Finally, the long awaited week of relaxation and bliss was here! There was high excitement in the house about going to Palau. Not only is Palau an island in Micronesia with world renowned dive sites, it is also home to a Jellyfish Lake which was essentially the primary reason for going there. the lake is estimated to be 12000 years old and home to a non-stingy variety of jellyfish (evolved that way due to lack of natural predators). Legend has it that the islands of Palau formed when a giant that fell and split into thousands of little rock islands. The rock islands look amazing from above and from ground level they look like little mushrooms. Palau also has a Milky Way - a little cove with white limestone mud on the bottom, which it is customary to smear all over yourself before jumping into the water and washing it all off again. It is fun. When diving (we only went a couple of days due to rough seas) we saw some amazingly huge Napoleon fish (and many other fish, corals, and sharks). Twice we went to snorkel with the golden jellyfish. Thousands of them are gently floating through the water - they are absolutely amazing and stunningly beautiful. Astrid thinks it is one of the most peaceful and awe inspiring experiences ever. The food in Palau was amazing. We feasted on lots of mangrove crab and taro dishes. One night we also tried one of the local delicacies - fruit bat (memories of Phnom Penh tarantula's surfaced here). In our little hut we also had some close encounters with the local wild life - we had free roaming gecko's as hour-pets and one day a cock-roach came to visit and another day Ian bravely contained a massive spider as you can see in the video. Palauens are very friendly and on our first kayaking trip we had a guide from Yap and we learned all about the stone money. We spent time snorkeling between the rock island, as well as kayaking through mangroves. Besides Palau's natural beauty the island nation also has a very interesting history. It was first discovered by the Spanish. They then sold it to the Germans who mined the islands for phosphorus, before Palau was conquered by the Japanese in World War I. In the second World War one of the bloodiest battles between the US & Japan was fought in Palau at the island of Peleliu and afterwards Palau was run by the US until its independence in 1994.
We did and learned a lot during our week there, yet we also felt because of the weather we couldn't explore and enjoy all the things we wanted to especially under water (i.e.: all the World War II wrecks, mantas, the Nautilus and Astrid can always go back to the jellyfish :)). The other thing we were quite surprised about was how touristy Palau was - it is popular spot with Koreans and Japanese. One needs permits for everything and we felt like a walking dollar sign especially for the dive-company we used.
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