Micronesia's isolated Yap island rich in culture, exotic diversions

		Joe Sinisi Jr. Special to The Denver Post DenverPost.com Yap, Federated States of Micronesia - The world has no shortage of tropical places where you can scuba dive and snorkel among kaleidoscopic-colored coral reefs in aquamarine waters. But how about swimming among manta rays in 84-degree, crystal-clear sea waters? Or, hiking along ancient stone paths through lush rainforest? Or watching a traditional dance of topless men and women chanting and gyrating in front of huge discs of stone money? You can do all this in a former U.S. trust territory where dollars are the currency, everyone speaks English, and visitors aren't hassled by vendors or hawkers. Most Americans never have heard of this tiny Western Pacific island that lies southwest of Guam, east of the Philippines and just north of the equator. Yap and its 20 or so inhabited outer islands are on no major trade or tourist routes, but this isolation is just what allows Yap to be so exotic and unique. You won't find fast-food chains, golf courses and strip malls on Yap, but you will find a place that has maintained its ancient heritage. From the moment you get off the plane and a young woman welcomes you to Yap by placing a nunu (flower headband) on your head, you realize you have come to a very special place indeed. Yap is one of the four states of the relatively new nation of the Federated States of Micronesia. In addition to having a climate that averages 86 degrees year-round, Yap perhaps is the place in the Pacific that best preserves the ancient culture and traditions of Micronesia. Yap and its islands have no more than 14,000 inhabitants, yet at least four distinct language groups thrive, along with traditional dress, architecture, weaving and carving. Yap has been inhabited by Micronesians (a race and culture distinct from Polynesians and Melanesians) for at least 3,000 years and almost was untouched by foreign incursion until the 1860s. Not having whales or mineral deposits, Yap was spared the usual calamities of colonization and religious conversion that befell most Pacific islands in the 1800s. Since Yap's independence from the United States in 1986, vestiges of the modern world inevitably have incurred, thus making Yap a land of contrasts. Men from Yap's outer islands still wear their traditional loincloths to work in air-conditioned offices and women clad only in brightly colored lava-lava skirts drive Japanese sedans on Yap's roads utterly free of traffic lights. Yap's 38 square miles are dotted with majestic pebays, open-air meeting houses with huge palm thatch-covered sloping roofs and intricate carved beams fastened with woven coconut fiber rope. Many people still live in traditional thatched-roof dwellings, eschewing the concrete and corrugated tin structures that litter most of the Pacific today. No meeting house would be complete without its stone money bank. Yap calls itself the "Island of Stone Money," an appropriate moniker for a small island that has more than 7,000 discs of crystallized limestone carved in quarries in the Palau islands 250 miles away and brought to Yap by outrigger canoe. The discs always have a hole in them like a doughnut and can range in diameter from 2 to 10 feet. To this day Yapese use the stone money as a type of currency that is exchanged only in special ceremonies. The largest piece of stone money rests in the forbidden island of Rumung, the northernmost island in Yap that has isolated itself from modernity and allows no electricity, phones, vehicles or visitors without tough-to-get permission. No one is allowed to photograph the largest piece of stone money, said to be 13 feet wide. On the other islands of Yap, visitors may take pictures as long as they ask the nearest Yapese person for permission, which always is granted. Continued Isolated Yap, Page 2