It is well after midnight, closer to 1a.m., as our plane is
on its final approach to land at Yap International Airport. I can not remember
the last time I landed some place where everything I see out of the window is
pitch-black...no exaggeration... no lights in the distance, no full moon
showing glistening sea below us...nothing...just darkness. Finally, some
airport employee must have remembered to trip a switch and at the very least,
there are now runway lights. Everyone did not go home after all.
“Welcome to Yap”, a lovely bare breasted woman with gorgeous
hand-woven leis draped over her shoulders and breasts wearing a beautiful tiara
of flowers on her head and a multi-colored grass skirt said to me as she places
one of the hand-woven floral and palm leaf leis around me....
“Oh, wow..thank you. This is beautiful. You are beautiful.
Thank you”...I guess everyone did not go home. It feels like the entire town of
Colonia (the main town in Yap) has turned out for this flight's arrival and now
that makes a bit more sense to me since there are only 2 flights per week into
Yap and well, here we are.
“Here we are” is one of the islands that makes up the
Federated States of Micronesia. Yap is
south of Guam; east of Palau (if you are a fan of the show Survivor then you
have heard of Palau…Palau gets about 100,000 tourists visiting per year; Yap
about 4,000)
There are no baggage carousels at the airport...just a metal
shelf where luggage is delivered by a pick-up truck from the plane to said
shelf...no one is checking baggage tags here. Our bags are mixed in with lots
of picnic coolers as many of the local passengers seem to have transported a
fair amount of processed frozen food from Guam. I can not explain it but just
based on our middle of the night welcome, I know we are going to love
Yap...once we get to see it.
The drive to the hotel is in that same complete darkness.
There are only 5 or so accommodation options on the island. The hotel van does
seem a bit antiquated, rusty and rickety (yes, I am being kind with my
description) but most assuredly, the hotel itself will live up to its garden
view, terrace, luxurious traditional Yapese decorated accommodation promise.
“So here is your room and let me show you around the room
and familiarize you with the amenities”....
“Here is the closet...and we have hangers”, Reggie tells us.
I glance at Mom quizzically as we are shown the 5 wire/plastic hangers. I am
thinking, “That is charming. We can only go up from here …I am also thinking
that if this hotel is touting wire hangers as a luxury amenity, I may have
booked us into the wrong place ”.
“And inside this cabinet, we have your television”, Reggie
says as he opens the cabinet and then says, “Oh, there is no television. I will
have to find out where the television went”. Interesting, I think to myself,
but still reserving judgement. I feel confident that there must have been a
television in this room at one time because I see a remote control
but….hhhhmmm…it’s okay. We did not
travel 17,000 miles collectively to watch TV.
We have two beds and as it is fast approaching 2:30a.m. I
figure we will solve the mystery of the missing television tomorrow because Mom
and I are exhausted.
“Beep...beep...beep”, I hear 10 minutes after laying down.
“Beep...beep...beep” continues at 2 minute intervals....just enough time to
fall asleep again and then have that sleep disturbed. Turns out the smoke
detector battery is dying but it is a slow death resulting in me trying to pull
it off the wall without success. The gentleman at the front desk brings a
ladder into the room, removes the entire smoke detector and Mom and I will
simply have to hope fire is not part of the check-in package. At this point, I
am thinking, “If I wanted a noise-induced sleep, I would have just stayed home
in NYC”.
At least there will be the garden view from our terrace to
look forward to in the morning...which in the morning, looks a lot like a
parking lot replete with car doors banging at all hours. And because we have
the good fortune to have the room adjacent to the front desk, we hear all the
activity of both guests and employees.
By morning, I am done. See, I wrote a nice letter to the proprietor
of said hotel before I left NYC explaining what we were seeking...above all
else, a quiet tropical respite where we could escape the incessant noises of
city life. A place where I could get a much-needed, good nights rest. I was assured a “peaceful and stress-free
experience awaits”. I want to also mention that this is not a budget hotel. We
are paying $200.00 for the privilege of no sleep, a phantom television, 5 wire
hangers and do not get me started on the
rather dilapidated state of the room and bathroom.
I chat with the lovely young lady at the front desk, explain
my predicament, show my invoice reflecting what was promised versus reality and
inquire, at the very least, if there is another room available away from the
lobby noises. There is not.
“Mom, lets just go to breakfast”, I say. It is not a
solution to the room problem but I just need coffee. The breakfast is fine; the
coffee is good...the grounds of the hotel (not the coffee grounds, the hotel
grounds...the tropical flowers and gardens are very nice). The pool could be
cleaner and ….
Okay, between you and I, I am thinking, “Please God do not
tell me that we traveled from New York to Los Angeles to Hilo to Honolulu to
Manila to Guam and then ultimately to the Micronesian island of Yap just to be
disappointed”. That would seem like a very cruel joke...besides, I still have
that first impression feeling that I am going to love this island and that
intuition is rarely wrong. I also have
to tell you that I had no intention of sharing this story because I love Yap
when all is said and done…and in further stories, you will understand why but
Mom had a good point. She told me that
people always think our vacations are moments of perfection from start to
finish. Maybe it is important for
everyone to know, sometimes it takes a day or so to find paradise in the midst
of it.
The word on the street is that we happen to be in town for
the once a year Canoe Festival and pretty much the entire island population
turns out to watch various teams compete in various canoe races and events. It
is right down the road from our hotel...within walking distance so with a bit
of rain coming down, off we go to the races.
We walk through town....a local community center, a general
store of sorts, a post office...a living museum complete with stone money which
was the form of currency back in the day....each village and family had their
own stone money which would have to be transported on the shoulders of the
villagers because the stones were big, formidable, heavy...most shaped with a
hole in the middle of the stone so a pole could be passed through said holes
and then the pole and stone hoisted on the villagers shoulders. Some of the
stones came from outer islands...the harder it was to acquire said stone, the
more value it had. The rougher, more identifiable stones had a greater value as
well. We decide we need to stop and have a cup of coffee and just sit for a
spell...but there are no coffee cafes...and there are only 3 or so restaurants
to be found in town. There are no
coffee/internet cafes, no Starbucks, no Dunkin’ Donuts, no vestiges of what we
refer to as Western civilization influences…which I happen to think is a
beautiful thing except when I want a cup of coffee…then I would love to see a
Mom and Pop coffee café right in front of me. We wander into one of the other
hotels on the island because they have a little coffee bar in the lobby...and
the location is right on the harbor...which seems a nice place to sit for a
bit.
As Mom and I are having a coffee and chatting with Helen,
the young lady at the front desk, the more I look around the more I am
thinking, “This is where we should be staying”. Beautiful pool with waterfall
and flowers and a manta ray tiled design in said pool, a restaurant that is to
be found on what used to be a South Seas schooner, a gift shop (sometimes a
girl just wants to buy a few post cards :), tourist information (which was
sorely lacking at the other hotel)....
Somewhere between asking for a coffee and finding out if
there is milk to go with the coffee, I
end up asking…
“Helen, are there rooms available here?”, She asks me for
what date. I laugh and tell her, “Oh, now...today...or however long it takes to
get our luggage out of the other hotel to here”
“Let me show you some of our rooms and then you can decide”,
she tells me as she shows me an oceanview room, with 2 big queen size
beds...with lovely aquatic-themed duvets and oooohhh, modern furnishings and
the toiletries!! Talcum powder and floral scented bath gels and soap that is
shaped like the iconic stone money...and fluffy bath towels....and ...so many
hangers there is no need to count them…yes, this is where we should be.
We sit on our terrace for a few moments, overlooking the
pool, the harbor and the schooner. The
schooner is so close that next we hear…
“Hello. Welcome. Do you need anything? We can bring it to
you…”
Mom and I look at each other and in unison say, “Coffee,
please.”
Whilst the coffee is being made, the conversation from
schooner to terrace continues…with the usual where are you from and how long
will you be here and do you like Yap…
Turns out the ladies who are working at the schooner
restaurant, their names are Terencia and Joci and we became friends at
“Hello”. It just happens like that in
Yap. But more about these wonderful
ladies later in the Yap Chronicles.
It would be fair to say that now, our Yap
vacation...granted, a good 15 hours after we arrived, finally began when we stumbled upon the Manta Ray Bay
Dive Resort ....and we are grateful because now that first impression is starting to make sense....Yap is truly our idyllic
tropical island .... a little slice of paradise that has terrific coffee, thanks to Joci and Terencia . Simple pleasures, indeed.
Next stop: The Too-Funny and Too-Much-Fun Canoe Festival
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