MERGED: Palau

[vudu.formo.paseo]

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Maldives is my ultimate dream destination but Palau seems more accessible from Cebu. Anyone been to either one, or both?

Please post your experiences. Many thanks!

[laagan]

I haven't been to both places but I plan to go to Maldives someday. Interestingly, I was just looking at this website a few days ago.

Also check out this guy's amazing pics about Maldives.

[john_yo]

nindot raba kuno ni na place. kanus-a pa kaha ta maka adto dah.

[glaeken]

both places would require a visa right?got lots and lots of pics from maldives, my aunt lives there

[laagan]

For Maldives, no prior visas are required to enter for tourists, I believe Palau is the same.

[aGoi..]

i havent been to any but my close friend has gone to palau.. well she went diving there. twas truly beautiful daw.. she even sent me pics. i might actually upload it here if u want.

[vudu.formo.paseo]

yes please would like to see some pics taken by point-and-shoot cameras rather than the usual ones we see on websites, that are mostly photoshopped to perfection already. That way, we can really see how the place looks like. Thanks!!!!

[aGoi..]

oh i forgot to mention that the pics were taken mostly from her diving experience.. so most are underwater pics. but she says the diving was truly the best she'd had.

[aGoi..]

here are parts of the loooong email she sent me:

Palau, Micronesia.

We stayed there for around 4 days. We were around 14 divers in the group. I brought the basics (mask, snorkel, wetsuit, boots and reg) and the rest were rented in the dive shop since it was included in the package.

To get to the dive sites, we rode a 300 horsepower speedboat with a travel time of around 30/45 min, and dive time of around an hour using Nitrox (31 mix), and yes i had to get certified to extend dive time. (boohoo!) Nitrox is a specialized tank with more oxygen than nitrogen so you can stay underwater longer. We were on a mix with 31% oxygen. Diving depth max was around 30m

We saw mostly grey reef, white tip, and a few black tip sharks and this shark with 6 gills and spots (i don't know the name)
Large schools of barracudas, and a few really huge snappers lingering in the area ( i heard they bite you if you are too white thinking your hand is squid, hah!) The snapper is the solo picture of the grouchy looking fish.

We did mostly wall dives, wall to your left and sharks to your right, guaranteed. There was even a time when there were sharks everywhere.
Some of us were looking at the eagle spotted rays while below was a shark feeding frenzy! ack!
They had really big barracudas, as fast as your thighs, and a humungoues school of jacks with an estimate of around 300-500 fish! Turtles as big as tables, we actually swam with the turtle. Really fat moray eels, large triggerfish (that unfortunately attack!) and giant lapu-lapus everywhere. (during our drift dive)
A school of bumphead wrasses and parrotfish, as big and fat as tables, who come close enough to touch.

Absolutely fantastic! Sometimes i didn't know what to look at because there were so many things to see!
In some spots we had to go in through a hole and come out with the welcoming view of the blue ocean!
I thought i was getting dillusional, it was so beautiful, so surreal.

We went to jellyfish lake, had to walk for 10 minutes before we could go to a saltwater lake with thousands of jellyifsh that don't sting.
We couldn't skin dive for around 15 ft cuz they told us the water was toxic. These jellfish are "stingless" because they have no more predators in the area so they have lost their mode of defense. There are actually 3 lakes in palau with this kind of "phenomena" but they only keep 1 open for the toursits.

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[twixtedsunshine]

let's go to PALAU!