PALAWAN PARADISE
(Fun In The Philippines Part 2)
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We arrived in Manila at around 1:00 AM on December 30, twenty seven hours later leaving Virginia. After a good night's sleep at our guesthouse (which we had actually reserved three days in advance!), we took a quick walk around. While it was a crowded, noisy city, it was not as bad as we had expected. We had our first Filipino meal at what we would call a "pick and point" place. Our choices were a pork chop for Paul, shrimp fritter for Lois, some veggies, soup and a lot of rice. All for about $3.
The day we arrived was Rizal Day. Jose Rizal was executed by the Spanish on Dec 30, 1896 and is a national hero in the Philippines. He had advocated The Philippines become a province of Spain and Filipinos and Spaniards receive equal rights and treatment before the law. There is an attractive green park in Manila and off to the side is a memorial to Rizal, which sort of reminded us of the FDR memorial in Washington DC. It had various scenes in his life depicted in sculpture and some of his writings were engraved on the walls. The centerpiece was the scene of his execution. Traveling around, we have seen a Rizal boulevard in just about every town, so the memorial gave us a good appreciation of Rizal's importance to the country.
Cebu Pacific is the Philippines own version of Southwest Airlines and offers fantastic fares all over the Philippines, typically for no more than the cost of bus and/or ferry tickets. We took a flight to Palawan, one of the less developed islands where we planned to start our travels. We stayed at an attractively designed hotel in Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan. (It had Wi-Fi, so as soon as we arrived Lois checked on the status of the homeless dogs and cats of Virginia).
We started off with a walking tour of Puerto Princesa which meant we got lost in a maze of small streets not shown on the map we had. Cock fighting is very popular in The Philippines. The sight of someone with a few prize roosters was common. It was just after Christmas and we saw decorations everywhere. Many of the decorations were of homemade construction. A common greeting was, "hello, my friends". The Filipinos we saw and met were very friendly and welcoming.
Another adventure was of a culinary nature. Halo halo is a popular Filipino dessert. It is a mixture of ice cream, sweetened condensed milk, shaved ice, sweet beans, slices of flan and banana and a variety of colored jellos. We found it to be colorful, refreshing and flavorful.
Our hotel had a restaurant with a great view overlooking the water. On New Year's Eve it provided a good vantage point for the large fireworks celebration which started at midnight.
We took a trip in a jeepney to a nearby butterfly sanctuary. Essentially, it was in someone's backyard; however, it had an excellent display on the lifecycle of a butterfly. They had butterfly eggs, caterpillars, cocoons and pupae. The yard was very attractively laid out with a few walkways through a garden. We managed to see a number of tropical butterflies. We also were prepared for our jeepney trip to Sabang, our next destination.
Sabang is on the west coast of Palawan and is a three hour ride via jeepney. Unlike many of the other Philippine islands, Palawan is not volcanic. However, it still had a mountain range that we crossed. Jeepneys are the standard form of local transport in the Philippines. They are colorfully decorated trucks with openings where you might expect windows to be on a bus. Additionally, the word "full", never applies to a jeepney. There is always space for more people, pigs, goats, sacks of grain, whatever you want to transport. Our ride was actually very comfortable, although a bit scary when the steering rod broke and we almost went into the side of the mountain (much better, we suppose, than off the edge of a cliff). A little bit of repair work, a jury rigged steering rod and off we went, albeit a bit slower. In general, we have seen that Filipinos tend to be much calmer drivers than most other places we have been. From our perspective, the three hour ride was an easy, comfortable trip. We met other people that thought it was a horrendous ride! We guessed it all depended on your expectations and prior travels.
Sabang is a series of guesthouses that have small huts on the beach, along with a very small town. We heard the breaking waves outside our hut all night long. It was a great sound to fall asleep to and wake up to.
The big event in Sabang was the arrival of a bus or jeepney. It brought building supplies, foodstuffs, manufactured goods and people looking for guesthouses. The bus took back fish and other products to sell in Puerto Princesa.
Our first afternoon in Sabang, we took a walk along the beach to a waterfall. Along the way, we exchanged "Hello" and "Happy New Year" with the people we met. The waterfall itself was nothing special, but the beach was all stones and pebbles. When the waves receded, they pulled the rocks with them and made a sound sort of like thousands of exploding firecrackers.
Our purpose in going to Sabang was to see the Underground River. The whole area is all limestone mountains and over the years, a five mile long river formed inside one of the mountains. Many people come just for the day from Puerto Princesa. You can take a boat to and from the entrance to the underground river, but we decided to do it the hard way and hike "The Jungle Trail" instead. We were advised to get to the river at 8:30AM if we wanted to miss the crowds. At 6:15AM we were up and out, hiking through the jungle to get to the entrance to the underground river. It was a hike over the mountain, through a thick, lush, green forest. While the rainy season was supposed to end in early December, it was still going on so the trail was a bit muddy in spots. As you can see from the photo below, this made it slippery (or else Paul is getting really unsteady in his old age). The final end to the trail was a nice wooden staircase down to sea level. It was almost 8:30 and we ran, afraid we might miss the first boat going into the underground river.
We need not have worried. It turned out we were the first two people to arrive that morning. We got there before the guides! When the guide showed up, he offered to take us four kilometers up the river, instead of the normal two since we were early and there was time to spare. With a spotlight connected to a heavy duty car battery, off we went. Our guide did the paddling, gave us some facts and figures about the river and pointed out various formations as we went along. The river is navigable for about eight kilometers and the highest cavern is about two hundred feet. We saw lots of bats and some fantastic shaped formations.
After going four kilometers up the river, we turned around, headed back and just before the entrance to the caves, came across a crush of other full boats that were just starting the tour. There was a line of people waiting to get into the boats (8 people per boat). We were grateful for the advice we were given to arrive early. It was much more peaceful to have a boat and the underground river to ourselves for almost an hour and a half.
We decided to return to Sabang via the ocean, rather than hiking "The Jungle Trail" one more time. We asked around looking for someone who had space on their boat for two extra passengers. Through sheer luck, we met Salito and Fiona, two wonderful Filipinos who live in Manila and returned to Sabang in their boat. Looking back at our photos, we realized, it was actually the second time we seen them since we passed their boat as we were leaving the underground river and they were entering.
The third time we met Salito and Fiona was when we went on a tour of the Poyuy Poyuy River which runs through amazingly tall mangroves to the sea. A guide paddled us up the river and pointed out birds, snakes and a large troop of monkeys, as well as lots of mangroves. Who should we come across as we were going up the river, but Salito and Fiona who were just returning! We hope to see Salito and Fiona again when we pass through Manila.
From Sabang we went to, guess what?, another beach - El Nido. EL Nido was a bit bigger than Sabang and the entire shore was packed with places to stay. We found a rather expensive ($34) place to stay, but it was RIGHT on the beach, included breakfast and we could pirate the Wi-Fi signal from the restaurant next door. Unfortunately, we were both sick, Lois with a cold, Paul with food poisoning on different days while in El Nido. But, if you are going to be sick, being able to sit and watch the ocean is not too bad.
The attraction in El Nido is "island hopping". We went on a tour with another couple and for twelve dollars per person, including lunch, were taken to a number of different snorkeling spots and beaches on islands in the Bacuit Archipelago. In some ways, the islands were reminiscent of Halong Bay in Vietnam. Karst limestone rock jutted straight up into the air. The beaches tended to be small and narrow with just a few palm trees. We swam in crystal clear, warm water. We saw some fantastic coral formations that were like underwater gardens along with multicolored fish of all shapes and sizes.
We booked another flight from Puerto Princesa to Cebu City ($43/person), returned from El Nido to Puerto Princesa and then flew to Cebu City, thus ending our stay on Palawan.
Paul
& Lois
Bohol, Philippines
January 22, 2011