I was fortunate to finish my business trip in Taiwan few days before the pandemic reached this nation and the rest of Asia. During my time in Taiwan, I decided to use this opportunity to visit Palau to see its beautiful World Heritage Site, the Rock Islands. Since I only have 3 days in Palau, my schedule was packed with all the package activities. My experience in this tropical paradise was similar to other reviewers. The stunning milky way and jelly fish lake were truly unique and two of the best highlights of Palau. Compared with Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, the Rock Islands, in my opinion, was far better for its nicer tropical climate, stunning clean sea, and better management. I felt safer to swim here than the polluted Vietnamese one. I also ranked the Rock Islands to be better than Thailand’s Phang-Nga Bay, while the islands were less dramatic, it was not overcrowded like in Thailand.

Another interesting thing of Palau was its food, I was surprised that its local delicacy was bat soup, which was quite popular among Chinese and Taiwanese tourists, nothing related to those COVID-19 eating bat rumor. With many Japanese influence and cultural link with other pacific islands, I found the local Japanese-Okinawan-Micronesian American mix food was really unique similar or maybe more complex than Hawaiian food I experienced a month ago before this trip. I ended my Palau trip with air flight to see the famous Rock Islands from the sky. It was an incredible one since my small plane has no door, so I could feel the wind, saw the real color of the sea or even touched the low cloud. I would say seeing Rock Islands from the sky was truly a different experience and totally worth the money.

All in all, Rock Island was a really beautiful place on earth, the place was quite stunning for its environment and as I mentioned the jelly fish lake and the coral clay at Milky Way were one of its kinds. For World Heritage Site criteria, its outstanding universal value maybe questionable as many people will compare this place with bigger Ha Long Bay. With its hard-to-reach location, Rock Islands was still pristine, and Palau did its best to protect this fragile natural wonder, so I only hope that every visitor will understand and protect this place as pledged in the passport before entering this country.