In Palau, When Everyone is Diving, You Have The Island To Yourself

Here's the way things work at Palau hotels. Somewhere around nine o'clock in the morning the lobby fills with guests waiting for rides and tours to the dive and snorkel locations. By 10 a.m., the hotels are, for all practical purposes, devoid of foreigners and will stay that way until late afternoon when the vans, jitneys and buses deposit the sunburned but happy visitors back at the hotel.

Yes, Palau, with its massive reef teeming with aquatic life, is considered one of the great dive locations, but guests get so wrapped up with the water activities that they miss all the terrestrial opportunities that Palau has to offer. They need to take a break from being under water all day and look around the beautiful islands.

After being on the water myself for a full day, I planned my next day for a land excursion.

Most of the hotels, and indeed, the commercial life of Palau, can be found on Koror, a small snake of an island connected to the neighboring isles and the big island of Babeldaob by a series of bridges.

Far to the south stretch the Rock Islands, where most snorkeling and diving activities take place; and then comes a series of slightly larger islands, one of which is Peleliu. Here's where I wanted to go.

In 1944, the U.S. military decided it was time to take the island, which was firmly held by the Japanese. The battle began in September and was supposed to be over within four days; it lasted more than two months as the Japanese had excavated a series of well-crafted, underground fortifications. In the end, Peleliu had the highest casualty rate of any battle of all the bloody land conflicts in the Pacific.

I was curious to go to Peleliu because the island remains rife with World War II artifacts. So, I called the tour company that ran boats to the island. They took my name, and I was a little excited knowing this would be a unique historical excursion. Much to my dismay, however, the tour company called me up later that day to cancel. Since I was the only island visitor interested in making the Peleliu trip, they couldn't offer the tour.

I was staying at the Palasia hotel, along the main strip in Koror, and when I looked around the lobby later that afternoon it was busy with tourists. Obviously, they were all divers and snorkelers.

The same thing happened on my second choice of activity. Most of Babeldaob Island, Palau's largest landscape, is uninhabited, with deep jungle, low mountains and hidden lakes. One tour operator was running a jungle cruise into the interior. That sounded interesting, so after the Peleliu disappointment, I signed up. Then I awaited the phone call, which inevitably came; I was the only tourist signed up and they couldn't run the tour with just one. It was cancelled.

The third item on my to-do list I did manage to accomplish because I finally caught on to how it all worked. I eschewed the tour companies and hooked up with a driver, who took me to the far northern reaches of Babeldaob to visit a waterfall.

This was a picturesque little operation. After detouring off the main road, you end up at a rough, wooden veranda where a sharp-tongued woman chewing and spitting betel nut takes your entrance fee. Then you proceed down a series of 300 cut steps into the jungle below. It's recommended you dress in a bathing suit and wear hiking sandals or river shoes.

Also, bring some water to drink. The route is only about two miles at most, but once you descend into the jungle, the air is dizzingly thick and with the intense humidity you burst into a fount of perspiration almost immediately. Thankfully, the trail is uneven and you come to higher elevations where you can actually feel a breeze -- ah, nature's air conditioning. Parts of the trail are muddy. You have to cross streams and at one point walk down a rock face complicated by descending water.