"ALII, PALAU!" (Hello, Palau!)
Article and photos by Jojie Alcantara

Named by CEDAM International as "One of the Seven Underwater Wonders of the World", Palau lies 1000km (600 miles) east of the Philippines, about 800 miles (1,280 km) southwest of Guam and 2000 miles (3200 km) south of Tokyo. It is the westernmost cluster of the six major island groups that make up the Caroline Islands lying at the end of Micronesia in the Philippine Sea. The Palau Islands include more than 200 islands, of which only eight are inhabited.

In history, this area has once been christened Nuevas Filipinas or New Philippines in the past, as part of the Spanish East Indies territories governed from Manila. It was also named Los Palaos, Pelew Islands, Caroline Islands —traditionally for locals, it is Belau.

Palau is part of the Micronesian chain of islands famous for its dive sites and beaches. Well known among dive enthusiasts for its spectacular and well-preserved reef and coral attractions, it gained global attention when the popular American TV reality show aired the "Survivor: Palau" series (2005) and brought its cast and crew for a lengthy location shoot in the islands. Soon after, it rose to prominence as a favorite location of "Survivor: Micronesia" in 2008 and "Survivor: Philippines" cast in 2009.

Palau enjoys a pleasantly warm climate all year round, with frequent rainfall and a lot of sunshine. Typhoons are said to be rare as it is located outside the typhoon zone and all the islands (except for three) lay inside a fringe reef, protected from the open sea. It is however, visited by tropical storms.

What makes Palau a unique island nation to explore is its amazingly diverse geological formations above and below water. From limestone atolls, stunning reef structures, volcanic rocks, lush jungles, breathtaking marine lakes, deep lagoons and caves that make up the hundreds of mushroom-shaped islets immersed in stunning aquamarine waters teeming with rich marine life, the place is indeed a paradise and a gem in the Pacific. Palau has a rich biodiversity of flora and fauna, its wealth of natural resources brought in by three major bodies of water circulating the republic (the Pacific Ocean, the Philippine Sea, and the Celebes Sea).

Palau is one of the world's youngest and smallest sovereign states. Statistics from the Division of Labor reveal that by the end of 2005, there were 4,577 Filipino workers in Palau, constituting 16 percent of the total population of 20,000 in the seventeenth smallest country in the world. It has 16 States.

As Filipinos make up the second largest ethnic grouping in Palau, Filipino is the fourth largest spoken language, following Palauan, English and Japanese.

Asian Spirit's maiden flight in 2006 was a historic event aimed to boost tourism and trade with the Philippines. We arrived in Palau midnight of April 2, with 96 passengers on board the new state-of-the-art British Aerospace (BAE) 1 46 Jet Aircraft. The thrice-weekly Manila-Davao-Palau route was Asian Spirit's first international venture of operations, with an hour and a half flight distance from the island of Mindanao to the small republic.

Delegates were billeted in popular hotels in Koror, its capital, and we were treated to trips to the Jellyfish Lake (swimming with the stingless jellyfishes!), the famous Rock Islands, Dolphins Pacific tour, Palau International Coral Reef Center, museum trips, and night cocktail parties. Because the island was small, each tour was short but fascinating. There was only one shopping center when I was there. The only local stuff I got for myself was a coconut bra, which I couldn’t find an event to attend with yet.

Unfortunately, the flights soon ceased after a few months of operations. At present Palau can only be reached by flights from Manila in the Philippines.

Today, the Rock Islands Southern Lagoon, located in Palau, has been nominated for inclusion in the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites because of its exceptionally high marine habitat diversity and as a universally important coral reef ecosystem in the world.

Its unique habitat contains 52 marine lakes in a total land area of 85,900 hectares, compared to a World Heritage property, Halong Bay in Vietnam, which has 47 lakes in its 150,000 hectares. The Rock Islands’ unique mushroom-shaped islets surrounded by sparkling white sand beaches and lagoons are breathtaking and most often subjects of many nature documentaries. Palau remains to be one of the top dive destinations in the world.

I now share with you my adventures in Palau during my visit in 2006, courtesy of Asian Spirit. At that time, cameras used were Sony and Canon point and shoots. More photos will be added as I sort them out from my old files.

For more information on how to get there and what to expect, check out www.visit-palau.com.

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