Trip to Palawan and the Underground River (March 09)

This is a little Photo-journey of the trip that Neil and I took to Palawan... Here in the Philippines, Palawan is also known as the last frontier due to it's still primitive conditions....

Waiting at the bus station at Puerto Princessa, the capital of Palawan... We would get a Jeepney to ride to Sabang - about a 2-4hour ride....

So for the sheer novelty of it all (plus the fact that I rarely fit into Filipino transportation vehicles, hehe) we decided to ride on top of the Jeepney.... This worked out well, we able to see the countryside right up until it rained. Then we just pulled a tarp over our heads and gritted out the last hour up to Sabang...

Typical Filipino Countryside....

The local neighborhood grocery store...

With fish and seaweed on the menu for today.....

Neil and I were not the only ones on the roof of the Jeepney...

Waiting out a flat tire change......

A view of the Bays of Western Palawan...

Shootin' hoops by the bay......

The only road to Sabang (it was still not paved all the way).....

Finally, the beach at Sabang.....

The beach right in front of Mary's Cottages, the place we stayed....

This beach was over 2km long... Nice sand, shallow entry into the Ocean..... Very nice for swimming......

Another shot of the beach...

This is where we stayed - Mary's Cottages.... Right on the Beach...... The price was 300pesos per person per night..... $6..... Not too shabby.... If you like primitive.....

Another shot of Mary's......

This was the Nipa Hut that Neil and I stayed in... Only enough room for 2 twin beds with a walkway between them.... A Filipino twin bed is only 6' long and I happen to be 6'-3.... You do the math.... haha.....

This is the toilet/shower/sink all kinda rolled into one... Notice that there is no seat on the toilet... You hover..... Notice that there is no toilet paper.... You use the tabo... Notice that there is no flushing mechanism.... You use the bucket..... And very clean as you can see......

And here is the stove on which they prepared our meals.... Keeps life interesting... The power at this end of Palawan is only on between 8am and 6pm.... After that, the generators are shut off and candles make the light... The residual cold in the coolers keeps the beer marginally cool....

And we have all heard of the Egg Plants..... I thought that this was a cute way to get rid of the empty egg shells......

The pet monkey was a big hit with all the guests....

And so was the pet parrot.....

Now at the fancy resort down the beach a bit, they even raked the beach every morning so you could make "fresh tracks"....

First nights dinner and it sure looks like I have had plenty of rum.....

Next day, beautiful morning.... We are trekking today taking Monkey Trail to the Underground River..... And was it a trek.......

All the local boats... Originally these would have been fishing boats, but like many places in the Philippines, they have learned that there is more money in tourism than there is in fishing...

Starting our trek, walking along the trail adjacent to the beach.....

And here is a working banka being rebuilt...

One of the resorts that "didn't make it"..!!

Here is Neil all ready to head up Monkey Trail... And I do mean "up"...

There were so many of these sets of steps on our trek... It really helped to be in shape... I was not...!!! It was quite the workout...

Still feeling "perky" at this stage... It wouldn't last very long tho'.....

A pretty cool tree "knot"... And you know how much I like Knots...!!!

Ridley Turtle hatchlings.... They had quite a few in buckets...

I guess they weren't on the sashimi menu after all, haha.....

A good shot of the rain forest canopy.....

We had, by this time, climbed up an over what we thought was the main obstacle - it took about 1/2 hour to climb up and then back down... All the way, sucking wind.... I guess it is better than passing wind, hehe....

A pretty cool looking rock bridge.....

And here is a closeup...

And here is the beginning of our second obstacle (which was about 3 times more/higher than the first one - tho we didn't know it at the time)... My gawd, I just love surprises.....

And here we start the second climb (note the stairs hidden behind the boulder)....

Stairs and more stairs......

And then we met one pissed off snake... He was very territiorial and really did not want to let us pass....

OK, now I am starting to get tired...!!!

Yup, fer sure... I am shot... Are we there yet..??

Finally, stairs going down.... Whoohoo.....

Boardwalks between the stairs.....

Volcanic caves are everywhere....

More caves...

At the bottom, is a swamp... Quite a variety of ecosystems......

This shot makes it look almost prehistoric.....

And the Monitor Lizards add to the ambience......

They were almost like big puppy dogs (some of them are actually kept as pets, tho these were the wild ones)... Couldn't you imagine petting one of them behind the ears..??

I suppose this one is 7-8ft long... They definitely had some size to them... And if you had food, they were a tad intimidating.....

Smelling the air... Check out the tongue on that baby......

Pack hunting.... hehe......

And the monkeys were smart enough to get in your pack and take whatever looked good... They were very good at swiping ball caps and sunglasses right off of your head....

The entrance to the Underground River.... One of the World Heritage Sites... It is 8.2 kilometers long with about half of it being navigable... We went in over a kilometer... Too much further and battery power to the spot lights gets to be a problem...

Another group heading in......

A different shot of the lagoon...

Inside... As both my daughter and son-in-law have studied geology, these next few shots are for them.... Quite a range of different limestone formations... Some of the ceiling heights inside of the river were in excess of 100ft above the water... Now that was impressive.....

The guides all had names for the various limestone formations.... I didn't pay enough attention to that to remember any of them...

But I suppose it is more fun to make up your own names anyway.....

I think I will call this one "Limestone Flow"...

Or maybe "Limestone Falls"...

And I am sure you all can be very creative in naming this one... haha.....

I give up..!!!

OK, we are done with the Underground River now.....

Heading back to Sabang... No Monkey Trail for me... I'm riding in a banka..!!!

And here is what we came back to... A nice afternoon rain forest shower......

The monkey doesn't look very happy either...!!

Playtime..

The next morning we got up very early to drive back down to Puerto Princessa and a day of Island Hopping in Honda Bay.... Here is the moon over the mountain.....

Beautiful Filipino countryside....

Our own banka complete with skipper and crew.....

The morning started rather dreary.....

A shot of one small corner of Honda Bay......

Day huts for all the island hoppers....

The weather is getting nicer....

Some of the bankas waiting for their hoppers to finish hopping (on this island anyway)....

This is a really nice shot of the beach with a reef literally 10 feet off the water's edge... It was very good snorkeling here with lots of friendly fish.....

OK, that's it.... Time to head back to Manila and work... But it was a fun weekend in Palawan...