Pohnpei

I arrived at Pohnpei International Airport in the middle of a downpour so complete it turned the tarmac into a shallow lake. The immigration officer stamped my passport without looking up, a ceiling fan moved the warm air around without cooling it, and outside the glass doors a man in a pickup truck was waiting with a sign that said my name, slightly misspelled. This is how Pohnpei begins. Not with a beach or a viewpoint or a postcard moment, but with a practical negotiation with humidity and an immediate understanding that you are somewhere that has its own terms.

Pohnpei receives between 4,500 and 7,500 millimeters of rain annually, depending on where on the island you’re standing — the interior highlands can see rain on more than three hundred days a year. This makes the vegetation extravagant. The jungle here isn’t the decorative greenery of tourist brochures; it’s a biological argument, pressing against every road and structure, absorbing everything that doesn’t actively resist it. The roads that cross the island are red from laterite soil and become impassable sections during heavy rain, which happens on a schedule that is entirely the island’s own. I hired a driver for a day to see the waterfalls in the interior — Kepirohi Falls drops into a pool fringed with tree ferns the size of small buildings — and the drive itself, through the dripping forest with clouds visible between the trees, felt as much like the destination as anything we stopped to see.

The capital, Kolonia, is a small town with a layered colonial history wearing through its skin. Spanish walls from the 1880s. German graves. Japanese concrete from the occupation years. American infrastructure from after 1945. The Pohnpei Cultural Center has artifacts from each era arranged with a candor that doesn’t try to smooth over the complications. What makes the town feel alive rather than museum-ish, though, is the sakau. Every evening in Kolonia and the outlying communities, sakau — the local name for kava, prepared from pounded pepper plant roots — is shared in nahs, traditional meeting houses where the benches are low and conversation is quiet and mandatory. The drink is the color of muddy water and the texture of wet chalk and it makes your mouth numb within two sips. I sat in someone’s nahs for three hours one evening, understanding almost none of the Pohnpeian conversation, and found that the sakau and the company and the sound of rain on the roof had created something sufficient.

The market in Kolonia on Saturday mornings sells breadfruit, taro, yams the size of a child’s leg, fresh reef fish laid on banana leaves, and coconut cream in recycled plastic bottles. The women who run the stalls know each other and talk continuously across the aisle. The whole thing is covered by a tin roof and the rain hammers on it steadily and nobody minds. I bought a bag of cooked taro and ate it leaning against the truck because no one offered me a plate and I didn’t think to ask.

When to go: December through April represents the drier season, though “dry” is relative — expect rain daily regardless. This period offers better visibility for nearby reef diving and more reliable roads into the interior. Visiting during the wetter months means higher rivers and more impressive waterfall volume, if you don’t mind mud.