Hello from to Chuuk! Chuukese is way too difficult, I’ll stick with English!

So… we get to Chuuk, it’s give name, but… here’s the kicker, you may have heard it called Truk because when the Germans came in they couldn’t pronounce Chuuk [pronounced Ch-OO-k], so it was changed to Truk!

Interesting bit of information about Chuuk…Although Chuuk is an overwhelmingly Christiansociety, traditional beliefs in spirit possession by the dead still exist. Allegedly, these spirits overwhelmingly possess women, and spirit possession is usually brought on by family conflicts. The spirits, speaking through the women, typically admonish family members to treat each other better.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuuk_Lagoon

We left Palau very early, layover in Guam for a few hours and then under two hours to Chuuk. It was an experience from the moment we walked of the plane. Outside exit, no one pointed us towards the correct door, so we went into the gate area, huh?

Redirected to the correct place, we waited for our bags. And waited. And waited. It was an interesting cluster… everyone just stands there in front of where the bags slide out, no conveyor.

While we walked into the baggage area and while we waited, it seemed like everyone knew each other, everyone was very friendly and greeting one another, handshakes, hugs.

Here’s the next interesting thing, they sent out all the plastic tubs and coolers first. And they came out and came out and came out! I asked someone and it turns out they bring fish to Guam and bring meat back from Guam.

Finally…our bags came out, funny part, just after PSM and I swapped places! Then as we walked out of the airport terminal, we ran into the shuttle driver from the hotel, which is literally across the street! You can see the runway from our balcony!

We got to the hotel and go figure, can’t find our reservation, but they had a room for us! This hotel is really for people who are there on business, The Blue Lagoon is where people stay when they are there to scuba. If you notice the picture that says “Welcome to Chuuk. The Best Wreck Dive in the World. The Truk Lagoon.” That says it all.

The room was very nice, large with two incredibly comfortable beds with pillow top mattresses! Water cooler and bottles of water in the fridge, big bathroom, nice a/c unit and a ceiling fan. And big balcony overlooking the airport and ocean.

It was interesting, there are bars outside the hotel and someone opens it at all times. When we went outside to venture we understood.

Now, we got to Chuuk with not much planned, we hope to go snorkeling at least once. It was raining on and off and since we couldn’t go snorkeling today, there is only one tour and it left already, we decided to have a chill day. Relax, rest and maybe go out for a walk later, we have been going non-stop since we started this trip! A lot of early morning flights and not much sleep. Relaxing sounds good to me.

We decided to get some lunch in the cafe downstairs. Not much for me, but I did get vegetable curry. The funny part was the waitress came over a few times to tell us what vegetables they didn’t have! Oh well, it’s an experience!

After lunch, we went out until the street and understood a little better why the hotel is guarded and you get a shuttle driver from/ to the hotel.

The landscape, the mountain areas, are beautiful, the up close, not as much. It’s a poor island, many people seem to live in makeshift homes made with metal sheeting, the streets are not all paved, there aren’t very many shops or markets and the markets there are have bars on the windows and doors. The interesting things about some of the shops is that they are small boxes, so to speak, you walk up, look in the window, which is another small box and you make the transaction through the window. There are shops for just alcohol others just cans of food, some bread and fruits.

As we walked down the street, some people smiled hello or nodded, others just looked at us, kind of sideways, if that makes sense. We found two restaurants for dinner, one didn’t open until 630pm and the other, all meat. Back to the hotel we went.

We ended up relaxing, watching movies, the rain on and off and eventually, downstairs for dinner, there may have even been a nap or two thrown in!

Not much else happened today, I’d say it was a success!