Yap is one of the rare places in the world where instead of going to on a tour to ‘see what life used to be like in the traditional culture’, you can walk around the island and experience the traditional culture alive and kicking…… go now while you still can.
Men’s house – western side of yapBoarding the flight to Yap was a curious experience. United called for a passenger by name to board before everybody else, as he was a ‘global services’ member. And they did mention (loudly but in a friendly fashion) as he boarded, that he was slightly more relaxed than the average premium customer. Visually, he didn’t appear to be the standard business class passenger – his teeth were bright red and largely rotted away, he had a flowery pair of board shorts, a faded t-shirt and some beat-up flip-flops. He wasn’t alone, the business class cabin was entirely stacked with board shorted young dudes with red rotten teeth. Hmmmm, it was a mystery that was solved after a few days on the island. He was one of Yap’s most active betel nut runners who carry the world’s best betel nut from Yap to Guam, carrying the maximum legal personal allowance on every single flight. Yap isn’t well connected, so there are only flights twice a week, and only from Guam. Everyone in Yap is addicted to the nut, and when you first start to talk to people, you wonder why they are slurring their words….., their mouths are stuffed with the nut…. and most people over 40 don’t have a lot of teeth.
Mongyol stone money bankGetting off was even more curious. It was pissing down with rain, but there was insufficient space in the immigration hall for all the passengers, and not quite enough umbrellas for everybody, so half the plane stood in the torrential downpour waiting for the two immigration officers to process us at all at a rate of 1 person every 4 minutes (largely due to their inability to type or spell correctly as they manually inputted all the details into the computer). There was no rush, as it took them an hour and a half to unload the luggage. The delay was somewhat compensated for by the wonderful Yapese welcome from a young traditionally dressed lady who presented every arriving passenger with a wonderful lei. It was an apt introduction to Yap.
Beach at the abandoned village view resortFor those of you not familiar with Yap – it is one of the four federated states of Micronesia, together with Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kohsrae. Yap is extremely traditional. Women (including tourists) are not allowed to show their thighs, but boobs are just fine. Everyone belongs to a village and a caste. All land on the island is owned by the villagers and while there are wonderful beaches, tourists are not allowed to access them without permission, which is rarely granted. However, I did get to spend a wonderful afternoon on the beach when I was there thanks to Jenn at the Oceania hotel.
How to recycle cars in yap
What to do in Yap?
Visit the stone money banks – Yap’s is the self proclaimed “ Land of Stone Money”, and these limestone disks can be found across the island, but nowhere else on earth. The stones were brought by bamboo canoe to Yap from Palau as early as 500 CE. They remain the currency in the negotiation of marriages, land ownership, and village alliances. The nicest example on the whole island is at Mangyol, where they have applied for Unesco world heritage status.
Stone money
Hike on the stone paths, including the Tamilyog trail. These traditional paths are beautifully crafted and are maintained in the mandatory monthly community clean up.
See the villages. I walked a 15 mile loop of the main island one day, and was interrupted multiple times by locals offering to give me a ride or say hello. Make sure to carry a green leaf in one hand to convey to the villagers that you mean no trouble (seriously!!!)
View of Colonia from the top of the telecom Tower Hill
Try and visit on Yap Day (early March)- an annual event with traditional dancing. Note that if you go, you are requested to wear traditional dress, and yes ladies that does mean going topless (although you can pretty much cover up everything with a well placed lei). Book well in advance as Yap fills up with those coming home plus visitors from the outer islands.
Go diving – I don’t dive but apparently Yap is the best place in the world to see the Manta Rays
‘Slow’ – a good description of life in Yap
Hang out and have a beer at the Mnuw, the famous bar in Yap on the boat in front of the Manta Ray Hotel.
Stay at the Oceania hotel. It is a wonderful wonderful hotel. Blissfully tranquil! Mark and Jenn, the owners, are extremely cool, their hotel is the best on the island, the restaurant is amazing and outrageously cheap, and I could have stayed forever. (see my review on trip advisor)
License plate
Truthfully there is bugger all to do in Yap, but it is a blissful place to while away a few days. I could have happily stayed for weeks. There is a wonderful oddball collection of expats on the island, all of them just slightly bonkers. These included a kiwi who was literally shipwrecked two years ago, an american couple who were moving there to set up a disaster relief capability, two New Yorkers who are running the nicest hotel, several well meaning mormons from Utah, some Australian peace corp workers and a lot of passionate scuba divers. All of them congregate at the MNUW and the Oceania restaurant. I can see the allure of hanging out in Yap, although the isolation (and lack of a wide variety of foodstuffs) would drive me bonkers.
Many thanks to Jenn, Mark, Tara, Spencer, JR, Deb, Cecelia and Mars for making it a memorable visit.
Note, if Yap is of interest I would recommend going sooner versus later. Sadly the day I arrived, so did a fleet of Chinese long liner fishing boats, the first in over a decade. They were fishing right on the reef with government permission and if this continues it won’t be long before the marine wildlife is decimated. I am hopeful the locals will mobilise against this awful infringement of their traditional fishing rights before it’s too late.
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