Micronesia travel guide

The hike starts at the Pohn Alamwahu Protestant church in Kipar. It follows a 4x4 track through the jungle. It's a tranquil hike with chances to both see and hear exotic birds. The track slowly becomes more rough as the jungle get more dense, until it's just a jungle trail. The trail pass a little house to the right and soon start to ascent. As the picture reveals, we never reached the waterfall. We hiked for 1.5 hours and were still climb up, so we don't actually know how far the waterfall is.

This waterfall is the closest to Kolonia and can be reached by shared taxi or even walking. The jungle setting behind the owner's house is beautiful and tranquil with views to mountain tops. The trail is well kept with picnic areas. There are two natural pools, a upper and lower, which are perfect for a refreshing dip.

Yap has (as so many other Pacific islands) very few sandy beaches. Long stretches of Yap's coastline is pristine mangrove. Mala'ay Sunset Park is like that, but there is a lawn and picnic tables under shady trees. The view is nice over the lagoon and the patches of mangrove.

There is a misconception that Pacific islands are nothing but endless white beaches. True, some of the most picture-perfect beaches can be found in the Pacific, but most islands' coastline are rocks, cliffs, or mangrove. Pohnpei is the last. Almost the entire coastline is covered in a thick belt of healthy and pristine mangrove. The problem with mangrove is, it can be hard to explore. The boat trip to Rainbow Island goes through some of the largest mangrove area on Pohnpei, and it can be done at both high and low tide.

The sign at the road only states WWII memorial site, but the location has two interesting things. The first is the memorial for George O. Beall Jr. (and other brave men), who was killed in action in 1944. There is an information board explaining how it happened. The second thing is a nice surprise, a traditional Men's House with a stone money bank. Again, it can be hard to find, but there is the usual little sign at the road.

Nan Madol is an amazing ruin city of man-made canals and 92 islets. It was deservedly enlisted as a World Heritage Site in 2016. The temples, tombs and walls were made from huge basalt pillars and boulders, which were stacked upon each other in a clever interlocking way, so mortar wasn't necessary. The construction started in the late-1100s and was the ceremonial and political seat for the royalty of Pohnpei until the mid-1600s. Today, there is only one islet, Nan Dowas, left with erected walls, the other islands have just carved stones scattered around. Nan Dowas has some of the biggest stones, weighing up to 50 tons, and holds also a royal tomb and tunnels. You can walk to the islet at low tide, else you have to wade across the canals or getting a boat tour from kolonia.

Palikir is a strange place. It's hardly a town and even less a capital, but officially Palikir is the capital of FSM. It's a very spread out place with Pohnpei's only college and a few residents, but it also contains every official office in Pohnpei. From parliament, president office, high court, post office, they are all here, in similar looking buildings.

On a large slap of rock above the owner's house is a big collection of ancient petroglyphs (rock art). They are exposed to the elements and can be hard to see, if the rock as been left to the mosses and algaes. The petroglyphs depicted many things, but canoe paddles, foot prints, and people are the most easy recognizable. Nobody seem to know much about them, but the best guess for their age is a couple of thousands years.

This is one of the easier "historical marker" to locate in Yam, as it's right next to the road. It's an American Hellcat fighter plane flown by Ensign Joseph E. who collided with another American plane and crashed during WWII.

There are three wreck sites around the old airstrip; the Continental from 1980, a Japanese torpedo bomber from WWII with codename "Kate", and the last sites which include a Japanese anti-aircraft gun and a Japanese fighter aircraft from WWII of type "Zero" made by Mitsubishi. As this is Yap, it possible to drive on the old airstrip, just enter where it meets the road.