Micronesia
Kolonia, Pohnpei
From July 19th to July 21st 2025
July 19th
Our 4 hour flight from Palau left at 5am on Nauru Airlines. Along with a time zone change, we landed around midday and then sat for lunch at the Mangrove Bay Restaurant & Sushi Bar. Hailey had a chicken quesadilla and Max had a spicy tuna sushi roll (that also come out and had fried shrimp and crab in it too). After lunch, we checked into the Mangrove Bay Hotel and were driven up the hill to our house that we would stay in for a few days. It felt like more of an Airbnb than a hotel.
We rested for a bit in the room while it rained, and when things dried up and the sun went down a little, we decided to hike up to Sokehs Viewpoint on Sokehs Island. The total journey there and back took 1.5 hours. At the top of Sokehs Island there are remains of WW2 Japanese anti-aircraft guns. We explored around a bit before turning back down the ridge back to the hotel to shower.
After a nice shower, we headed back to the Mangrove Restaurant for dinner, but were told that it would be closed for a private event. We then inquired about another restaurant, called the Hideaway. That restaurant was closed on Saturdays. We then made a third attempt by walking to Arnolds, and when we got in the door Linda told us that it was takeout only and with a limited menu. We ordered a cheese pizza and “mexican wontons”.
We took our takeout pizza back to the hotel and ate on our plastic foldaway picnic style dining table. On the walk back to the hotel the local baseball team drove past us in their pickup trucks playing their music over loud boombox speakers and headed down to the Mangrove Restaurant for their private party.
July 20th
We woke up around 7am to a beautiful sunset on the patio of our hotel/house. We made our way down to the lobby to see about setting up a tour for the day to the Nan Madol historic site. The lady at the front let us know that taxis do not drive on Sundays, so we would not be able to organize a tour for the day. Max pressed and asked her to at least try calling, and Augustine the taxi driver we had met the previous day came to our rescue.
We ordered fried rice and scrambled eggs for a breakfast take out and we set out for the 1 hour air-conditioning-free drive to Nan Madol (across the island). It was $25/person to enter Nan Madol (cash only), and $6 to the guy who lived closest to the site (he was wearing only a towel and didn’t really come outside of his house. we put the cash on a plastic patio chair on his patio). He did smile and wave as we continued on.
The ruins were absolutely incredible and very worth the visit. We had to take off our sneakers to cross the canal and make it to the main/central part of the ancient city. Allegedly the king of that group is buried there. We spent about an hour walking around, amazed at the massive rocks, pondering how it could have been made and what it was used for, what happened to the civilization, how it can still be preserved in such good condition, grateful that we were the only ones visiting that day, and keeping our eyes on the tide so we didn’t get caught in there.
On the drive back to the hotel we stopped at Waterfall Kepirohi which looked fake. I tried telling Augustine that the waterfall looked so perfect that it almost looked fake - I’m not sure he understood what I was talking about.
We got back to the hotel, paid Augustine for his services, and rested for the afternoon. The humidity really took the energy out of us.
We had our final meal, unsurprisingly, at the Mangrove Bay Restaurant & Sushi Bar. Max ordered a cheese quesadilla, Hailey ordered a grilled fish sandwich and 2 coconuts. After an hour the coconuts arrived. After another hour, the waitress arrived to tell us that they didn’t have the food we ordered and we’d have to order something different (she also included a personal story about the chef). Hailey then ordered the spicy ahi tuna poke, Max had the spicy tuna & avocado roll. 2.5 hours later, we concluded our meal and went back to our house.
July 21st
Woke up around 8, Hailey did pilates & yoga on the deck while Max left to do Sokeh’s Ridge hike again (he made it to the top in 25 minutes instead of the 45 minutes it took us previously).
We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant and left around 11:30am for our island hopping flight to the Marshall Islands
