JerryPeek.com logo

Photo Tour: Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap


Bechiyal Cultural Center, on the main island of Yap Proper, is a sort of living museum that helps to preserve the ways things have been done on Yap. (As I wrote on the Yap Tour page, Yap has done more than many Micronesian islands to keep the old ways alive.) Here, visitors can stay in simple huts, eat traditional food, walk onto the reef to fish, see the lovingly-crafted buildings, and also take tours of Yap arranged by the people of Bechiyal.


Old-style buildings like this are hard to find on Yap Proper -- except here at Bechiyal. This is the Men's House:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Entrance to the men's house:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Shells hanging at the men's house entrance:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

And a view inside:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap


The Men's Meeting House, with a stone platform and backrests (for watching dances, etc.) in front:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Another view of the men's meeting house with some stone money and coconuts:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

The inside of the men's meeting house is gorgeous:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap


This is the Family House:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

and rolls of tar paper to fix the family house roof (paper is used between layers of thatch):

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap


Another Men's House...

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

...and a look inside: a statue of a woman who, in legend, sleeps with men (the name starts with "ma", I think), a net (woven from coconut fibers), stone money, and thatch material:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap


If you want to enjoy Bechiyal for more than a daytime visit (and the nights by the coast are fantastic), you can stay in a cottage like the one in the foreground below. This photo also shows a dining hut by the coast and the leafless trees after the recent typhoon:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

This is the dining hut where I ate three traditional meals a day (plus, if I remember right, some not-so-traditional coffee in the mornings?). One day I walked out on this reef with one of the Bechiyal residents to find fish for my dinner:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Coconut palms are used for everything from thatch to drinks:

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Here I'm taking my first drink from a coconut through an organic straw. (After a few coconuts, it was more natural for me...)

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap

Like I said, nights by the coast are amazing...

Bechiyal Cultural Center, Yap


[Previous page: Around Yap]
[Tour start: Micronesia, 2002] [Tours]

(These photographs are Copyright © 2002 and 2005 by Jerry Peek. Much higher-resolution versions of most images, and many other images too, are available at Jerry Peek Photography. Photos are available at reduced prices, or free, for non-commercial use.)

Contact us