The US liberated the country in a bloody battle at Peleliu, and eventually Palau opted for independence from the US and became a young republic 25 years ago. There are lots of signs left that this used to be a US territory, including the use of the dollar, gallons, NOAA weather station, and more. On our first day, we did a kayak/snorkel tour to Nikko Bay with Sam's Tour
the tour did include visiting a japanese outpost
Unfortunately, the Japanese were well equipped and fought to the last one, infliciting significant losses to the US. Taking the place over too 74 days instead of the planned 4 days. The island has left over Japanese buildings, tanks, and amphibious vehicles for the beach landing:
found a nice hermit crab on the beach
runway that the americans wanted to capture
thousand man cave was last on our tour
lots of bats live in there, now
We saw the nice Nikko hotel before leaving for the day: We then arrived to a cultural house where state leaders gather to conduct business Next, was a hike to a waterfall:
the japanese built a train to shuttle out the boxite they were mining
jennifer found a small snake on the way back