Saipan - a pearl in the Pacific

Saipan car number plate; Hafa Adai means Hello in Chamorro.

If you've ever seen the Nicholas Cage film Windtalkers then you've heard of Saipan, in the Pacific Ocean. The film wasn't filmed on the island, but was set there during WWII.

Saipan is the largest of the fifteen islands that belong to the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Everybody there speaks English, but some also speak Chamorro, which is the native language of the islands. The reason they are called the Northern Mariana islands is that there is another Mariana  island further to the south, Guam, which has a different political status. 

Managaha island, off Saipan's WNW coast

I've just been for a week in January, and I did a lot of scuba diving while there. One of my favourite spots was "The Grotto", where you pass through a cave (see entrance below) and come out into the open ocean on the other side.

Grotto dive spot

Much of the recent history of Saipan is overshadowed by the Second World War, notably the three-week long Battle of Saipan in 1944 when US forces landed on the island to secure it from the Japanese who had been governing the island since the First World War.  Many of the Japanese civilians feared being slaughtered by the US troops and preferred to commit suicide by jumping off Suicide cliff or Banzai Cliff - 20 000 died.

'Suicide' cliff

Memorial at Banzai Cliff

Banzai cliff

Last command post

The island also has some other tourist sites that are not linked to the war, such as Kalabera cave and Bird island.

Kalabera cave

Bird island

One of the trip highlights was a trip to Tinian, a slightly smaller neighbouring island. As it is only 8 km from Saipan the flight there is very short.

Plane to Tinian

One of the main tourist sites on Tinian is the House of Taga, which is an important limestone Latte stone site (nothing to do with coffee!). 

House of Taga

Latte stones are pillars capped by a hemispherical capital with the flat side facing up, found only in the Mariana islands. In ancient times they were used as building supports, and are now often seen as a sign of Chamorro identity.

House of Taga

Of twelve large Latte structures at the House of Taga only one is still left standing.

Last one standing

fallen pillar

Tinian is perhaps best known for being the base from which the US launched their atomic bomb attacks on Japan during World War II. Strategically important, the island was captured by the US in 1944 and they installed two airfields : the West airfield (still used as Tinian's airport today), and the North airfield, now abandoned but visitable for its historical significance. The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded on planes at the North airfield.

loading pit of the world's first atomic bomb

loading pit of the world's second atomic bomb

Afterwards we headed to the north-east coast (never far away on an island this small).

The old bell tower

Blow-hole

Tinian coast, Saipan on the horizon

half-flower, beloved of honeymooners

coconut crab

Saipan sunset on our last evening

Ship shape ? (or submarine shape ?)

Is it a beached boat ? No it's actually a hotel called the Sun Cruise Resort on Korea's east coast, at a place called Jeongdongjin. The hotel opened in 2002, has 211 rooms, is 165 metres long, 45 metres high and weighs 30 000 tons.

Jeongdongjin is famous in Korea for having the best view of the sunrise in Korea, and people flock to this part of the coast for New Year's Eve.

A little further up the coast at Gangneung's Unification Park is a North Korean submarine, captured when it ran aground in 1996. 

It weighs 325 tonnes, is 35 metres long and had a top speed of 13 km/hr. Inside it transported 11 crew and 15 soldiers and agents. When it ran aground the crew members were shot by the soldiers and agents who landed and attempted to return to North Korea. However all were captured or killed.

Another reminder of the North Korea threat along the coast is the barbed wire fences common along many parts of the coast in order to protect invasion from North Korean spies :

If you want to read about my trip to North Korea please follow this link.

Stone Forest

There's a good article in this month's National Geographic Magazine about the Tsingy of Bemaraha in Western Madagascar.

Tsingy of Bemaraha, Madagascar
'A city of limestone towers' 

It reminds me of our trip there in May 2008; I still have a scar on my arm as a souvenir ! To read the article see Living on a Razor's Edge - Madagascar's labryinth of stone. Here are some more National Geographic photos of Madagascar; like the one above they were all taken by photographer Stephen Alvarez:

'Vertical pupils identify a seseke, or leaf-tailed gecko, as a
nocturnal creature. Its camouflage works so well that the lizard
doesn’t hide during the day. It simply flattens itself against
tree trunks while waiting for darkness and insects to eat.'

'Spiny, drought-tolerant Pachypodium plants
also thrive in the tsingy’s top reaches.'

'Unexplored passages shelter some of the island’s—and the
world’s— strangest species, from the ghostly Decken’s
sifaka, a lemur, to a host of reptiles, insects, and plants.'

'Troops of Decken’s sifakas, found only in west Madagascar, cruise
the tops of the tsingy searching for food and evading predators.
Like other lemurs, they probably live in small family groups.'

'Fearless acrobat, a Decken’s sifaka leaps a chasm a 100 feet deep'

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

• Ile Sainte Marie - in 2004 we spent a week on this island off the north-east coast of Madagascar.

Suggested reading:

• Dancing with the Dead - A journey through Zanzibar and Madagascar by Helena Drysdale
• Muddling Through Madagascar by Dervla Murphy. Murphy and her 14-year-old daughter Rachel make their way across and around the southern two-thirds of Madagascar, finding spectacular scenery and severe erosion; no reliable modern communication system or transport network, and sanitary conditions best left unmentioned. Murphy interweaves the story of their adventures with an account of the island's history and its peoples.

Bali bliss

Bali figures as one of many peoples' dream holiday destinations, and we were no exception.

However as scuba-divers we chose to stay away from the more touristy areas (mainly in the South) and were near a a small town called Tulamben on the east coast, renowned for its diving. 

view from our accommodation

While Bali has many good dive sites, Tulamben in particular is renowned for the WWII wreck of the USAT Liberty which lies just off the coast. The wreck lies not very deep (>30 m) and is more than 100 metres long.

map of Bali showing some of its dive sites (from www.tulamben.com)

ribbon eel and cornetfish

raccoon butterflyfish (chaetodon lunula)

Although most of our dives were off Tulamben we also went on a three-dive trip to Nusa Penida, off Bali's south-east coast, where we lucky enough to see an ocean sunfish, aka mola-mola, as well as some manta rays.

sunfish (photo from Wikipedia)

off Nusa Penida

We also took two days off from diving - one to explore the centre of the island in a car, and another day to explore east coast north and south of Tulamben on a scooter.

We had also planned to climb Mount Agung (3142m) but unfortunately the day we had picked (our last full day on Bali) there was a local religious festival which prevented us from climbing it.

view of Gunung Agung at sunset from our accommodation

Mount/Gunung Agung

On our trip to the island's centre we visited the Tirta Gangga (literally Water of the Ganges) water garden which is a beautiful complex of fountains and pools.

outside the water garden

Tirta Gangga water garden

Tirta Gangga water garden

Tirta Gangga water garden

We also went to Besakih ("Mother") temple, which is one of the largest and holiest temples in Balinese Hinduism. It's at almost 1000m altitude on the flanks of Mount Agung.

From where we had lunch afterwards we had a great view over Mount Batur (1717m) which is still an active volcano.

Mount Batur aka Kintamani

Bali is a very religious island, and we saw several festivals or people carrying offerings to their local temple.

en route for the temple

Sesajen (Balinese daily offerings)

Our trip up and down the east coast was interesting too

bridge guardian

We headed north:

luxury hotel north of Tulamben...

... where we stopped for lunch

and south, towards Amed:

near Amed

coast near Amed

where salt is produced.

cut-out trunks are used as troughs for salt evaporation

Our next trip, a few months later, was to Saipan, one of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Suggested reading for Bali:

Try Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. The Indonesia part takes place in Bali.

Finally, here's a short film by Bali resident Brian Dent about the "Big Cats" of East Bali. It won second place in the Ultra Short category of the Underwater Festival 2011.

 

Kim duk soo's Samulnori 'PAN'

'PAN' is a show combining Korean traditional performing arts: samulnori, mask dance, pansori, minyo and pungmul. I saw it recently in Seoul and it was great !