The main island of Pohnpei is surrounded by a fringing reef and many smaller islands, such as Nahlap Island, pictured here
Island Hopping through Oceania - Five days in Pohnpei
Pohnpei is home to the Federated States of Micronesia’s (FSM’s) biggest tourist attraction, Nan Madol, and the country’s capital ‘city’, Palikir. As such, we expected Pohnpei to be more Western and better geared for tourism than Kosrae, from which we were flying in.
Pohnpei is jungle-clad and surrounded by mangroves
Pohnpeians can’t be described as welcoming
It quickly became apparent that our expectations were wholly unrealistic. Starting with check-in, where the surly receptionist behind the desk at Hide Away Hotel (hidden away behind an abandoned, two-storey building) did a fantastic job of making us, seemingly the only guests, feel thoroughly unwelcome.
The untouristy vibes continued when we went to book a few nights camping on Nahlap Island. Reaching the booking office involved negotiating fallen roofing and bird shit on the second floor of the reception building, and coaxing the abrupt office lady into providing even the most minimal of help.
Organising a rental car for our time in Pohnpei was more of the same; the island was apparently home to the most unwelcoming people in the Pacific. Ordering iced lattes at One World Cafe downtown was a tongue-biting ordeal of diabolical service, but just about worth it for the air conditioning and cold coffee.
By our first afternoon in Pohnpei, we’d decided to move our departure flight forward by three days. There was only so long we could stand being ignored and treated like inconveniences before we removed ourselves from the situation.
So, with four nights instead of seven, we made a plan. The only vehicle available to rent on the whole island was a ‘Japanese truck’. At 50USD per day, it was a bargain for Micronesia. We threw our backpacks into the large open truck bed, wrapped them in a tarp to ward against the frequent thunderstorms, hopped into the cab, and drove east out of Kolonia towards our first stop.
Shopping in Kolonia, capital of Pohnpei State, before leaving to explore the rest of the island
Pahntakai Waterfall in Pohnpei is a great place to camp
Pahntakai Waterfall drops more than 30 metres over a curving cliff face in Pohnpei’s north. The rock wall tapers backwards behind the misty falls, sheltering a large flat area from even the heaviest downpours, which occur frequently in Pohnpei. This is where we planned to spend our second night on the island.
Pahntakai Waterfall and Cave shelters a large flat area that is ideal for camping
The narrow access road was so steep it was barely passable, and our Japanese truck’s wheels skidded as we slowly ascended. By the time we reached the road-end, the truck was leaking a worrying amount of green liquid, which ran down the sloping asphalt in fluorescent rivulets as we asked at a local house for directions to the cave.
Pounding sakau, or kava, on a large flat stone on the front porch, a helpful man pointed out the overgrown track to us, and, somewhat surprisingly, didn’t charge us for access. The 20-minute walk to the waterfall wasn’t strenuous, but any movement in Pohnpei’s humid heat leads to profuse sweating, and we were both drenched by the time we arrived.
The waterfall’s flow was weak, and it landed on a jumble of small boulders. Despite this, and the gradual migration of the water’s flow out and back along the cliff face, we both managed to shower off in the cooling droplets.
Pahntakai Waterfall has a weak flow but makes for a refreshing shower after the hot walk to get there
Apart from the bats and Caroline Islands swiftlets that make the cave their home, we had the place to ourselves. After a dinner of oats, banana and honey (this had become a staple for us since the Marshall Islands, where we began to have access to more western foods again), we chatted in the insect-proof inner tent, safe for the night from the roving downpours that periodically pounded the forest at the mouth of the cave throughout the night.
Nan Madol is Micronesia’s best-known tourist attraction
After a sweaty walk out the following morning, we continued south on Pohnpei’s island ring road towards Nan Madol. Hemmed in, between floating mangroves and the island’s lush rainforest, we could only snatch the odd glimpse of ocean between the dense foliage as we trundled south. In Pohnpei, it was often easy to forget we were on a tiny island in the middle of the vast Pacific.
Pohnpei is heavily forested and surrounded by mangroves, views of the ocean are rare
A tiny island in the vast Pacific full of history, that is. Nan Madol is a sprawling archaeological site on Pohnpei’s eastern shore, and was once home to the island’s ruling dynasty. Construction began around 1200AD, with large structures of basalt columns sitting on manmade islets in the lagoon, linked by canals and causeways. The settlement was finally abandoned by the 17th or 18th century and left for the jungle and mangroves to reclaim.
Nan Madol is crisscrossed by canals and linked by raised causeways
Now, it’s an evocative sight, and FSM’s best-known attraction. As such, we were still naively expecting a more developed visitor experience. This was quickly dispelled as we followed the sign towards Nan Madol and turned off the main road onto a potholed dirt track.
In Pohnpei you often have to pay local people for access to tourist sites
On reaching a small junction in the forest next to a turquoise breeze-block house, the experience became even more Micronesian: an old woman came out and stopped us in the road, ordering us to pay 1 USD each to pass her house. Fee paid, we continued as the dirt track gradually deteriorated into a rough obstacle course of tree roots, boulders and plunging potholes at a precipitous gradient down towards the coast.
The track ended at a small dirt clearing in the jungle with another breeze-block abode nestled in an alcove of forest at the far end. The only way to reach Nan Madol from here was to walk through the garden and around the back of the house. An old man on the porch charged us 3 USD each as we negotiated our way between his potted plants and under his bedroom window.
Pohnpei is a very obscure tourist destination
A visit to Pohnpei’s Nan Madol feels like a proper adventure
From there, a rocky path led us through the forest, passing low basalt-log walls wrapped in vines and tree roots, a teaser for what was to come. As the jungle morphed into tidal mangrove flats, the path abruptly ended at a shallow canal. Bordered by jumbled hexagonal basalt logs, the canal fronted the imposing islet on Nan Dowas.
The canal in front of Nan Dowas was shallow enough to wade across when we visited at low tide
Nan Dowas is the centrepiece of Nan Madol’s mortuary temple complex. Its walls stand over five metres tall in places, and in each of its four corners, they stretch out into peaks like the prow of a hulking boat, ready to unmoor and float out to sea across the lagoon.
The imposing walls of Nan Dowas reach up into peaks, like the prow of a ship, at the corners
By chance, we had arrived at low tide, and the water in the canal was easy to wade across. On the far side, we climbed the ancient steps to enter the jungle-shrouded centre of the islet.
Ferns sprouted between the tightly stacked basalt rocks of the concentric walls, jungle vines dangled from the wall tops, and an army of workers waged battle with the encroaching foliage using humming strimmers, somewhat detracting from the lost-to-time feel of the place. At the islet’s centre was a chambered tomb.
The entrance to the mortuary temple complex of Nan Dowas, in Pohnpei's Nan Madol
Nan Madol is composed of 92 separate man-made islets. That’s not always obvious from ground (or water) level, hidden as many are in the mangroves and tropical forest. But exploring the canals, causeways and rickety log bridges felt like a proper adventure. It’s definitely not set up for tourism, and we had the whole place to ourselves, barring the maintenance workers with their incongruously droning machinery, that is.
Some of the bridges across Nan Madol's canals were very precarious
Nahlap Island in Pohnpei is a relaxing place to camp
We spent the following two nights on diminutive Nahlap Island, off the south-eastern coast of the main island. There, we camped on the skinny northern tip of the island, our tent surrounded on three sides by the lapping waters of the lagoon. Small reef sharks glided by at high tide, and at low tide, we walked out to snorkel in the nearby blue hole.
Surrounded by the lagoon, Pohnpei's Nahlap Island was a spectacular place to camp
On our final morning in Pohnpei, we completed our circumambulation of the island, stopping at FSM’s purpose-built capital, Palikir (down a side road, a ghost town of government buildings surrounded by jungle), on our way back to Kolonia, the capital of Pohnpei state itself and much more lively. There we ate a hearty lunch of Nutella on crackers in the airport carpark, before reboarding the Island Hopper for the short flight to Chuuk, the third of FSM’s four states.
This Leg
Days: 5
Flights: 1
Boats: 2
Islands: 3
Countries & Territories: 1
Total
Days: 79
Flights: 18
Boats: 31
Islands: 31
Countries & Territories: 10