This was not our first time in Micronesia, we had been to [Truk Lagoon|perso/diving/post_2018-12-01_Diving-Truk-Lagoon-with-Truk-Odyssey.html] before, but first time in Palau, which is another world top diving destination. In the process we got to learn about the country too, which used to belong to Germany, then Japan (peacefully), and less peacefully during WWII.
The US liberated the country in a bloody battle at Peleliu, and eventually Palau opted for independence from the US and became a young republic 25 years ago. There are lots of signs left that this used to be a US territory, including the use of the dollar, gallons, NOAA weather station, and more.

On our first day, we did a kayak/snorkel tour to Nikko Bay with Sam's Tour

the tour did include visiting a japanese outpost

On our 2nd day, we boarded the Palau Siren for an 11 day diving tour of Palau. During that time on the Palau Siren, we had a half day Peleliu tour, which recounted the history of the US landing to liberate the Island from the japanese.
Unfortunately, the Japanese were well equipped and fought to the last one, infliciting significant losses to the US. Taking the place over too 74 days instead of the planned 4 days. The island has left over Japanese buildings, tanks, and amphibious vehicles for the beach landing:

found a nice hermit crab on the beach

also, plenty of small ones

runway that the americans wanted to capture

lots of crickets in the caves

thousand man cave was last on our tour

they drunk lots of beer

lots of bats live in there, now

one of the caves' exits

After our time on the Siren was over, we had one more day in Palau before flying out, so we took Sam's Palau Cultural day tour of Palau. We learned more about how Palau became a county with many states within it, and a bit about how it's ruled.
We saw the nice Nikko hotel before leaving for the day:

We then arrived to a cultural house where state leaders gather to conduct business

Next, was a hike to a waterfall:

the japanese built a train to shuttle out the boxite they were mining

and eventually we arrived

jennifer found a small snake on the way back

On the north side of the island, they have some monoliths that are around 2000 years old:

they also had yummy young coconuts

Last stop wsa the new congress that had just been built, partially financed by Taiwan and the EC. It looked like a mini Washington DC and was very pretty:

Even though Palau is not that big, each state within it, has its own license plate and while they drive on the right as per US influence, most of the cars also have a steering wheel on the right (wrong side) because they are second hand from Japan:

And that was it for Palau, it was then time to go to the airport and fly home

We had a 7H layover in Taipei on our way to Palau, so I figured it would be more fun to spend a few hours in Taipei than just burn all that time in some lounge. Because we landed very early, we first headed to Bitan in New Taipei and its suspension bridge, an area that Jennifer went to with her parents when she was a kid.

China Airlines business was nice, but hard to get with miles (sadly we were not able to get it in the other direction):

After landing in Taipei, we took an uber to new Taipei City bright and early, but the small shopping street by Bitan suspension bridge, was already open for business.:

enterprising people were swimming in the river in lieu of jogging

small colorfull temple nearby

a bit more time in the local market

views from the nearby HTC building

By 08:00, we wre able to go to the HTC buildings nearby and tour a few before it wsa time to go back to the airport.