Canoe in Palau

Leisurely break between dives, a tour in a canoe in the lagoon.

Chinese tourists in Palau

Mrs Wan, who runs some restaurants and hotels in Palau, came over from Guangzhou some fifteen years ago with her husband. She speaks Cantonese and Mandarin but only basic English. Their kids grew up here in Palau and speak good English.

She takes a liking to us since we keep coming back every day for dinner and comes over to chat. We come back because the food is excellent, the price is fairly low and they come and pick us up from our hotel for free. And take us back after our meal. Oh, and because my wife is Chinese and there are no Italian restaurants in Koror. None that could be called that really. And not many good restaurants, period. Lots of hamburgers and junk food I am sorry to say.

Mrs Wang also gave us free food a couple of times: a delicious crab one day and fresh yellow fin tuna just caught by her cousin another evening.

She says business is slow these days because the numbers of Chinese tourists are down. In fact during a whole week we've only seen very few patrons in the restaurant, all of them Chinese, which is surprising since there are quite a few western tourists around. I guess they prefer hot dogs and hamburgers. Oh well.

The biggest table in the restaurant, a big one with a lazy Susan in the middle, is always that of Mrs Wan's family and their visiting friends!

She came to talk to us a few times. She says fewer Chinese come to Palau these days despite the allure of a not too far sunny tropical destination accessible visa-free, an unusual combination of attractive factors for the rising middle class of China. The reason, she explained, is that Palau recognizes the government of Taipei as the legitimate government of China, and not that in Beijing.

So Beijing has forbidden Chinese travel agencies to sell group tours to the country. Since most Chinese still prefer group organized travels this has had a major impact.

Tom, an American dive guide who has lived here for decades, would later explain to us that another reason for fewer Chinese is that Palau's government has withdrawn the license it had given to Chinese charter flights. The reason is that too many Chinese were flying over but not spending much money. They would stick to their tour operator's activities, eat at Chinese restaurants, even bring their own food from China. Tom said the Palau government would rather do without them and try to attract bigger spenders like Americans, Japanese, and Koreans as well as the relatively few European divers who make it all the way down here.

These days they are opening a new Chinese resort, Palau Royal Garden. Some fear Chinese intrusion into Palau, some politicians think they will use investment as a political tool. That is not inconceivable I suppose though people like Mrs. Wang are just hard-working entrepreneurs who go and find opportunity where they can find it in the world, just like the Chinese have always done.

Palau kayak tour

Very American breakfast with lots of fruit juices though they are mostly from concentrate. Disappointing in a tropical island. Lots of processed foods actually, mostly imported from the US and Taiwan, even eggs! 

Weird...In Palau, cars drive on the right-hand side of the road, like in Europe but they all have their wheel on the right-hand side of the vehicle, like in the UK. Very strange. Maybe it's because here cars come mostly from Japan where they drive on the left-hand side of the road so it makes sense to have the wheel on the right-hand side here it's just strange.

We are picked up at our hotel by Marete, a stereotypical tall, blond, blue-eyed Danish lady who is spending a gap year traveling and working around the world with her boyfriend before going back to Denmark and continue her studies. Great idea. Not many Italians do this, even fewer Chinese I think. Too many Italians stay home with mamma until they move in with their wives. Anything to avoid cooking or having to manage a household.

Chinese are just beginning to understand the concept of a gap year. Until now they have to work as soon as possible to support the family. But the rising middle class now knows that is an option and can afford it, we'll see. 

Amazing canoe tour at Risong. A small group of us with a guide who comes from Tinian but has worked here for 12 years: meny more tourists, more money to be made. He takes us through the unmistakable Palauan volcanic formations carpeted with luscious green bushes whose branches overloaded with deep dark leaves reach all the way to the waterline.

An American pilot is with us with his Japanese girlfriends (panta rei, a few decades ago she would have rather died than be anywhere near him). he works for United Airlines is enjoying a day off before returning to Guam, US aviation and military hub in the region. We join a group of 4 elderly and very energetic American ladies. one asks where we live, and when I say London but not sure after Brexit she invites me to move to her native New York city.  

  

We can see small fish of all shapes and colors, a few baby reef sharks and lots of totally innocuous jelly fish, which do not sting as they have no predators in these protected waters. 

Dinner at the Yue Hai restaurant, owned by Cantonese family who moved here some two decades ago also run the hotel's jewelry shop all in the family, including some cousins who have come here for a few years to help and make some dollars. The restaurant is far more appealing and much better value than the jewellery store.

Beyond the Wall, my book on a Polish and Soviet adventure available on all Amazon sites.

My latest book:

Beyond the Wall:

Adventures of a Volkswagen Beetle

Beyond the Iron Curtain

has just been published and is available on all Amazon sites.

Description:

1980: the Cold War between capitalist West and socialist East is in full swing. Tensions are high but, at the academic level, some channels of useful exchange remain open. The author and two classmates would join one such program linking a leading American university and its counterpart in Poland. They drive to Warsaw in a bright yellow VW Beetle and, in addition to attending classes, travel far and wide within the country as well as to several of the neighbors in the socialist bloc where the Soviet Union called all the shots. They drive across the USSR and visit the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the division of Europe. Throughout, Marco takes detailed notes of what they see and hear.

Almost four decades later, the East-West division of Europe is gone. Marco recently found his diary and decided to publish an expanded version of it. His written notes from 1980 have been enriched with descriptions and analyses of historical events that will help the reader see his personal experience in a more significant cultural, social, political and economic context.

The author hopes this real life story will help younger generations, who did not live through the Cold War, better appreciate the blessing of living in a European continent that is immensely more open, rich and free than it was then.