Palau by Land (Destination: Koror & Babeldaob Island)

From Philippines, I decided to take a side trip to Palau for several reasons:

• A chance to see another country, one of the smallest countries in the world by population.
• This would mean that I wouldn’t overstay my free 21-day visa in the Philippines
• I love the show “Survivor” and they had filmed in Palau a couple times.
• It was a relatively “cheap, short” trip to fly there from Manila ($400 and a few hours vs. $2000 to fly from the USA

Palau did not disappoint.  It wasn’t the cheapest destination (each day trip cost about $125) Meals cost about what they do in the US.  For accommodation, I miraculously found a diver’s room for $25 a night at Antelope Marine Guesthouse.  I loved the guesthouse – cute room, nice view, quiet, and cheap – with one exception – Palau was experiencing extreme power outages the whole time I was there and when the power was out, the house was hot.  The funniest thing that happened was one day I got back from a tour and was taking a shower.  Just then the power went out so the water stopped too so I was stuck with a shampooed hairdo.

I was fortunate that a couple people were planning to do a land tour on my third full day in Palau so I joined the group.  We took an SUV to the Man’s Bai – a traditional meeting home for Palauan men.  We saw some remnants of WWII in the form of huge cannons and bunkers.   We saw waterfalls, monoliths, and north beach.

We drove by the capital building.  Apparently, an Asian country paid for the construction of this monstrosity of a building.  The locals hate it – it was very cheaply constructed and they can’t even open most of the windows.

I stopped off in town to look for souvenirs and had a small dinner at the Penthouse Hotel – stuffed crab and taro leaf soup.  They serve fruit bat here, but I can’t stomach to eat it.

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