The stunning Pacific island nation just waiting to be discovered

It’s Sunday morning and I’m standing in a taro patch.

In front of us, Dirradai Uai Skebong bends and hacks at a sea of lurid green stalks with a machete, her dog sniffing idly at our feet. Eventually she reaches down and, with an audible heave, pulls an enormous taro root from the mud.

This is the Airai Cultural Tour, our first stop on our first morning in Palau. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful introduction to the tiny Micronesian island nation. The air is thick with a tropical dewiness, dialling up the saturated colour of the surrounding hilly jungle, and brightly detailed Palauan houses with their blend of traditional and contemporary styling.

Skebong holds up the root for us to inspect. It glistens with mud.

Suddenly, there’s a thunderous roar. Behind Skebong, framed by the trees at the end of her plot, a Qantas 737 surges into the sky, seemingly close enough to touch. Instinctively, we wave.

The plane last night delivered us from Brisbane, and is off on its return leg. It will be a week before the little Boeing returns.

In December Qantas took over this route, dubbed the Palau Paradise Express, from Nauru Airlines.

The Palau Paradise Express is just one small part of a comprehensive investment package in the Pacific by the Australian government via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Qantas will tell you it saw an immediate surge in searches for Palau after it announced it was taking over the service. That’s translating into bums on seats – hence why I’m here with a bunch of other journalists.

“We’re a known brand in Australia and I think we naturally resonate with Australians,” said Kathryn Robertson, when asked what landed the national carrier the contract for the route. Robertson is Qantas’ executive general manager of sales and distribution, and was at Brisbane Airport the day before as part of the service’s official launch.

“The strength of our network and our frequent flyer offering are all factors that would help generate that demand for customers to want to go [to Palau] with Qantas.”

Also at the airport (and on our flight) was Palau’s president, Surangel Samuel Whipps jnr. The American-born Whipps is an easy mix of political charm and Pacific island insouciance. He, of course, wants Australians to flock to Palau and spruiks it effortlessly.

“We want more tourists from North America, Europe and Australia,” Whipps jnr said.

“I mentioned in the press conference just now a study that Cornell [University] did, which evaluated that Australians are the best target market for Palau because they’re high spending, they care about the environment and they’re adventurers.

“They love nature and that’s what Palau has to offer.”

He’s not wrong. Our itinerary for the first few days immerses us in some of the most jaw-dropping scenery I’ve experienced in 11 years of travel journalism.

Palau is a nation of about 340 islands scattered across 466 square kilometres, and there’s little doubt it’s best experienced on the water.

On our second morning we venture out with Neco Marine on a shaded dive boat to explore the surrounding marine sanctuary. First stop? The Milky Way, we’re told. But this one’s in the water.

The dive boat surges along before veering towards a maze of islands that sprout, mushroom-like, from the sea. The boat leans this way and that – left-right-left – densely forested limestone cliffs whizzing by, almost close enough to touch, before powering down and floating serenely into a narrow, secluded lagoon.

I stand and remove my sunglasses. The water around us pops with a rich turquoise that almost glows in the gentle morning light. I’ve never seen anything like it.

This shallow retreat with its rich limestone mud seafloor is considered by locals a natural spa. We dive in. The water (and creamy sludge beneath) carries a whiff of sulfur, and the sea lice are soon attacking my armpits. But enveloped in its gentle warmth, I hardly care.

For the rest of the day we hop around the water park to different snorkelling spots. I haven’t made time for a dive on this trip – a decision I regret as I slip under the waves and into an entirely different world.

We float with the current over reefs stacked in a kaleidoscope of coral, schools of triggerfish, parrotfish and convict surgeonfish, the occasional curious reef shark eyeballing us from a distance. For 10 minutes I tail a hawksbill turtle as it dives and surfaces, moseying around for food. It’s special stuff.

Not so great is a trip to Jellyfish Lake, a marine lake on Eil Malk Island. A swim among its thousands of harmless jellyfish is a Palau calling card – and is presented as a highlight on our Palau Visitor Authority itinerary – but as we approach the island’s pontoon our guides become reticent, and then reluctant for us to get off the dive boat.

The jellyfish are gone, they eventually concede, victims of a reef bleaching incident in 2017. We stand, silent and confused, before deciding to tackle the short hike to the lake anyway. Turns out, the guides are right – the luminous golden jellyfish from the brochures are nowhere to be seen. All we find is the occasional moon jellyfish (also harmless). It’s a bust, although the jellyfish populations are expected to rebound in the coming years.

It’s not the only clumsy moment. Palau is still getting used to welcoming visitors, it seems, and a couple of otherwise professionally run tours maybe go on for too long, or suffer from a lack of briefing – particularly a half-day kayak around the islands that leaves us exhausted rather than exhilarated.

You see it in the accommodation, too, with the two hotels in which we stay – Palau Pacific Resort and Cove Resort – a half step below what you’d find elsewhere in the Pacific, even if the service at both is smiling, helpful and professional (and we’re told there are holiday rentals scattered among the slick modern homes that sit in the bucolic hills overlooking Koror).

The food is better. We’re treated to capably elevated Euro-inflected cuisine at the Elilai restaurant and bar, homely Japanese at picture-book cute Tori Tori, and unctuous, spice-packed Indian at buzzy Taj Palau. None are groundbreaking, but all make the most of local produce to present tasty food at a good price.

Palau’s other major attraction for Western visitors is its modern history, and in particular its setting as a major battleground during the Second World War.

Japan occupied Palau from 1914 until General Douglas MacArthur decided to take the islands in preparation for an invasion of the Philippines. Two months of vicious combat followed.

We learn about the battle towards the end of our stay on a tour of the island of Peleliu, to the south-west of Palau’s main archipelago, where evidence of the carnage is scattered throughout the jungle. We walk through an expansive Japanese bunker and investigate an eerie, vine-covered former headquarters.

The showstopper, though, is a short hike along a rainforest trail, the trees parting to reveal the unmistakable hulk of a derelict American Sherman tank. We’re told the tank crawled over a landmine and was launched down a hill beyond, coming to rest on its side in this root-strewn clearing.

You can imagine the thunder and chaos of that evening; now, the tank is a ghostly relic, the only noise the gentle patter of raindrops on its mangled hull.

As we travel back to the mainland we come across more American military hardware, this time modern and very much in use.

US Marine Corps engineers have been busy repairing and now extending the old Japanese airfield. The joint-use runway will be used by locals but also the US military, which views it as critical to its strategic capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.

It’s a stark reminder that, despite its diminutive size, Palau is caught in a game of strategic aid being played across the region between China, and the US and its traditional allies.

Some of the marines are staying at our resort. That evening I chat to a young sergeant about how he views this quiet arm wrestle.

“The feedback we generally get from people across the region is, yes, China is investing a lot,” he says, “but they don’t engage as much on a community level. I think that gives us an edge.”

His words ring in my head on our final day as I take in Palau from above via a scenic flight with Smile Air. I look down at the azure seas and vivid jungle, and think about all we’ve experienced. Palau’s unique marine ecology has been deemed of universal value by UNESCO, but the country’s geographical position as the “anchor” of the Second Island Chain means it’s of geopolitical value for the US, and indeed Australia.

In the short to medium term, that will likely mean more and more visitors coming to investigate this stunning corner of the Pacific. Maybe try to beat them to it.

Matt Shea travelled as a guest of Palau Visitors Authority and Qantas.