Some points from our last trip to Palau/Yap/Guam/Majuro and Saipan

Well, after wondering whether to post anything for fear of being slaughtered or labelled anything, I just decided that it might be, and I hope that it will be, helpful to anyone contemplating a trip through Micronesian states and territories.

In short, we have planned, or more or less waited for a reasonable Continental ticket price ex Narita, for the last three years and lucked it out somehow this winter. In retrospective, we think we should not have gone to all the places. Other than Palau and Yap, and to some extent Saipan, we thought that Guam and Majuro are not worth the effort, time and resources.

What is not mentioned here on this boards that those five countries/territories are resort destinations mainly visited by East Asians. That is of very high importance since it means that there are a lot of hotels, diving shops, tour companies, restaurants, shops etc. serving only to specific people - Koreans or Japanese or Taiwanese. They operate in highly competitive environment and from what we experienced offer great service, great quality of products and much more reasonable prices than any of their counterparts which only serve Westerners. To put in prospective in Palau for the five days we were there we saw only once a bus and a boat with non-East Asian tourists, and that boat was circled by some 11-12 boats with Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese on them etc. Most of them speak/write in very good English so give them a call or drop a line to compare prices and etc. To such extent those five countries depend on Japanese tourist for example, that there were diving shops closed or with half the personnel on duty due to mass number of canceled tours in wake of the quake/tsunamio/nuclear power plant accident. When they heard that we were from Tokyo and still came most of the locals we contacted starting complaining how many cancelations they had.

Moneywise, just bring your dollars with you. Very few places to exchange money at rates which are daylight robbery and under some enormously strange conditions - 10 USD for a transaction for starters. Using a credit card at some places would be done at cost of 3 or 5% of the sum paid. Only in Saipan we found some Chinese lady doing exchange at rates which were kind of OK.

Foodwise, we are not pretentious and picky, but as general food everywhere is not good - deep fired things, too salty or too sugary. My favourite was a juice bought on Majuro which contained 100gr. of sugars per liter.

Gearwise for diving, snorkeling etc., just go fully equipped. There are some goods to be bought in Guam, Palau and Saipan but still limited choice.

Ok some info on each specific places:

Palau

Hotel: We stayed at Lehn's Motel. 45 USD per night double occupancy incl. of airport pick-up/drop off. Clean sheets, hot water, AC, cable TV, located in the city center in walking distance to anywhere.
First we inquired Carolines but they quoted us prices 45 to 60 USD higher that what is mentioned on Visit Palau homepage. Then we inquired Cliffside but they had some strange booking system and we did not like to share credit card details via an email. Then we found out that a daily pass to PPR costs 25 USD so we decided to stay at a motel and Lehn's was the cheapest.

Tours: We used IMPAC Tours - a Japanese company, unfortunately their website is only in Japanese, but their stuff speaks very good English and they have locals who accompany non-Japanese speaking tourists. But tours are clearly described and bookable with an online system and are confirmed within 48 hours, we got 5% discount for each tour booked online, two packs of fruit cookies for the second tour, and two packs of tapioca cookies for the third tour booked with them. Those first three points were of importance since we contacted first Sam's, but it took them two weeks to reply, their tours especially snorkeling, jellyfish etc were not clearly described. IMPAC lends you snorkeling gear for free. Finally, one lady at Lehn's used Sam's for a tour similar to ours and the price she told she had paid was 40 USD higher than ours.
We did Rock Islands snorkeling tour going as south as to Long Beach and stopped at two places to snorkel - Big Drop-off and Clam City and it was extremely lovely - you felt like in an animation movie - you could see anything - giant clams, turtles, different colored reef and fishes, small sharks etc. pure beauty; Peleliu with Japanese speaking guide giving some different view from the point of the defeated, but we thought that one day tour from Koror to Peleliu is kind of tiring and probably the best option to enjoy the historical artifacts is with an overnight stay somewhere closer to the island; and a tour on Babeldoab whose Eirai or chiefs' house and the stonepath leading to it we found much more spectacular than those on Yap. The trek to the waterfall seemed challenging but a Korean company builds lift to there so in the future it would be easier to reach.
On our tours we stopped at North Beach Cottages and Carp Island Resort and we thought those two places were magnificent with amazing beaches, hammocks, lazy chairs, clean water - so anyone contemplating staying at Koror's resorts might just think those two places as an alternative option.

Internet: There are many internet coffees offering internet for 1.25 and above USD per hour, but it is slow. There were cards for wifi with better speed it cost us something like 5 USD for 2 hours. Bought from a gas station.

Yap

Hotel: We stayed at Beach View Hotel in Maap District for having a fairly reasonable price and for being the only place with its own beach. It cost us something like 82 USD per night for double occupancy. It is approx. 30min away from Colonia and you can arrange a taxi for 7.50 USD one way to get there. They had canoes to use for free and there is some patch of Pacific Blue crystal clear water belonging to Maap community which is just amazing to snorkel, swim etc.. Other hotels were out of our budget and just not attractive.

There was a couple on homestay at a men house in the village close to it and might have been great and enriching experience but on our last day it rained so hard you could not see 20cm. further from water puring down so I would be generally worried if I staid at something like this in case of heavy downpour.

Tours: Stonemoney are everywhere on Yap, each house has its own. Each small village has its own men's house, stonepath and stonemoney so you might just walk and see them. Especially in Maap we just walked around, talked with locals, tasted local coconut wines etc. Just amazing experience.
Manta rays are not for snorkeling. Period. You should be a diver to enjoy them to the maximum. At the Cleaning Station there seems to be a rule being introduced barring snorkelers from getting into the water. Unfortunately, a couple of people from Yap Divers boat dove when we were there and just scarred and drove away the mantas, so I hope the diving shops are more strict into introducing this rule. Anyhow, you can see them there even from the boat. At Mill's Channel you could also see mantas while snorkeling but when we were there the mantas were in mating period and were really moving rapidly.
We used Rize Divers diving shop, adjacent to the Beach View. Daisuke, its owner, is an amazing person and tries to think the best options given current water and weather conditions. He said that if were divers he would have taken us beyond the reef to a spot where a lot of sharks come to dive and see something more than the mantas. And just to mention that Maap is closest to those two diving spots so it just takes 15min. to get there. Snorkeling tour with him cost 45 USD per person, diving was at 100 USD.
You can do a traditional canoe tour and the school is located nearby but the problem is that you just sail forth and back within the lagoon. 40 USD per person.

Other great experience was sunset tour and sunsets there were just amazingly beautiful and even for amateur photographers and with a lame camera such as us we could take amazing shots.

Internet: Accross from O'Keefe's and next to Manta Ray Hotel in Colonia there was some market place with internet for 4 USD per hour.

One thing which amazed us on Yap - was betel nut chewing habbit - it seems everyone is addicted to it.

Guam

We had a lengthy stopover (23hours) on Guam and we opted to look around but we were not by any means impressed by the island - overcrowded, amaricanized, lacking a good place to offer to tourists other than shops. Tumon Bay is nice place to dive and snorkel but is not as impressive as other spots on other islands.

Majuro

Island Hopper: So we flew to Majuro with the island hopper which was kind of great way to see and the other atolls. One thing we had not read about before we flew was that the airstrips on Chuuk and Pohnpei are really really short and the take-offs are as if you were on space-bound rocket. Other thing to know is that due to some security check system half of the plane at each airport except for Kwajeleen would be asked to deplane and take its baggage, the other half would be asked to pick up their belongings and hold them and it is just nonsensical since people are allowed to board with takeaways, bottles with liquids and etc. If someone is to do some bad thing it could happen due to lax security checks at first place.
Other than that - amazing views all the way and great experience to land and take off from an American military base.

Hotel: We booked a room at Flame Tree Backpackers due to its favorable reputation at this very forum. Well, credit should be given where it is due and Isaac, the owner, is a great person, came to pick us up, offered us 40 USD rate per night for double occupancy instead of 50 USD which he quoted me in an email, and said that if we don't like it he will drive us to any other place, which he did, and he is generally a very very nice person, which could not be said about the place. Anyhow, anybody who has been there and recommends you this place, is a useless source of information, and I would personally discredit anything he or she might say. Flame Tree is a part of some building where there is a club/pub/restaurant and the door to it is on the same floor with the rooms of the Backpackers. So imagine opened door of a place with loud music just 3 meters away from your room door. So, we were shown couple of rooms. All of them looked more like rooms in brothels than rooms in a hotel - a bed and a bathroom. Huge mistake to turn lights on - roaches were sprinting everywhere and were in such numbers that even a pig would be disturbed to sleep there. And, yeah, there was this issue that not every room had hot water. So, we after all arrived to have a holiday not to get stressed out. So Isaac admitted that rather seamen than tourists usually stay there and drove us to Uliga Inn, a Taiwanese-run hotel which had 73 USD per night double occupancy rooms with no apparent issue for the five nights we stayed there - security on first floor, queen bed, hot water, cable TV, mineral water etc. and it is just 5min. away from RRE complex.

Activities: Flame Tree was not the only thing to disappoint us there. I have never seen a comment accurately describing Majuro beaches but there are FILTHY DIRTY. Laura, which is 90min away by car from RRE and cost 1 USD to enter had literally no single square meter of beach clean enough to step barefoot or to sit on it - glasses, cans, plastics were everywhere. We got there by rented car. Good decision because on our way back we decided to stop at each 500 meters to look for cleaner beach - such an attempt was doomed from inception. But we felt relieved when an expat who has been living there for 2 decades told us that in the past it was worse. But we stopped at couple of churches, schools, a store where we saw a giant turtle being cooked (we were shown the turtle only when we assured the locals we were not Americans) so we killed the day somehow. One of the greatest, rarest and most evasive things we saw on our way to Laura was Air Marshall Islands plane on the runaway at the airport with people boarding it. So the airline exists and operates. We did not stop to ask where to was the flight.

So, other than Laura there is literally nothing to do on Majuro. One can do traditional kayaking with WAM but we needed to make reservation one day in advance and they were not working on Saturday, so we could not do it.

Eneko is nicer, cleaner (still some glass and cans could be hidden in the sand but almost none) to Laura and any beach strip on Majuro, but you might need reef shoes and definitely an insect repealer since there are so many mosquitoes. And if you have a longer stay on Majuro just go theere for a day or two it will be more relaxing and rewarding.

The only diving shop, run by a Japanese, we knew of and locals told us about was closed so no snorkeling could be done.

The boat to Arno was being maintained for last (depending on whom you believe) ten days, two weeks, four days etc.....and it could have take to repair it (depending on whom you believe) a week to a month. So we were given a number to call to charter a boat but they quote us 600 USD price and we decided that is meaningless to negotiate with the captain since he would have taken down the price to no lower than 500 USD.

I tried to make a case that if the ordinary boat makes trips to Arno three times a week and the return ticket cost 24 USD per person and the current boat is out of use for undefined period of time potentially there would be other passengers to Arno as well and they can make some non-regular temporary service with other passengers to lower personal cost but it was meaningless, people there see a tourist and imagine huge rip-off opportunity. But business sense - not to be met there.

Internet: WiFi cards with great speeds for 1 USD per 10min. Amazing rates.

Saipan:

Hotel: We stayed at Holiday Saipan Resort, Korean-run hotel. 60 USD per night with 20 USD early check-in charge since we were there at 8.00. There might be cheaper places but we found that reasonably priced, great service, delicious restaurant on the first floor, two min. walk from shopping and restaurant district of Garapan (btw more "karaokes" welcoming Japanese men and US soldiers there than restaurants) and DFS Calleria.

Tours: We used a Japanese tourists centered company called Seahorse which is run by a Japanese lady and a Bangladeshi gentleman. Very cheap prices and great service.
Tinian - extremely small plane and a short flight to there and for day full of history about the battle and the atom bombs.
Managaha Island - 15min ride by a speedboat - nice clean beach and a lot fishes to be seen while snorkeling but a bit crowded with a lot of tourists. 15 USD (towel, bottle of water, snorkeling set) per person plus 5 USD entrance fee.
Island Tour - with a car we went to Mt. Tapucho to see the whole island from above, Banzai Cliff, Suicide Cliff, Last Command Post, Bird Island lookout and Grotto. We did not swim or snorkel there just we went down to see the place - but it is a bit slippery around the rock from which everybody jumps into the water and climb back to the parking is tiring. 45 USD per person

That is about everything I hope someone will find something useful.

Thanks for the comprehensive report. Probably the main reason that these islands are frequented by East Asians is that is where the planes fly from. It is very hard to get to most of Micronesia from Australia, for example.

Excellent report.

I just can't imagine why you felt you needed to "fear of being slaughtered or labelled anything" for contributing it! :-)

Great info, thanks for sharing. i am planning a similar trip in two months and will now limit my stay in Majuro.

If I only knew, how to edit my original message.

On Guam I missed something: If you are transiting and you are a holder of a visa not a citizen of a country from the visa-waiver program, you need to fill out a white formular not the green one and just write down "Transit to ......." in address field. If we knew that we would have saved first time an hour of waiting.
And ask the US officers to stamp you passport on a specific page and place otherwise they think anyone has an American passport with 60 odd pages and stamp the entry admission wherever they feel like to. So, now I have lost three page - even when I asked the last time the old fella opened it in the middle and stamped the page in the middle even though there were 11 blank pages.
At the airport when you turn left after security inspection and pass the duty-free shops and food stalls there is a corner with a lot of seats and two TVs. There is free wi-fi network - glavic - or something like this - and its is quite fast - I updated my podcasts each time. No concepts but if there is no boarding for a plane at the gate across from this place - there are two concepts to plug in your device.

Duty free shop prices at Guam are cheaper than those at Saipan airport.

There is a Continental flight to Cairns from Guam but the three times we waited on the next gate to board we saw that most people to board it were from East-Asian heritage. I guess it is not as cheap as the any of the options from Brisbane. Anyhow, my point on East Asians was that potential travelers should consider not only the dive shops/tour companies/hotels mentioned here but and those who have more work and clients after all.

@ davo4040 - On Majuro - you can do traditional canoeing with WAM - 20 USD per person/hour, you can get the bus to Laura (across from Tide Table and in front of the Western Union) and enjoy the ride or rent a car and stop and search for a beach; you can go to Eneko - 25 USD per person/return ticket and stay for the night (50 USD? - not sure about the price) - but you need to buy your food in advance on the atoll. Most food in the stores is rather not fresh; and hopefully the boat to Arno would be repaired and you might jump to there as well - everyone from the locals on Majuro told us that we should definitely go there because it was more beautiful than Majuro.

Re flights from Guam to Brisbane, I hardly think $3432 return on Singapore Airlines is cheap, and it involves stopping at Singapore and Manilla. (Just checked on Webjet). Or even Korean Air at $2552 return via seoul and Osaka.
Continental is $1299 return to Cairns. (and a 4 hour flight with no stopovers.)

Great post! One thing worth asking, when did you travel? January-March is high season for Japanese tourists in Palau. When my spouse and I went last June, there were few Japanese divers that we met when diving with Fish 'n Fins. On Peleliu, we were the only tourists on the entire island, and snagged local historian Tangie as our guide. Generally, getting off the main islands in Palau makes a huge difference. In Kayangal, it was just us, an expat, and 2 peace corps workers. Everyone else was local, and were super-friendly.

I'm glad to see your notes about Majuro and Saipan. I will keep that in mind for future visits. I would like to visit Guam not because of the local attractions, but because the Guam natives (Chamorros?) I have met have been so ridiculously nice that I would really just like to spend a day or two meeting locals.

First twenty days of April. I wrote post-quake, post-tsunami period/11 March 2011/: many cancellations etc.

It is a long way from the mainland us to Micronesia, and very expensive. With the economy being what it is, doesn't surprise me that there aren't a lot of US tourists. No group tours as there are from SE Asia.

Actually, never heard of group tours from SE Asia either.

Only from East Asia (JP, Korea, Taiwan).

Hmmm- ok- got my areas a bit confused there- you are correct- they are from E Asia.