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Palau

Palau

Walking out to breakfast on the open air terrace, a broad spontaneous smile erupts on my face. It was all there, coconut palms, jungle, white sand dissolving into the turquoise lagoon, lush tree clad rock islands. A zephyr of a breeze cuts through the warm humidity. I’m back in the Pacific, specifically the island nation of Palau but this is a scene repeated all over Oceania.

Palau is halfway between PNG and the Phillipins just above Australia. For a short time a budget airline operated direct flights between here and Cairns, The flying time then was a cruisy 4 hours plus the add on to Cairns. The price was also about half of the modern fare. It went broke leaving us with the present situation where the trip over is a gruelling 22 hours long with a fare that is comparable to a Melbourne – Europe one.

I first heard about this island group from the GPs on the peninsula who scuba dive. They used to hold regular conferences all around the world and Palau was consistently their favourite destination. I do not dive and the attraction for me is the unique opportunity to swim and snorkel in the world heritage listed “jelly fish” lake.

The main priority of our first day here is to recover from the journey here that had us in at 4 am. A brief few hours sleep saw us walking into the capitol of Koror. This is a nation with a population of only 210,000 so the city is, as you would imagine, quite underwhelming. Once again we could be in any capitol anywherein the Pacific. The afternoon for me was a practise swim in our hotel’s lagoon puting my hitherto barely used underwater camera through its paces.

The attached photos are of the Sea Passion Hotel where we are staying.

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