6 Week Gap Year

Fluorescent orange was always my first choice in the morning.

Cave rock formations note the swallow flying in front in the pitch dark. Light is from camera flash

Wednesday 13th June 2007
Up at 6am to get ready, have breakfast and wait for tour van due to arrive at 7.30am Filipino time. It arrives at 8. The journey is 2.5 hours to the village of Sabang from where we take a motorised outrigger boat to the bay and jump off station to the Puerto Princesa underground river tour. We make a couple of comfort stops and the second is at Ulugan bay on the west coast. The views from the observation point are quite spectacular as I hope you will see from those above. I would like to have experienced the mangroves, mountains and coral reefs here but time both on this tour and our holiday precludes it. The road has turned from concrete surface to rough earth and stone and is as bumpy as hell. After a few miles we hit a short stretch of concrete road again. Our tour guide Donna informs us that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had journeyed along the same road about a year ago to visit the underground river but gave up the drive because it was too rough for her. AAAAAHHHHHH! So she authorised the govt to invest peso500,000,000 in creating a new concrete road to Sabang to encourage tourism and obviously investment. Unfortunately that amount of money only buys about 5km of concrete road so they built on only the worst sections of the track. We eventually arrive at the village, harbour and bay of Sabang and take to the outrigger boats which sail us to the other side of the bay where the underground river and caves are. The beaches are almost white sand and clean and beautiful. We take a short trek through rainforest to a reception point for the outrigger paddle boat into the caves. Due to the amount of tourism the govt has restricted the amount of the 8.5 miles of navigable river that can be viewed to no more than 1.25 miles. We are required to don life jackets and helmets and one person has to sit at the bow of the boat to train the battery spotlight on interesting geological formations. Yes Ludy was that person. We are in a small lagoon surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs, mangroves, rainforest and a small sand bank which divides the brackish water from the sea. This small lagoon seems to home thousands of small fish which from time to time leap en masse from the water in a silver blanket then flop back to the water with what sounds like a cork being pulled from a bottle. It is quite beautiful and peaceful and it would make a tranquil retreat were it not to have such a unique phenomenon as the underground river. At the entrance to the cave we notice swallows flying in and out all the time and our guide explains that they nest in and around the cave and also fly for some distance down into the depths of the cave and river system. It is the longest navigable natural waterway in the world and the Philippine and Palawan govts are very proud of it. Not to mention its tourism value to the economy. The caves and river are only legally navigable by licence from the govt and for tourism only for just over a mile. Archaeologists, geologists and historians can apply for licences to navigate further and only genuine explorers are licensed to explore further. There are some truly amazing sights inside including large stalacmites and much larger and longer stalactites. Some of the lime formations have produced recognisable shapes such as images of Jesus or Mary or a jellyfish or one slightly macabre formation of 2 bodies hanging upside down.! The river depth ranges from a couple of feet to 40 or more in places but the water always felt about the same temperature. There are one or two places where you emerge into a huge cavern with a ceiling which is only just discernable even with the powerful torch lamp on the boat. At one point our oarsman (well paddler) noted that if you looked up into the ceiling with the aid of the light you could see the water droplets raining down on us which had permeated the high limestone mountains. If they were cold droplets they were from the mountains but if they were warm they were from the bats His advice was to keep your mouth shut just in case! Just before we reached our turning point and heading back to the the cave entrance ourguide asked if we wanted to proceed further along the long and dark forbidding cave we could see stretching before us in the beam of the baterry light. A few of us said yes. Good, says our guide you carry on by swimming coz I'm going back, have fun! After our pioneering of mountain caves we decamped to the picnic area for buffet lunch. Pretty good food considering which included cooked crab. We had lunch guests in the form of macaque monkeys and monitor lizards who cleaned up after us. Actually they also cleaned up whilst we were eating, stealing some chicken left unattended by one of the other parties! They also steal bottles of water but, are guide informed us they haven’t yet mastered the art of unscrewing bottle tops so they bite the plastic and drink from the piercing or by the dribblings from the holes. As she said it we then watched the macaque which had just stolen some water, climb to the top of a nearby tree and sit down and proceed to unscrew the top! Monitor lizards roamed freely around the site but were far shyer of the humans. We made our way back to the outrigger boats beached on the beautiful almost white sand and headed back to the bay. As the tide was now out we couldn’t moor at the small harbour we left earlier and so beached up on the glistening sand bay just before it. The backdrop to the beach was just as you would imagine a desert island or the most beautiful beach scene of your dreams. The blue green sea lapped gently against fine, almost white sand which was fringed with tall palm trees who in turn were shading small beach side restaurants, bars and cool seating areas. Interspersed almost invisibly from the sea, amongst the palms were a number of small palm laced walled, palm roofed and wood framed rooms belonging to entrepreneurial locals and some foreigners and being rented out as beach front holiday accommodation. Behind this the tropical forest stretches into the distance ever upwards reaching some of the highest peaks of grey and white streaked limestone mountains whose tops are shrouded in low misty clouds of white cotton wool. A view I could sit and stare at for hours just relaxing and letting my mind soar free, and my body warmed and tanned by the hot sun. I took some photos from the boat which reveal only a hint of the beauty and tranquillity we witnessed. Palawan has already, and it’s only day 2, worked a magic, hypnotic spell on us, making us feel relaxed, comfortable and entranced by all we’ve seen. The heat and humidity is still omnipresent but it is less intense than Manila and a little more bearable. Add to that the cooling sea breezes and you truly are experiencing probably as near as you can get to Paradise.
Our guide Donna tells us that in this area there are quite a few accommodations available for rental. They are all quite basic and naturally quite cheap. They are constructed of natural materials such as walls of interwoven palm leaves, roofs made of palm leaves or some with tiles made from local clays and the house frames from local forest wood. Some have electricity but that is often only available for a few hours a day. Some have their own generators but again they do not have them running all day and night. There is drinking water but it is all imported from the city of Puerto Princesa. Washing water is, during the rainy season collected in barrels and made available for ones ablutions. We have about half an hour before the bus leaves to return us to Hotel Asturia so we take a small tour and inspect the stalls and kiosks. Ludy bought a sarong for peso130 after a little gentle bartering and some of our fellow travellers bought Palawan t-shirts for a similar price. Donna bought a bag of mangoes, which we were instructed to peel not cut and then to suck the juice rather than eat the flesh. They are the most sweetest, juiciest mangoes you will ever taste and I would not be surprised if they were the basis for ‘Nectar of the Gods’!
Well, we have to leave our little corner of Paradise and take the 2 hour (Gloria road as I shall now call it!) back to semi civilisation. We have an uneventful trip back with a stop at a small bakers shop which originally just served the local community, but with the advent of the tourists to and from the Underground river and caves has enterprisingly made itself a must see stop off. The reason? They sell a pastry delicacy that many if not most Filipinos would die for to eat. Hopia, in its many flavours is a little like the shape and pastry of a vol au vont but not completely cooked. Personally I do not like them as they are almost stodgy and at the same time a little dry. We had one more comfort stop where I had a view of Honda Bay which has hundreds of little islands dotted around it and mountains in the distance once again with their summits shrouded in mists and some with the clouds encircling their lower slopes. Back to the hotel at about 5 and the cool of our air con room! We take a tricycle at 7.30, driven by a local called Ronnie, to a restaurant recommended by Donna and Janssen yesterdays guide. It is called Ka Lui and is unique in that you are required to remove your shoes on entry and walk barefoot around the restaurant. You have a choice of dining tables too. Normal height, sitting in chairs, mid height sitting on lowish stools or Japanese style, cross legged on cushions at a low table. Guess which option we took? (I wished I hadn’t later, as when I got up to go to the comfort room I fell over as my leg had gone to sleep!) The ambience was incredible with a great deal of attention to detail with the decoration. One which I particularly liked was a fish tank. Set into a wall with a background of bamboo sticks the wooden fish were most attractively and randomly arranged, hanging from string and being gently buffeted by the breeze from the fans to simulate their motion underwater. Saves on water and all the cleaning associated with tanks. Another brilliant feature was the giant clam hand basin which was situated near the restrooms at the rear of the restaurant. To obtain water you turned a small tap set in a barrel not dissimilar to a beer keg. Very different and totally in keeping with the setting. The food was outstanding including the fresh and lightly boiled seaweed! We also ordered clam soup, a mixed seafood platter of white fish, prawns, squid, clams and a side order of a lobster each! Very good value at around £16 including wine and gin and tonic. When we left Ronnie was waiting for us and whisked (relatively considering it was a motor tricycle) us back to Hotel Asturia and the sleep of a contented diner.