Schiphol again, and my Finnair flight to Helsinki will depart in a moment. The day was spent in Rotterdam market hall, a nearby city of Brielle and so on.
The market hall became expensive.. Now I have five different kinds of cheese in my bag, in addition to stroopwaffels and port wine. :P
Now in Rotterdam, and we have basically done nothing.. Except slept. Some 15 hours of sleep was obviously needed after the flights, we just woke up in the morning after "taking a short nap" around 15:00..
On the way to Rotterdam we had a short lunch & walking break in Delft, a small historical city between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the pictures are all taken there.
It's freezing cold here by the way.. Not so cold as in Finland, but even +10 is way too cold without proper winter clothing and after getting used to the over +30C temperatures..
Uaargh. The long and painful flight is over and we have landed to Amsterdam. Total flight time was around 18 hours including an hour long stop in Bangkok. Luckily I managed to sleep the Taipei-Bangkok four hours flight and half of the thirteen hours Bangkok-Amsterdam flight so they felt at least a bit easier. Still not a fan of long haul flights..
In Taiwan we had a day to spend and no plans, so we just walked around the city, shopping and visiting the Taipei 101 skyscraper. Before the flights we had a dinner in a belt sushi restaurant, first of the kind for me. The sushi pieces travel on a belt on small plates in front of you, and you just pick the ones that look good. Afterwards the plates are counted, they have different colors which determine the price.
Iryna was considering of sending some soy sauces and oils to home by post, as we couldn’t take them in the checked luggage. Finally we didn’t have time to do that, and she just tried to transport one small 130ml oil bottle in the luggage. The bottle passed Taipei security just fine, but unfortunately it was confiscated by Bangkok transport security, being larger than the allowed 100ml.. :p
Now the next destination is Rotterdam. We decided that it would be cheaper to book a rental car and a hotel in Rotterdam than just a hotel in Amsterdam, and neither of us has visited Rotterdam before. Let’s see how that city looks like.
Zzzzzhh...... Just a boring flight, half slept and a bus ride to the city. At least we found a decent hotel room for cheap, more space than in the capsule last time.
Unfortunately it's time to start our journey towards home today. I would have loved to spend an another week at Palau, but well.. Cannot get everything. Luckily I most likely stay home just less than two weeks after returning from here and then head to Dubai for two weeks on a work trip.
We just wandered around aimlessly today, had some lunch and packed our bags, now waiting for the Airbnb lady to drive us to the airport in an hour or two. In the evening we will stay in Taipei, Taiwan and spend also tomorrow there before our long flight to Amsterdam via Bangkok. Then we have an another day to spend there, rented a car and booked a hotel in Rotterdam.
Today was a diving day again. Blue Holes cave, the same as the first day was again beautiful. Blue Corner which has often been named the best diving site in the world didn't really impress me.. I guess it was just bad luck though, the site is said to be different every time. This time we were swimming against strong current before reaching the most interesting part of the site and ran out of air way too fast. Well, there was a lot of sharks anyway.
The last dive was a different one: Iro Maru, a Japanese tanker sunken by US submarine torpedo in second world war. Unfortunately visibility was very bad around the ship and we had to do a relatively short dive due to depth and earlier dives, but it was still interesting. Some photos below.
Iryna was complaining of me missing a picture of her and a sea turtle yesterday, and I tried to take a new one today without success. Or so I thought before looking at the photos. Obviously a turtle followed us for a while and I took pictures of it without noticing the animal. :)
Today the entire day was spent diving. We had planned to do just two dives and be finished around midday, but the dive company obviously was doing three dives today. So, we only returned from the sea just before sunset.
The day was pretty much perfect, good diving and a beautiful calm day on the sea. The first dive was nothing so special, but the second one through a cave at 36 meters depth and the last one floating in very strong current were both really good. We saw some turtles, dozens of shark and millions of other fish again.
The local dive companies have a unique way of diving in strong current: They use a reef hook, a hook which you attach to stones and then you just keep floating, watching the fish swimming past you. Handy. :p
Today we returned back from Peleliu to the main island. This time the state boat was a different, much faster boat and we arrived in just an hour to rainy Koror. Our Airbnb host lady had left the car to harbor waiting for us as agreed, so we could depart immediately to the city.
We had some proper food (tasty grilled fish instead of bad burgers), explored some roads near Koror and drove back to our home house, the same one as before. We also happened to meet a laticauda colubrina, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. From a safe distance though, the sea snake was swimming near a pier.
The long days finally required some sleep, so we skipped exploring Peleliu in the morning and just slept until the dive boat arrived around 11. Besides, it was again raining heavily so going out didn’t really sound like a good choice.
This was the first dive day, with two dives. Both dive sites were partially reef caves, so.. a good start for Iryna on her first real open water dives after the course. She did training course in a quarry, so real sea is a different thing. Well, she survived just fine. :)
The diving conditions here are perfect. Underwater visibility is easily 50 meters, water is warm at 30C and there is a lot of marine life. We spotted at least four sharks and an spotted eagle ray today, in addition to millions of other fish.
Tomorrow it’s time to get off Peleliu back to Koror, again on the slow state boat. Cannot say it’s a bad thing.. The accommodation on the main island is much more comfortable with soft beds (here only a 1cm matress) and air conditioning, the restaurants serve excellent fish and so on. On Peleliu island there is basically only one restaurant open and they only serve not so tasty burgers and nothing else..
By the way, there is no internet access on Peleliu so these blog entries will be posted online only when we reach the main island again.
Today we started early in the morning like yesterday, and went out searching for a place to swim. That’s the worst side of the island: All the beaches are private and allowed only to the customers of the owning hotel or other business. After some searching we had to give up and stay at the same small beach as yesterday, this time going to swim from the old pier. Well, it’s a decent place for snorkeling with a small reef right next to it.
At midday started our long, sweaty and partially wet way to Peleliu island. We decided to skip the expensive speedboat tourist transports offered by dive companies and took the government ferry which runs only on some days. The ferry took around four hours in scorching heat. In the last hour a heavy rain shower also poured on the ship. Guess it was worth the trouble to pay 15 dollars for the transport instead of 55.
We are staying at the dive company in Peleliu, in a small guest house. The house is extremely basic with outside toilets and shower and no air conditioning, but I guess it works for two days. I hope there will be more than one restaurant open on the small island tomorrow though.. The only open one wasn’t that good.
Tomorrow is the first dive day, cannot wait. :)
