Guess what?

Guess what?

I'm back in mainland Japan!

The land of the 4 seasons, with ever so beautiful fall colours!

I am now to the east of Tokyo, in a residential-but-still-countryside area. Most of the places here are individual houses, surrounded by farmland (green onions and cabbages, mostly), and lemon and orange tree orchards.

The entrance to the local shrine.

I've been loving the cold crisp air, the autumn leaves, and, of course, the fact I can pop on the train and be in downtown Tokyo in less than an hour.
But perhaps the best point has to be this:

the view from my apartment window, every single evening.

I'm back, folks!

Also, worth pointing out, is the fact that, amongst the BMW and fancy hybrid cars you see around here, one of the neighbours has got himself an old Renault 4L. And it still runs, too!

Menke Ruins

The hike to the Menke ruins started down the dirt road that will, some day, connect the remote village of Walung to the hub of civilisation that is Utwe. [The construction speed of this roads appears to be similar to that of the railway line here in Okinawa, so I wouldn't be too worried about any sudden changes in the near future].

We turned at an unremarkable grassy area between two banana fields, and a small trail led up into the jungle.

After having attempted the city style for a couple of meters, I quickly gave up and went barefoot through the jungle. Having made perfectly sure there were no poisonous snakes or such, I assumed that if the locals went barefoot on a regular basis, it couldn't be that dangerous.

It wasn't.

But it was quite muddy….

The Menke ruins are a very old complex of houses, possibly temples of sorts, that are located some way into the jungle, but not on what anyone could call 'high ground'. Believed to be much much older than the Lelu ruins, an abundance of heat, humidity and weathering acid basalt has drastically reduced the chance of finding any relics and has even made dating the structures themselves difficult.

Still, with the help of some enthusiastic jungle cleaning by the Waguk family, the complexity of the housing complex is slowly starting to emerge from the undergrowth, and several teams of archaeologists are regularly up there mapping. Each structure is composed of a main room containing a square altar in the centre, with a series of antechambers leading into it. The roofs, if roofs there were, were probably light thatch, as there is no evidence of beam support structures on the walls. But then again, we're not quite sure what we're seeing really was the top of the wall, either.

Contrary to the finely cut stones of Lelu, these structures are made of rounded boulders, probably carted up the hill from the nearby stream beds.

The walk through the jungle was amazing, with giant 'Ka' trees speeding their roots around the trunk, and giant vines curling up and around anything large enough to support their weight.

Canoe and family reunion

I started out the day at the Utwe-Walung Marine Reserve, with a small tour in a traditional outrigger canoe (equipped with a not-so-traditional outboard motor).

The reserve is composed of a meshwork of small waterways winding themselves through a gigantic mangrove forest. The waterways closest the ocean are paved in luxurious corals, the mangrove trees propped precariously between the coral clumps, with multicoloured tropical fish darting amongst the coral heads and large sting rays gliding amongst the mangrove roots.

Further in, and the corals gave way to fine brown silt, the flat surface of the water being broken only by drips from the trees and the random gas bubble freeing itself from the mud below. 

Then back out into deeper canals near the reef edge, mushroom corals disappearing into the dark blue depths, while swarms of sea terns called from their nurseries in the trees.

As we skimmed across the flat waters, we got to talking, and, as always, the main point of interest was how and why I had made my way to Kosrae.

And this is how I met Tadao Waguk.

Tadao was a high-school student when my father worked in Kosrae for the Trust Territory, and fondly remembers Mr. Grossmann as being "not very tall". I took that to be a compliment, coming from a himself not extremely tall micronesian.

His father, Moris, has unfortunately passed away, but also used worked at the school.

Heading back inshore, we stopped off at the end of Utwe village, where Tadao left off and his son and I took off to the mountains to see the Menke ruins, thereby completing a 3-generation cycle.

Walking to Malem

Continuing on South, the road winds around the natural Lelu harbour, through banana farms and barely restrained jungle into the marvellously underwhelming capital city of Tofol.

I have probably missed some vital information as to why such a small location is, in fact, the capital, but  it does house a post office, the governor's house and the visitor's bureau.

It also has a small path leading up the hill to a secluded watermelon farm that offers a wonderful view down onto Lelu harbour area and Kosrae's brand new solar power farm.

There is also a small grove of the Australian gum eucalyptus with rainbow-coloured bark, clashing rather violently with the otherwise bushy and brilliant green jungle.

Further along the coast, I finally came to the famous abandoned tank. Or at least, after wandering up and down the coast a little more to verify that there were no other obvious tanks, I had to admit that this was indeed the famous tank.
After verification in the guide book, it seems it is in fact an abandoned Japanese micro-tank. But I'm not sure whether that isn't more of a statement than an actual model.

Further mico-construction vehicles can be found along other areas of the coast:

A mico-bulldozer on the shore of Lelu Island

A micro … something ... for making lots of holes? on the far eastern side of Tafunsak.

To be fair, most of the houses on Kosrae also look like they were abandoned after WWII, but as I shot photos of this place, in the hopes it might be the old abandoned high school building, a lady wandered out with a cup of coffee and a plastic chair to enjoy the morning breeze.

Even buildings on which the roof had long since gone were still used as handy places to hang out the laundry, or simply to sit around on the floor chatting and passing the time.

Walking back to the hotel as the sun started to set over the sleeping lady, I finally found the reason for the persistent uncomfortable feeling I had had on the roads since arriving.
Having become independent from a US governance, everyone naturally drives on the right. However, due to political strategies in the Pacific, an overwhelming majority of cars are Japanese builds… Japanese cars that, because they come cheap, have not had the privilege of a change in steering.
Therefore the strange feeling one gets on the roads in Kosrae is due to the entire population driving on the right with the driver on the ditch side. And this also explains the rather erratic passing laws, as the possibility of passing a large van or truck depends entirely on whether you have someone in the passenger seat capable of seeing if anyone is coming in the other lane.

Luckily, Japan has shipped an entire army of their small pickup trucks to Kosrae, and the
 number of passengers per car was usually closer to 10 than to the legal 4, with everything from newborns to 80-year-old grannies holding on at the back.

Best not to worry and just enjoy life with a nice coconut fresh from the tree!

Kosrae

The small resort I was staying at was conveniently propped up in the middle of a huge mangrove swamp, and I was lulled to sleep every night by the popping of the little crabs and the chirping of the geckos in residence outside my windows.

The mangroves extend to the sea on both sides, with huge, magnificent mangrove trees.

And some giant crabs, too.

A quick walk down the road leads to the causeway connecting Lelu Island with the rest of Kosrae,

and the best view of the Sleeping Lady.

There is also an old rusted barge that ran aground and is now too much trouble for anyone to remove.

Further along is the site of the Lelu ruins. An important cultural and economic capital for the Pacific Islands about 500 years ago, many of the shaped basalt walls and roads of the royal complex are still visible, despite much active overgrowing by the neighbouring jungle.