Welcome to the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM or Micronesia for short), my 114th Visit and 109th Run UN Country.
The Federated States of Micronesia comprises 607 islands spread out 2,700km across the Western Pacific Ocean but with only 114,790 people and a total land area of only 1% of Tasmania, even though the ocean area containing the islands is 32% the area of Australia !!! Amazing !!! The main inhabited islands are: Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae. They lie between Guam and the Marshall Islands about 2,900 km northwest of Cape York Australia, 3,400 km southeast of Japan and some 4,000 km southwest of the Hawaii. Amazingly isolated. The sovereign islands capital is Palikir, located on Pohnpei Island, while the largest city is Weno, located in the Chuuk Atoll, which is 90min flying time from Guam (I stopped over in Chuuk on my way to Pohnpei). All the islands are volcanic and part of the Caroline Islands, which spread from Philippines to Marshalls (the entire extent my Kokoline adventure). After WWII, Micronesia was administered by the US Government as a Territory (like Guam is now) and the handed back to the indigenous Chuukese (biggest Micronesian ethnic group) to become a UN Country and independent on 3 November 1986 on my 21st Birthday !!!
The ancestors of the Micronesians settled here over four thousand years ago mainly fishing and growing breadfruit and yams in Chief-based system of rule. Between 500-1500AD a more centralized economic and religious culture evolved based in now UNESCO protected “Nan Madol” on Pohnpei Island, which comprises many artificial islands linked by a network of canals, and often called the Venice of the Pacific – this is the main attraction on Pohnpei which you sill see in the photos below.
Like Guam, Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to visit in the mid 1500s in search of the Spice Islands (Indonesia) and then the Spanish in the sixteenth century. In 1887, the Spanish founded the town of Santiago de la Ascensión in what today is called Kolonia on the island of Pohnpei where I stayed.
In the 1870s, Germany began extending its sphere of influence in the Caroline Islands and did a deal with Pope Leo XIII to use them as a stopover for trading with the Far East. Following defeat in the Spanish–American War, the Spanish sold the archipelago to Germany in 1899.
During World War I, it was captured by Japan. Following the war, the League of Nations awarded a mandate for Japan to administer the islands as part of the South Seas Mandate.
During World War II, a significant portion of the Japanese fleet was based in Truk Lagoon. In February 1944, Operation Hailstone, one of the most important naval battles of the war, took place at Truk, in which many Japanese support vessels and aircraft were destroyed and the USA assumed control of the islands until independence in 1986.
Today, the islands are mainly self-sufficient through fishing and farming with the main exports being tourism and tuna fishing in the northern oceans. Just over half the population are Catholics thanks to the Spanish and the rest practice local customs. English is now the main language but Micronesian culture and language is well preserved given a very small proportion of non-Micronesians choosing to live on the island because of its isolation. The US Dollar reins supreme here as in Guam and Saipan and as a result imported goods are frightfully expensive – this is passed on to tourists via high accommodation, transport and tour costs so that the locals can actually afford imported goods.
I arrive into Pohnpei at 1430 so I had enough time to walk around the tiny village of Kolonia where I stayed, seeing the following: Spanish Wall Park, Cathedral of Ponape Belltower, Post Office, Visitors Centre, FSM Telecommunications Centre with Giant Satellite Dish. I had no favourite places except for the beautiful; chanting voices at the Catholic Cathedral of Ponape.
My first impression of Kolonia was: Oh Boy – Kolonia is not a looker and very neglected and run-down – but this is usual for remote Pacific islands where infrastructure is at the bottom of the list. Houses here are basic, ramshackle and the place is full of stray dogs and chickens believe it or not !!!
The day after I arrived was my first piece of drama on this trip – turns out that my hire car that was meant to turn up at 8am at my hotel had water in its tank and had to be repaired !!! The good news is that the owner of the car hire business was so embarrassed that he organised a taxi to take me around the island for the same cost. This day I visited the most important attraction on the island being NAN MADOL in the very most eastern side of the island. The day was glorious. Sun out. Fluffy low altitude Pacific cumulus out – terrific. My hotel manager Rose, swore black and blue that it would rain today but I told her on the way to the hotel from the airport the cloudy partly rainy day before that I was blessed with good weather and would cast it out tomorrow !!! She believed me today. My taxi driver Franky was a straight-talking honest local with integrity and more enthusiasm for an islander than I am used to. He drove well and pleased me at every twist and turn of our journey through an island that is so lush and rugged that if there were no roads or cars you would think that you were shipwrecked !!! The one thing I noticed on the drive was the many abandoned cars on the side of the road – apparently too expensive to remove and dispose !!!
The road to Lududuhniap Waterfall was terrible but the waterfall itself a refreshing gushing delight under much lush cover.
Nan Madol is Machu Piccu meets Venice. It is a complex of ruins of a city that was allegedly built by twin sorcerers to house Royalty and Priests much like Machu Piccu. The city was built in 1180AD using local basalt boulders, most weighing 50 tons each and so local legend has it that the entire city was built by two twin brother sorcerers because there is no other plausible explanation as to how such many huge basalt blocks could possible have been placed so symmetrically on top of one other !!! This is the attraction of this place. Dwellings of the city where placed on multiple “islets” or outcrops of basalt islands in the bay of Temwem Islands and when the tide was low you can walk from one to the other but when the tide is high you need a boat hence the reference or nickname of this place as “The Venice of the Pacific” !!! A must see as you will see and as Mini saw form the skies in the upcoming film !!!
The very next day I drove around the entire island of Pohnpei covering 93km and visiting the following: Western Wetlands, Seinwar Beach, Kepirohi Waterfall, Pohnpei Petroglyphs, Nett Point. There was more drama than yesterday – two in fact. When I arrived at the Western Wetlands, my car was on a narrow causeway with mangroves on both sides so I stopped for a photo and left the engine running to preserve the aircon given I was right next to the car. Much to my horror, when I tried to get back into the car, ALL FOUR DOORS WERE LOCKED !!! How could this be – the keys inside, engine running and no driver !!! After swearing profusely at the top of my lungs since I was a kilometre from the mail road but in an isolated area, someone must have heard me and a car appeared out of nowhere. Thank goodness. He rang the car hire company. I stayed with the car for a while then walked back to the main road. It started to pour and I took refuge inside an abandoned silly yellow American-style school bus !!! I also spotted a nearby house and asked the young lady there to ring the hire car company – spoke to them and they insisted they were only 20min away. 70min later they rocked up and took me to my car and let me in with a spare key. Even though I had waited 70min I had really not missed anything since it was raining. It rained for half the day – only the second half day of rain in my entire trip of 33 days so far so I was way out in front and very grateful. Lucky for me the day opened up and I spent the rest of the day in sunshine and steamy heat. Drama No 2 for today was at the Petroglyphs – I had inadvertently parked my car on mud so when I tried to leave the front tires just spun – I was bogged !!! Lucky for me a bunch of kids were playing soccer nearby and saw me and came running over to help me push the car out of the bog – Drama No 2 solved !!! Dramas aside the Kepirohi Waterfall was terrific – big, full of gushing water and I had it all to myself – it is the biggest and most popular on the island. My drive around the island revealed two major observations – the roads are shit and there are no swimming beaches !!! Just pot holes on the road and mostly mangrove coastlines instead of sandy beaches – this is a big drawback for Pohnpei and I struggled to find somewhere to swim. I put all my cards on the trip to the Atoll the next day… I was not sorry !!!
Ahnd Atoll was the best best best of Pohnpei and easily the highlight. This is where I snorkelled and swam with sharks !!! Yes Sharks !!! The Atoll is world famous for this. The sharks here are called Grey Reef Sharks and they reach up to two metres in length. They have plenty of local fish to eat. Given this and the fact that they are so used to humans via diving, means they do not attack – as long as the locals don't exhaust all the local fish !!! The other wonder of the Atoll is the COCONUT CRAB - the largest bloody crab I have ever seen that lives in a slot that it carves at the bottom of a coconut tree and then climbs up the coconut tree with its enormous feet and uses its "jaws of life" front clippers to cut the coconut open, drink the milk and eat its flesh - amazing - all the locals say that if those front clippers can crush through human bone if you pick up this creature the wrong way !!! What an experience for me – up there with my shark encounter in Galapagos and South Africa. Ahnd Atoll is like a tiny version of Tuvalu – just a strip of sand with a thin strip of lush green forest surrounded by crystalline turquoise waters and pristine coral as if God had just made them all !!! Ahnd Atoll redefines “paradise on earth” and is a must-visit in Pohnpei.
The final day in this island of no beaches was a day-long trip to the island of Sokehs right next door to Kolonia and dominated by a ridge culminating in the Sokehs Rock. This place is wild. Lush green forest covers it and you only discover it on foot wearing hiking boots – a terrific practice for PNG Kokoda – soaking wet in sweat – steep single file tracks full of slippery boulders covered in moss with a morass of busted tree roots and limbs. I managed to visit: Sokehs Rock (Half-way Up), Japanese Power Plant Ruins, Japanese WWII Anti-Aircraft Guns, Bomb Craters, Rifle Pits Japanese Command Post TSUNAMI GATHERING LOCATION (Sokehs Mountain Summit). All on foot. All in overwhelming heat and sweat. I was resolved by this experience. PNG Kokoda is a 96km trail of this calibre – I decided I am walking nude with only my boots on and S23 Ultra in one hand !!! I made it half way up the Sokehs Rock (the hardest trek on this island) when the heavens opened up and pissed down on me… No choice but to abort and turn back since I could not see 10m in front of me and I was quickly slipping down the muddy slippery boulder path…
I was glad to back at the hotel – had to wash everything on me – full of mud !!! When I settled down to wine, olives and cheese I realised just how wild this place is – raw – unadulterated by tourists and McDonalds. Pohnpei may not have beaches but it has culture, history and a raw untouched “Cast Away” style roughness that wild travellers will simply love.
How is this for being in the right pace at the time – TWICE !!! When I arrived the Governor of the Island came for breakfast at my hotel (don't know why – it is not that fancy ???). As he walked by all the staff said “Good Morning Mr Governor” so I joined in and got a response – “Enjoy Pohnpei” – I asked his keeper if I could interview him and he sternly refused – “we have no time” !!! On my last day the newly elected PRESIDENT visits the hotel for a Mothers Day function but on that occasion I just returned from my assault of Sokehs in my cozzies and the equivalent of The Federal Police just moved me on to my room – how’s that – Governor and President coming to visit me !!! Bah Ha Ha !!!
Please enjoy the many images of wonderfully isolated, wild, no-beaches and all-sharks Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia…
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