Getting to Yap was easy. We boarded a Continental Boeing 737-800 in Koror (see the Palau section for details on that part of the trip) for the two hour flight. We arrived around 10:30. The first indication that things were going to be a little different came when we got a glimpse of the airport, which seemed to consist of a single building with 3 or 4 rooms. We were directed to a gate in the center, where we were met by a young Yapese man and woman, who were handing out flower headresses to the arriving guests.
Our greeters were wearing traditional Yapese dress, which consisted of a loin cloth for the man and a colorful grass skirt for the woman. The woman was also wearing a flower necklace. Both had made one concession to the modern era: They were wearing surgical masks to guard against SARS, which had just broken out in Asia a few months before. I was astounded by the dress code: I had arrived in a country where women covered their mouths but not their breasts. As I discovered later, the dress code was only one of the ways in which the old and the new ways live side by side in Yap.
We grabbed our bags off of the baggage claim table (which was only about 8 ft. wide.....there was no carousel) and made our way through customs, which was remarkably quick and painless. We were met outside by the son of the owner of our hotel. As we were walking to the pickup we noticed an airport van that seemed to be made mostly of bamboo. It was hysterical. It looked like something stolen from Gilligan's Island. We saw it several times during our week in Yap, and never failed to smile.
After waiting around a bit we jumped in the back of the pickup and headed off to the Ocean View hotel. The driver had come in a pickup, leaving three of us back with the luggage. The road was a little bumpy, but the night sky made it all worthwhile. The view of the stars was incredible. We saw the Southern Cross and several other constellations we weren't proficient enough to name.
We spent most of our time in Colonia, the capitol of Yap. It has
got to be the smallest capitol in the world. Koror, the capitol of
Palau, is so small the streets don't even have names. Colonia made
Koror look like mid-town Manhattan.Colonia's population is said to be about 1,200, though that seems a little on the high side to me.
There aren't any traffic lights. Downtown consists of a single intersection. There is one hardware store (a True Value, no less), the YCA market, a large supermarket/general store, a bank and nary a single newsstand. You don't miss it, since there aren't any newspapers or magazines.
There is a weekly newletter, called the Yap Networker. It's pretty impressive, if a bit on the small side (it's printed on 81/2" by 11"paper). It's filled with health statistics (immunization and doctor visits etc.), information on government spending on local projects and budget decisions. The local government seemed to be very accountable. I wonder wht they know that we don't. The issue we saw (April 25, 3003) also had a big section on Earth Day, which seemed appropriate given how nicely the take care of the island. they even had an Earth Day song.
Getting money can be a problem in Yap. There aren't any ATMs, and some of the restaurants don't take credit cards. I suspect traveler's checks are widely accepted, but never asked. The only bank on the island (save the stoney money ones... haha) is located in the downtown building. It offers credit
card
advances, but it's only open during normal business hours. If
you're diving for most of the day, finding time to get to it can be
a challenge. In short, you'd do well to bring enough cash to get you
through the first few days of your travels in Yap. If Colonia is one the smallest capitols in the world, it's also got to be one of the cutest. At that intersection is their equivalent of the Hollywood sign, laid out in stone on the grass. They also have several signs around town that provide direction to various points of interest. They consist of a pole with a roof and a series of arrows pointing in the appropriate direction. They look like a Pacific version of the ones in M*A*S*H. Each is just one more of the charming touches Colonia has to offer.
We stopped at the Chamorro Bay Store on our first day in Yap. It's a small grocery store just south of the downtown. The offerings were pretty limited, consisting of canned vegetables, soup, chili, cookies and cereal. Yap is visited by supply ships three times a month, so the emphasis on long shelf life items was understandable.
They also had a refrigerated section with cold drinks, as well as locally grown bananas, betel nut and a few items of native clothing, like grass skirts and necklaces. The Yapese shopkeeper was smiling and chewing betel nut (see the Palau section for more on this remarkable nut). After looking around for a while and chatting with the shopkeeper we headed off.
On our way out I noticed a tall western gentleman walking up to the store. I casually started a conversation with him in front of the store. His name was Paul and he was the from Washington state. He's the Attorney General for the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), of which Yap is member. The President of the FSM was soon to leave office and was on a farewell tour of the islands. He had arrived with the President on our flight the night before (we had noticed several policeman lined up to welcome a VIP...now we know why.)
We chatted for a few minutes about some of the issues that the states of the FSM were dealing with. As we were talking, another guy walked up to the store. Paul stopped the man and introduced him to me.
His name was Ieske, and he was the Foreign Minister for the FSM. After speaking for a few more minutes we said goodbye and parted company.
I've lived in the United States for almost twenty-five years. In that time, I've never met our Attorney General or our Secretary of State. In Yap I met both.......... on my first day......... in front of a grocery store that was about half the size of a 7-11. I was wearing shorts and a T shirt and I was better dressed than they were. It was just one more of the magical experiences Yap has to offer.
A Place to Stay
As gorgeous as the night skies are, you'll probably want to stay indoors (they do get a fair amount of rain). Unfortunately there aren't many hotels in Yap. At the high end is the Trader's Ridge Resort, a plantation-style hotel on a hill overlooking Chamorro Bay, which splits Colonia. It is located on the site of the old German cable station, which was built in the early 1900s.
It
is palatial. It looks like something out of an early scene
in Gone With the Wind. The rooms
are remarkably airy and open, with a liesurely, upper crust feel to it.
The views of the rest of Yap are amazing. Everything is first class, including the prices. We had dinner there one evening. The food was outstanding. After a few cocktails I was sure I had been transported to Charleston in the 1850s.
The picture at right really doesn't do it justice. This one you'll just have to experience for yourself.
Next on the scale is Manta Ray Bay Hotel, which is also very nice, though its not in the Trader's Ridge Resort orbit. It's right on the water, and is close to just about everything you'd need. The rooms are large and comfortable. The rooms all have telephones (though I'm not sure who you'd want to call) and some offer water beds. We often ate at their restaurant. The hotel offers has canned beer and can sell you an official alcoholic beverage drinking permit (mine was no. 0421), which you have to have to buy alcohol in stores in Yap. The stores aren't too strict about checking for licenses, so you can probably get buy without one. You don't need one to order a drink in a bar. I got one just for kicks. The Manta Ray Bay Hotel was started by Bill Acker, a tall Texan who is the founder of diving in Yap. He came to Yap in 1981, married a Yapese girl and has raised a family.
We stayed at the Ocean View, which was just fifty
yards up the road. It made for an easy commute to the
dive operation. The Ocean View was much less expensive than the
Manta Ray Bay, but, as they say, you get what you pay for. The rooms were small at 8'x10' and the lighting wasn't very good. There was a single lamp, but it didn't cover much of the room. The bathroom was a prefab fiberglass unit that reminded me of what airplane rest rooms might look like if they also had a shower. It was quite functional, though a little claustrophobic. The mattress (a thick foam pad) on the bed was way too soft.
The TV was a story in itself. It was a 13" color unit with a row with a dozen channel buttons in front. All but one of these was superfluous, since there's only one channel in Yap. The reception was poor, with more snow than a Pacific Island should see in several lifetimes. The one channel is the daily broadcast of the NBC affiliate in San Francisco shown three weeks late. While most of you only had to watch the Gulf War start once, we ended up seeing it three times, once in the US, once in Palau (where the broadcasts were a week late) and then again in Yap. Needless to say we didn't spend much time watching TV, though it did provide an occasional window on the world.
Despite its shortcomings, the Ocean View is actually a very reasonable place to stay. It's in a great location, a few minutes walk from just about anything you'll need. Every unit has a small refrigerator, which is wonderful. The Ocean View has a small convenience store, restaurant and laundry. The restaurant is only open for breakfast and lunch and by request in the evenings. The staff is very nice. They offer free bananas and coffee. The proprietor doesn't speak English, but her son does, so you won't have a problem. They don't take credit cards, so bring cash.
A great choice for environ-mentally conscious
travelers is the Pathways hotel, which overlooks the bay. It's
pictured at left.They're the ones with the nifty airport shuttle. Just about everything in the hotel appears to be made of bamboo or palm trees. It blends in beautifully with its natural surroundings..... so beautifully that's kind of hard to find. We'd often walk right by it. It's kind of a stealth hotel.
We didn't get a chance to go inside the bungalows, but the guests we spoke to thought highly of them. We also saw the ESA hotel, which is kind of a cross between a Holiday Inn and a Motel 6. It's also in Colonia, though it's a little out of the way. It's a 20 minute walk from the downtown area.
Epicurean Delights
Yap is not a great producer of agricultural products. They grow bananas, betel nut, coconuts and a few other vegetables. Most of the food is brought in by cargo ships, which come three times a month. While frozen and processed foods are plentiful, fresh fruits and vegetables are often hard to come by. This limits what the restaurants can do. Even staples like potatos were pretty rare. That isn't to say the food in Yap isn't good. It's very good, even excellent at times. It was much better than the food in Palau. But the offerings are limited to what they have in hand. In the case of fr
We enjoyed several meals on the Mnuw, a 100
year old Indonesian lumber carrier that has been converted into
a restaurant by the Manta Ray Bay Hotel. They've done a
remarkable job. The ship had only been there about five months
when we visited in March, and several parts were still being worked
on. What they've done is magnificent. The main deck is a formal dining room reserved for special ocassions The next deck is the restaurant/bar area and has tables inside and out. The top deck has more tables and also has a bar, though it seemed to only be open in the afternoons.
The food on the Mnuw was outstanding. You'd be hard pressed to find better meals in LA. The menu is limited to five or six items that change a few times a week. It incorporates traditional Yapese dishes as well as traditional western and asian favorites. The prices were very reasonable. They also have an impressive list of cocktails, every one of which was delicious. We ate most of our dinners on the Mnuw and enjoyed every one of them. Our waiter, Steven, grew up on one of the outer islands, but went to high school in Frederick, MD on an exchange program.
The ambiance of the Mnuw is worthy of special note. It's not often that you get to look up from a great meal and see around you a one hundred year old vessel not too far removed from Captain Cook's. When you look up you can see a thousand stars, among them the Southern Cross. It was just one of the magical moments Yap has to offer.
We ate at the restaurant at the Pathways
Hotel a few times and were impressed with the length of the menu and the
quality of the food. They were out of some items, but you had to admire their courage in offering so many things in a place where the supply of ingredients is uncertain to put it mildly. The drinks were delicious as well.
Just eating in a bamboo restaurant was really good fun. I felt like we had washed up on Giligan's Island and were sitting down to dinner. I kept looking for Ginger or Mary Ann to pop in with our food.
There are a few restaurants of note in the downtown area. One is on the second floor of the main building. It offers a wide variety of sandwiches along with asian and western dishes. I believe it's only open for breakfast and lunch. There's a great breakfast place just a block away in the Marina. You eat at tables in a large open area patio with a great view of the yachts and other boats in the Marina. It's called (not surprisingly) the Marina restaurant. They're also open for lunch. There's a cafe/snackbar at O'Keefe's bar on the second floor. It offers a nice view, even if the food is just okay.
The Diving
We dove with Manta Ray Divers, which is, adjacent located in the Manta Ray Bay Hotel. They have a nice dive shop with an outstanding collection of T-shirts. They also offer quite a bit of rental gear, though we brought our own equipment. They have a locker room with cubby holes to store your gear and hangers for your wetsuit. There are several large freshwater tanks to rinse your gear in upon returning. There is a separate rinse tank for camera equipment. They also have a chalkboard providing a schedule of the day's dives.
The dive guides were Jan and Monica, a nice Belgian couple. Jan, our dive guide, has a very interesting background. He grew up in central Africa (his father was an official doing aid projects for the Belgian government) and has been a dive guide in Egypt, Kenya, the Maldives as well as Yap. He's very nice and helpful. Unfortunately, you won't get to see them, as they've moved on to new positions in South Africa.
They have two fast 21 ft. dive boats. There's a larger 38 ft. boat, though we only used it once. The 21 ft. boats could probably fit nine or ten divers, though we never had more than six. Manta Ray Divers generally tries to keep people with one dive guide, so you tend to dive with the same group. The boats are comfortable if not luxurious. Hot tea and water are always available, and they offer banana bread on the trip back. The dive sites are all less than minutes away. The route out to many of the dive sites is protected, so the rides weren't bad at all. Manta Ray Divers offers two dives a day and an ocassional night dive.
We did six dives in five days on Yap and enjoyed them quite a bit. The reefs are in good shape, and fish life was plentifu. The diving wasn't as spectacular as that in Palau, from where we had just come, but few places are. The types of fish and corals were largely the same, though there wasn't as much fish life. I really hesitate to draw the comparison, since Palau is such a tough standard to match. I thought it offered some of the best diving I've ever seen, and I've seen some great dive sites.
In Yap we saw sharks, butterfly fish, groupers and several types of clown fish and anemones. One of the guides even saw (briefly) a tiger shark, though I missed it. The currents were less intense, though they weren't bad in Palau either. One of the primary attractions in Yap are manta rays. It's one of the foremost spots in the world for them. We went on a couple of dives specifically looking for Mantas, but didn't have much luck finding them. We did see one cruise buy, but he didn't stick around too long. I guess it wasn't our lucky day.
Sharks, on the other hand, were much easier to come by. We saw them on several dives, particularly in the morning. Jan had a great technique for attracting them. He rubbed an empty plastic water bottle, a sound they seemed to find fascinating.
In addition to seeing them on regular dives, we also went on a special shark dive in Yap. I had been on one shark dive previously, in Rangiroa, in French Polynesia. It was well done, and a lot of fun, but very low tech. The dive guide bought a fish carcass down in a bag, stuffed it under a piece of coral, and let the sharks come looking for it. Several, attracted by the smell, came cruising buy. After several minutes, the dive guide took the fish from the bag, allowing the next shark that came by to grab it. (you can read about it in my FP section). It was a fun dive, and it let me get closer to sharks than I had ever been.
The shark dive in Yap was something else entirely. It was
orchestrated like a Las Vegas show. The divers from both boats
were assembled in a line 15-20 ft. long. A frozen cube of fish
about two feet across was attached to a steel cable that ran from
the surface to the floor. It was lowered to a point about 5
ft. above and fifteen ft. in front of us. Dozens of grey and white tip reef sharks assembled, though slowly at first. The numbers grew rapidly until there were dozens swimming around. As the fishsicle melted, the sharks would make passes at it, tearing off a piece as they went through. They were joined bydozens of fish of various types. This continued until the fishsicle had been consumed. A few minutes later the dive guides lowered a second fishsicle into the water and the process was repeated. I guess sharks appreciate a free lunch as much as the rest of us.
The shark dive was fun, safe, informative and a little too canned for my tastes. I really felt like a spectator at Seaworld, watching trained seals balancing beach balls on their noses. I understand why the dive is set up the way it is, but there's something woefully antiseptic about it. You might as well be watching it on the Discovery channel. I half expected them to pass out popcorn during the show. Having my nose 18 inches from a gray reef shark in Rangiroa was a thrill. Sitting on a dead coral armchair watching sharks munch on a TV dinner wasn't quite as much fun.
We took an afternoon off from diving and went on a village tour one evening.
You can book reservations for the tour through the Manta Ray
Bay Hotel. A mini-bus picks you up in front of the hotel and
takes you on a 15 minute ride to a trail through the forest. We were met by a guide in native dress. She's pictured at left. She leads you on the tour and points out various things of interest along the way. The trail is gorgeous.
The trail's is made up of stones polished smooth through centuries of use. It leads through a lush green forest, with the late afternoon sun filtering through the leaves. Every few minutes the guide stops and points out various plants and their respective uses. She also pointed out examples of the different types of housing used by the villagers.
We were at the back of the group and were joined by Brandon, a ten year old boy in native dress. He had come to participate in the festivities. We had our picture taken with him.
After fifteen minutes walking on the trail we ended up at a Bai, a large meeting house. To the left was the cooking house, while in front was a path leading into the village. The section of the path in front of the Bai was lined with stone money and is called a stone money bank.
The
stone money was cut from limestone in Palau and brought to Yap via
canoe. Palau is a few hundred miles from Yap, all of it through
open. The voyages were often perilous. It is still legal currency.
The German mark and French franc are history, but the Yapese stone
money is forever.The value of stone money is not related to its size or weight, but rather to the amount of difficulty in getting it. Every piece of stone money has a story of how it was obtained. The more difficult it was to get, the higher the value.
The stone money is left out in the open and unattended, though the owner is known within the village. It is used for major, traditional purposes, like buying land, paying dowrys and settling debts.
We were joined at the Bai by a few dozen villagers, all
in native dress. They ranged in age from infants to old men.There are several villages in Colonia. This one had about two hundred members, most of whom were first or second cousins.
The Yapese generally marry outside of their village. The woman move to their husband's village when they marry while the men stay in the village.
The women prepared fresh fruit for us and made handicrafts while the men answered questions and gave demonstrations of the proper way to chew betel nut. The kids handed out the slices of melon, coconut and bananas, all of which were delicious.
After twenty minutes of wandering around and talking to the villagers we were told that the stick dance was about to start. It was introduced as a way of letting the kids keep in touch with an important part of their heritage. They seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. The sticks smacked together with alacrity.
The dance consisted of about twenty Yapese kids lined up in two
rows facing one another. They chanted, danced and tapped the
sticks, exchanging places in rapid succession. It was all very
impressive. The stick dance we saw commemorated the great difficulties
of life during World War II. It lasted about ten minutes. They
performed a second stick dance shortly after.We spoke with the villagers for a little while longer and then got back on the bus. As we were about to leave we offered a ride to one of the kids. It was Brandon, the guy we had spoken to on the trail. He was headed back home to his modern life, having spent some time in his traditional one.
Internet access is a little tough to come by in Yap. The Manta Ray Bay hotel offers it, but there are only a few computers available and their rates are pretty high. You can also get internet access at the Telecommunications Ministry, where rates are lower, but they only have one computer station, and it was in use every time we went by. There is one other place. The training department has one room set up for internet access with a few dozen computers available. These are largely for the school kids, though they allow other people to use them during the day, when the kids are in school.
Getting there is pretty wild. The ministry is at the end of a long dirt road that passes by the Trader's Ridge Resort. As you drive up you notice three or four satellite receivers in very large domes, the kind you'd expect to see at a top secret communications facility. The contrast with what you see in the rest of the country is striking. Yap doesn't have any street lights, but at the end of a dirt road you find an array of massive satellite antennas. The buildings in the ministry are non descript brick construction. They look like something you'd find on a military base in the 1940s or '50s. It's all very low tech. Yet when you open the door you see a state-of-the-art computer facility complete with dozens of new Imacs and a separate server room. It was one of those "Shangri-la" moments, where you go from one world to another by walking through a door. It was yet another magical moment.
When we arrived the place was almost empty. By the
time we left an hour later, there was a Yapese kid at every computer,
with a few more waiting in the wings for the next free computer. And what were they doing? While a few were typing emails, the great majority were playing video games! These kids live in a state without so much as a traffic light or a newspaper, yet they spend their after school hours playing video games over the internet with people all over the world. The old and the new live together quite comfortably in Yap.
On our last day in Yap we rented a car and drove around the island. It's only twenty miles long, so the drive didn't take too long. We went up to the north, to Tomil-Gagil and Map island to see some of the coast. Much of Yap is heavily forested and the drive is very nice. The main roads are in good shape and very well marked. Navigation is cinch. There's very little traffic. As you get farther north the roads get smaller and poorer. We ended up on a dirt road in Map island driving down to the coast.
As we reached the end of the dirt road we came to a beach with several houses nearby. We had read that many of the lands are private, and that the Yapese (understandably) don't appreciate foreigners trespassing on their territory. We quickly sought out the permission of the locals to take a look around the beach. As I approached the first guy I saw I politely asked if it was okay if we walked around the beach area. He said it was fine. I then realized I had seen him before. He was the guy in the post office in Colonia that had sold me some stamps just a few hours before. Of all the people we might run into on the other side of Yap, the first guy we see is the last one we had seen in Colonia. How we managed that we'll never know.
The
area that we had stumbled into was the Village View Hotel, which consisted
of several bungalows right on the water. They even had a dive shop
on the premises. Needless to say, our concerns about offending
Yapese by trespassing on their lands were quickly laid to rest.The beach area in front of the beach area is just gorgeous. It's on the northeastern side of Map island. The beach itself is relatively narrow, but it's clean and often shaded by the many trees that grow just above the high water mark. It is just gorgeous. It runs for a couple of miles until you reach the northern end of the island itself.
At the north end of the island a couple of miles north of the Village View is the Bechiyal Cultural Center. It's a traditional Yapese village with a few hundred residents. A section of it that has been set up to provide an illustration of the traditional way of life. It's in a large grassy, open area right on the water. It costs a few dollars to visit the cultural center, but the money is well spent. ThereIt has the largest pebai (meeting house) in Yap. The pebai sits right on the water. Inside are examples of traditional dress and crafts and a very impressive turtle shell.
There is a larger, older bai a short distance away. There
are several pieces of stone money in front of it and several more
to one side. There is a path that runs along side the bai that leads
into the forest. It's a nice walk. We were there fairly
in the day, so the lighting wasn't great. It's probably even
more impressive earlier in the day.There is also a very long work table in the middle of the village area. I presume it's used for drying fish or vegetables, but I'm really not sure. After wandering around the cultural center and forest for an hour or so we headed back to the car, along the way we took a few pictures like the one of the flower at left.
We then headed back to Colonia, stopping to take some pictures of the sunset on the water from the top of the hill. The drive back wasn't quite as nice as the drive there. Frogs like to take advantage of the fact that the asphalt roads absorb heat during the day and retain it at night. The roads were covered with them on the drive home.
Despite our best efforts to avoid them, we ended up sending a few dozen to froggie heaven. We kept hearing clip-clop, clip clop for much of the ride back.
When we got back to Colonia we enjoyed one last great dinner on the Minuw before getting our gear from the hotel and driving to the airport, where we returned the rental car.
After checking in we were joined by several people we had met during our five days in Yap. They were all leaving on our flight. We enjoyed a few beers with them before getting on the plane. When we related the story of how we met the Attorney General at the little grocery store, one of them volunteered "Oh..... you mean Paul.". They lived on Pohnpei, the seat of government for the FSM, and knew him well. It's a small world just about everywere, but if it gets any smaller in Yap we'll have to sit in each other's laps.