Wednesday, December 26, 2007Yap: Land of Stone Money
Go to our photo website to see Troy's fabulous Yap photos.
![]() The stone money is most likely not what you are thinking of. They are not small pieces the size of a quarter made out of stone that you can easily put in your pocket. Their stone money is much, much larger, ranging from two feet to seven feet in diameter weighing several hundred pounds. Definitely not something you can put in your piggy bank. ![]() Villagers started trading the stone disks for agriculture, farm animals and land just so they could have these "full moons with the hole in the middle". Hundreds of Yapese followed Fathaans example trying to get these stone disks from Palau with many hundreds of sailors dying in the journey. The dangers attributed to the journey made the stone disks more valuable in trade. ![]() Although the stone money is still in use today it is losing it's value. It can be used to settle disputes such as if your teenage son vandalized a neighbors property. Instead of going to court you can give the neighbor stone money. It can also be used to buy a wife or exchanged at a village ceremony. The island also has "stone money banks" which is basically a path or road lined with dozens of pieces of stone money. But the best example of how the locals practice old traditions is in how they dress. Before we arrived in Yap I had read that womens bare thighs were offensive so I made sure to always wear long shorts or skirts to cover mine. But I didn't know what was considered appropriate when it came to womens bare shoulders (in Muslim cultures it is offensive to have knees and shoulders exposed). But as we walked into the local grocery store, I quickly found out the answer. Right next to the Pop Tarts in the cereal aisle is this local woman with her big ol' saggy boobs just hanging out. I don't mean that her top was so skimpy she was falling out .... she had no top on at all. ![]()
We did a cultural tour to see the ancient mens houses, resting places, stone money banks and to see a traditional dance. Here all the women were topless. From the young six year olds all the way up to the 70 year old women. Troy and I were so glad my brother-in-law, Ryun, was not with us. He would have been turning every which way saying "Look at the hooters on that grandma! Holy cow, I can't believe I'm looking at the boobs on a 16 year old and I'm not getting arrested." Oh, Ryun, we love you!!! Remember from the Palau blog I talked about the Betlnut? Well, the Yapese are the biggest consumers of it. It is amazing how it is such a huge part of their life. Walking down the hall in the hotel we would come across the maids sitting on the floor preparing their betlenut. The ladies at the reception would have such a big wad of it in their mouth that they could barely answer our questions. The guys at the dive shop would be hanging out with their man bags (called a Way) full of betlenut. The sidewalks and streets are stained red from the massive amount of spit. Chewing it produces so much saliva that they have to use a Pringles can to hold their spit. ![]() We thought the people in Palau had bad teeth from chewing it, but the Yapese have them beat hands down. If you remember I told you how it stains the teeth, lips and mouth red and with too much chewing it wears the teeth down to nubs. ![]() So enough about the island and people of Yap. The main reason we came to Yap was for..... you guessed it, the diving!!!!!! But not for the reefs or the fish life, Yap is known for the Manta Rays. They are these amazingly huge, beautiful, graceful creatures. You never tire of seeing them and just get giddy when they come around. There are a few channels near the island that attract the Mantas after they have been out to sea feeding. ![]() We spent our Christmas Eve and Christmas day in Yap. For Christmas Eve dinner we went to a nearby hotel since we were tired of the food where we were staying. Troy got a wild hair up his butt and tried the betlenut martini. It was not good. He described it as a martini glass filled with hairspray with a twist of nastiness garnished with a dash of grossness. But he drank it. ![]() Next stop, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef where we will spend a week diving the outer reefs then we'll rent a car for nine days and drive to who knows where considering it's a ginormous country! Tuesday, December 11, 2007Palau: Home to Jellyfish Lake, Betlenut and Prehistoric Creatures
Go to our photo website to see Troy's fabulous Palau photos.
![]() We loved Palau! The people are very friendly, fabulous weather year round, incredibly gorgeous islands and some of the best diving we have done. It is one of the few places we have been that we could move to and work for a year or two. In fact we inquired about being Dive Masters with the shop we dived with but sadly for us they have already hired for the upcoming season. We also found hitchhiking to be very easy here. So easy even an off duty cop picked us up and took us where we wanted to go. When he pulled over we saw his uniform and thought “Uh oh, he will probably take us downtown… right downtown to the police station!” (Another Troy quote of the day). The only thing we didn’t like about Palau is a huge percent of the locals chew betelnut. It is a green nut, a little bigger then a grape but very fibrous so it can be chewed on for an hour without falling apart. It is a narcotic so the locals are addicted to it. They chew it with a lime or a mint leaf (to get rid of the gross taste) and a piece of a cigarette or coral powder to activate the betlenut. The reason we don’t like it is it turns the teeth a revolting brown and red and wears down the teeth almost to nubs. When you talk to someone that has been chewing this for years, it takes every ounce of willpower to not cringe and look away from this disgusting sight. In fact the guy sitting next to me right now at the internet cafe is getting ready to put a huge wad in his mouth. At least it doesn't stink like cigarette smoke, although the spitting is gross. ![]() Palau is known locally as Belau and is made up of over 300 islands that stretch out over 400 miles but only eight islands are inhabited, total population of 20,000. Palauian legend has it that a child named Uab was born to a goddess of the sea. As he grew up he had a voracious appetite and all the villagers fed him day and night to satisfy his hunger. He ate so much he grew into an enormous giant. The villagers were threatened with famine so one night while Uab was sleeping, they tied him up and set him ablaze. When he woke up he was so angry that he roared and kicked and the island shook. The struggle was so fierce that he kicked himself to pieces which settled upon the ocean and formed the islands of Belau (Palau). So for the locals it is very easy to give directions to the island where they live: I live on the third island past the kneecap, you know, just before the eyeball but after the spleen! More WWII fighting happened here as well. Peleliu is a south island of Palau that had an airstrip that was fought over between the US and the Japanese. On the island there are hundreds of limestone caves that the Japanese used to hide from the US reconnaissance. The US knew the Japanese were here but not in great numbers so they thought they could easily take over the small island. When the US invaded Peleliu, they realized the massive number of Japanese hiding among the caves which resulted in one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War. A tour of the island shows old tanks, Zero Attack planes, large Japanese guns, pill boxes, and artifacts such as shoes, skulls, live grenades, ammunition and canteens. There are also torpedoes on several beaches that I guess missed their targets during the war. They’re just sitting there basking in the sun, rusting and rotting away. Needless to say, I’m a little WWII historied out. I’ve learned more in the last few weeks about the war then I learned in school. ![]() Like I said before, the diving is unbelievable. There are tons of sharks here. Next to Coco’s Island, Costa Rica, where we saw hundreds and hundreds of sharks, Palau is next in line for the immense number of sharks. It is a Chinese fisherman’s wet dream! Right now it is mating season for the sharks so the males are out in packs and are very aggressive. Normally they are alone and swim slow and gracefully. On one of our first dives, they were in packs of 8-12, swimming very fast, darting about quickly, looking for females to mate with.
You can easily identify the females because they have bite and cut marks all over their bodies from the males trying to grab and hold onto them while they mate. Unfortunately for a female, she will get attacked by several males at once, all of them wanting to mate with her. Many of the females even die because the males get so aggressive. So a few divers amongst all this forceful testosterone is a little freaky. Troy and I have been around a lot of sharks and are not scared of them at all, but these sharks definitely put us on edge. Palau is home of the famous Jellyfish Lake. The name says it all. It is a small saltwater lake which is fed by water seeping in through the limestone and is filled with millions of non-stinging jellyfish. They are all the same shape and color but range from the size of a quarter up to 8"-9" across. There is no place like this anywhere else in the world. In fact Palau has four of these jellyfish lakes but only one is open to the public. The lake was formed millions of years ago when the islands were underwater. When the islands rose from the sea, a species of jellyfish was trapped. Because no outside predators could get into the lake, the jellyfish lost their ability to sting because they didn’t need to defend themselves. As the jellyfish grew, they reproduced and had no way to leave the lake. Scientists believe the jellyfish have been untouched by the outside world for thousands of years so they live peacefully in their own little universe until it is invaded by hundreds of screaming Chinese tourists that don’t know how to swim. ![]() ![]() A friend said they love reading our blogs but we never say how we are doing. So if you're interested, we are fine. Healthy, no broken bones, no lost limbs, no strange tropical diseases, unless you count what the local food does to Troy, no shark bites (although my finger did get nipped by a "Shelly size" Napolean Wrasse because I tried to feed it sushi), Troy cut his hair so he no longer looks like a hippie, we've gained a pound or two from pure laziness and too many beers, we have not spent all our money and have yet to be arrested. And no, we don't know yet what we are going to do when are done with this trip, maybe just keep traveling since we have leftover money! |