information gathering here. It very much seems to still be word of mouth.

OK that'll do for now. I promise I'll soon put up a more personal update about what we've been up to lately.

Palau: War & Peace

Hello from the land of Palau. I had previously planned to update this blog a little more frequently but since moving from the hotel to our unit we’ve had very limited internet access. Yesterday we requested a land line & homenet (DSL internet service) package. Homenet is a 256k connection @ $1.25 per hour at night or 128k @ $2.50 per hour during the day (+ a $20 a month access fee). I understand that the service is still very slow due to the country relying on satellite comms.

So what has been going on you ask?

 

all but the bottom few notes are 20's

Well we’ve picked up, paid for and registered our car. The car cost us $3700 and we paid for at least half of it in $20 notes. The local ATM’s refused to give me anything else and some of them would only give me $200 at a time. It was a long and slow process to get all the cash out. We also bought the car through one of the larger hardware stores. This kind of thing happens a bit here. Example B: The place that rents our unit (and others) out is located in a flower shop. The flower shop appears to sell golf balls and moisturiser as well. There is no golf course here. 

Ok, let me tell you how you go about registering a car in Palau. First you have to visit the equivalent of the transport department (hopefully you know where this is as there are no signs). You wait in line, tell them what you are after, then head back outside for someone to inspect your car. (Which mostly seemed to consist of writing down the engine number). Now head back inside, wait again, get the details written up. Then head 3 buildings over to the Treasury department to pay for the rego ($75). You’d think this was about it right? But no, in Palau you then need to drive a few minutes away up to the state office and pay another $25. You then head back to where you started from and wait again, they write a few more things up and give you your number plate (singular, like in the USA you have one plate on the back of your car). Then for $1 you can get someone to provide the bolts and put the plate on for you (which I’m assuming is easier than buying the right bolts and a shifting spanner). You then wait briefly again for your registration card. Congratulations, you now have a registered car in Palau :)

View from the lunch with the ambassador

 

Thankfully one of the Aussie Navy boys gave us the heads up on this one so it wasn’t as confusing as it could have been. Stay tuned for how to get your local driver’s license.

After spending our morning sorting the car out we were treated to lunch by the Aussie Ambassador to the Micronesia region (one of the perks of being in a small country). We had a good chat with him about various things like issues affecting nutrition in the area and his own various roles and duties. Someone tell me how I get one of these jobs?

The following day we moved into our new unit. It’s a newly renovated 2 bedroom unit about a 5 minute drive from “downtown” (when it’s not peak hour traffic… yes seriously there is peak hour traffic). Compared to the quality of the units we saw when looking last week, this place is a palace. We don’t have any nice views of the water unfortunately but we should be quite happy here. There are another 3 units in the block which are currently empty while the renos are being completed. 

our neighbours to the south

In Palau there are no street names nor addresses, which can make it extremely challenging to find a place. Particularly if you are new to the country like us. While catching a cab last week to view a prospective unit we had to tell the driver to take us to Momo’s house. Luckily he did know where this was. When telling people where we live we have to use landmarks like ‘next to the building xyz’ or ‘turn right where the compact road ends’. It hasn’t been too difficult so far and it just adds to the quirkiness that is Palau. 

What has been quite difficult with moving in to our apartment is the definition of what fully furnished is. Back home you’d expect to find pretty much everything to live off without having to buy anything right..? Well here it’s essentially just the basic furniture; bed, side tables, dresser, fridge, table & chairs, couches, tv unit, coffee table, that sort of stuff. This has had some fair implications on us as we’ve had to spend quite a bit of money already just to be able to do basic living and cooking. We’ve had to buy all sorts of stuff like, linen, towels, toaster, a wok, a pot, cutlery, broom, pegs & line, chopping board, can opener, you get the idea. It’s been a little challenging at times to try and make do without all the stuff we have become so reliant on. I might touch on this further in another post though. 

not cheap but a bit of a status symbol for the locals

Right now we have no tv, microwave, stereo, kettle, phone, internet etc etc. I think we’ll see how long we can go without some of this stuff and hope to pick some off other expats when they leave.  So far it’s been unexpectedly expensive to eat here. Pretty much everything in the grocery stores are similar prices to Australia. (Restaurants are mostly slightly cheaper though, except for the Indian place and one of Japanese ones). After buying the car and having to setup a house we are well behind, and with the cost of groceries I’m already rather concerned about how we will make ends meet on the volunteer wage. But we’ll see what comes once we’ve settled in properly. The locals manage to do it somehow but I think they have a lot of spam on rice.

Oh and no one really seems to have their own laundry here. We are probably lucky to have a shared one between the four units. Of course it costs $1 for each load too.

yep, seems necessary

The first night in the new unit was interesting to say the least. We had planned to cook as it had been around 12 days since our last home cooked meal and the cost was adding up. However the whole island(s) had a power blackout that lasted near 2 hours. We’ve been told this is extremely rare these days but while in the hotel we saw quite a few power fluctuations. We eventually gave up waiting for the power to come back on and had to go out and eat at a local restaurant yet again. 

I don’t think either of us slept well that first night. There was a lot of noise around (which generally hasn’t continued on successive nights thankfully). The bed seems to amplify any movement into a crescendo of tidal wave proportions. And as I expected we were woken very early by all the roosters I’d seen wandering our neighbourhood. The first rooster started around 3:30am but it was on like donkey kong from around 4:30am and it didn’t let up. At some point I started having sleep deprived delirious fantasies about buying one of the air rifles sold in one of the local shops and taking the roosters out one by one. What I find funny about this is while I was joking about shooting the roosters I’ve since found out that one of our fellow Australians here does just that. He bagged three on Sunday morning alone. Maybe I’ll get him come around one morning :)

Generally we’ve been sleeping better since and the roosters don’t seem to be as bad as they did on the first night. However it is very hot & humid at night here, just like Brisbane in summer. We put the aircon on one night but with the high price of electricity here ($200 per month roughly) we’ve been trying to go without. It’s a fine line between trying to open the place up for some air vs closing it up so the roosters aren’t as loud early the next morning.

Another issue we’ve come across is that 3 of our neighbours decided to burn off their various garden waste over the weekend, one neighbour each on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. The smoke has been so bad that we’ve had to almost complete shut the house up for hours while the fires were burning. Two of those neighbours seem to have their fire pit much closer to our place than their own as well. I just hope it’s not a weekly occurrence. 

not a bad arty photo considering it was taken on my phone

One of the perks of living here is that about 1 minute drive away the boat ramp/jetty/BBQ spot/outdoor basketball court for Nikko Bay. I think in our 5-6 days of being here we’ve been swimming every day but one. It’s a huge bay and we’ve only seen a very small portion of it. But that portion is incredible. It has some great corral which is teaming with various aquatic life. My highlight was spotting an Eagle Ray a couple of days ago and swimming around with it for about 30 minutes. Yesterday afternoon Amanda spotted a turtle but I was a little too far away to see it.  

Another perk to living in Palau is the quality of seafood. For last night’s dinner we bought a whole Red Snapper caught that day, 1.4kg for $6.75. We only had half so there is enough for tonight as well.  

Ok I’ll leave it at that before I write a blog article the length of War & Peace. Stay tuned for more Pieces of Eights coming at you soon.