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Published: January 12th 2007
A short one hour hop from Manila lays one of the really pristine treasures of the Philippines, the island of
Palawan. The elongated island stretches from the Mindoro Straight down to the tip of Borneo and its isolation and distance from the other islands in the Philippines has enabled it to maintain unspoiled beauty. The gateway to Palawan is through the small town of Puerto Princesa which for me was nothing more than a jumping off point to the scenic treasures I hoped to see further North on the island, including the largest subterranean river in
Sabang and the the town of
El Nido for the famed
Bacuit Archipelago.
On arrival into Puerto Princesa, I had a tricycle ferry me a few miles over to the bus terminal where I mulled over transportation options for reaching the seaside town of Sabang. My decision was easy as there was only one option -
the colorful Jeepney Bus. Jeepneys are unique buses which must be indigenous to the Philippines. It seems every country I’ve been to so far have their own unique form of local mass transit, but these Jeepneys take the prize for most original and comical looking. They remind me
of a low riding Partridge Family bus with some more flair thrown in. It seems no two Jeepneys’ are alike; their owners taking liberal freedom to make each one a moving work of art. After paying my two-hundred pesos and throwing my bag on the roof, I jumped aboard the back of the Jeepney as the only foreigner, save for a German couple named Juliana & Oliver traveling with a Swiss guy named Mike seated across from me. The seating configuration on a Jeepney is about six bench seats seating five across at the front, and two long bench seats facing each other at the rear exit of the bus. I chose to sit on the end of the rear bench seat closest to the back door. My thinking was if this sucker started going over a steep cliff, I’d have the best chance of bailing out the back first. Once the bus was finally fully loaded, and with ten people riding on the roof, we tooted our horn and headed down the road for Sabang. Things started out smoothly enough for the first hour or so, until we turned off the main paved road and started down the dusty,
bumpy, pothole filled jungle road from hell. At this point, although I was too far back to see him, I imaged the bus driver as the John Candy character “Del Griffith” in Plains, Trains, and Automobiles when he drives the car between two semi trucks going the wrong way on the freeway with Steve Martin looking over to see Del as an apparition of the devil. As we thundered across the island interior the bus came to a screeching halt about every ten minutes or so, dropping and picking up more passengers than a dog walking through a flea circus. When we set off from the bus terminal back in Puerto Princesa, I counted fourteen passengers already crammed into our tiny seating area which seemed like a lot. Really that was just the beginning. At one point along the road, the number of humans in the back swelled to thirty. This included a toddler on my knee, a live chicken covering one foot and heavy coconuts rolling around on my other. Whenever the Jeepney heaved to a stop, a thick plume of dust swept through the bus covering all of us, our possessions and our nasal passages in a fine
coat of dirt. During the final ten km or so, things flattened out a little bit and we drove through a really spectacular valley with Karst formations (limestone cliffs) on either side and green rice fields and palms tree orchards covering the valley floor in-between. The road finally came to a dead end in Sabang where we were greeted with the fresh smell of sea mist blowing down a rugged and natural stretch of crescent shaped shoreline…ahhhhhh.
Sabang immediately surprised me with its pristine and remote beauty. My guidebook only dedicated two pages for Sabang, and lets hope they keep it that way,…our little secret. Getting my bearings here meant walking in solitude down an empty stretch of shoreline at low tide looking for a bungalow on the sand to call home. The walk was beautiful and gave me an immediate feeling of isolation and disconnect from the real world, like being a castaway on a deserted island. There were probably a total of ten or fifteen other travelers I saw, but they may has well have not even been here as I basically felt like I had it all to myself. At the very end of the beach
tucked in the corner was perfect spot just a few yards from the ocean called “Mary’s Place”, the place I would call home for the next three days.
Sabang is more like a small settlement than an actual town. There is a concentration of fifteen or twenty thatched huts at the pier area where the bus dropped us and most of these operate as either restaurants, sundry shops or provide a few other goods or services. Along the half mile stretch of beachfront, there are a handful of sleeping bungalows situated in the encroaching jungle of palm trees including Mary’s at the very end. After dropping my bags in the hut, the ocean invited me in where I enjoyed a relaxing swim in the warm waves at sunset. Later that evening, I hooked up with Oliver, Juliana and Mike and we enjoyed a sumptuous meal of fresh fish from our thatched hut restaurant while the sound of crashing waves and a full moon peering through the jungle provided us with an exotic backdrop.
Monday January 8th This morning I headed out for the main attraction here at Sabang, the
Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park which was
a twenty minute long boat ride up the coast from the Sabang Pier. The seas were choppy and I think our rickety boat looked more like a floating matchstick than a sturdy seagoing vessel. Fortunately, we landed safely on the beach at the mouth of the Subterranean River, where we boarded a guided rowboat for a trip to the center of the earth. Well, not exactly the center of the earth, but it sure felt like it. The Subterranean River is thought to be the longest navigable river-traversed tunnel in the world. Once inside, all natural light disappears and flashlights lead the way through darkened caverns filled with stalagmites, stalactites, bats and even a few snakes. Entry and exit from the cavern is via a wide crystal clear blue lagoon where schools of fish are visible going in and out of the cave. Inside, it was completely quiet and calm and the river moved at a snails pace while the guide pointed out interesting stalagmite caricatures like “a horse, a castle, or a sexy lady”. “It’s an old sexy lady,…Sharon Stone” he deadpanned in a thick Filipino accent. I had a hard time making out any of these so called
The Monkey Trail
Looking down into the Mangrove swampfigures and I think maybe the guide was becoming delusional and maybe short on oxogen spending so much time deep in these caverns. After the one hour river tour, I decided to forego the matchstick motorboat back to Sabang and opted for the overland route via the 5km Monkey and Jungle hiking trails. At the start of the trail there were a few monkeys posing for pictures for the handful tourists. I sat in the background and thought to myself “Yeah monkeys, big deal, I’ve seen more monkeys the last few weeks than you can shake a stick at people”. One thing I had not seen yet were the gigantic monitor lizards which crawled around here on the jungle floor menacingly….monsters! Moving on by myself, the jungle trail started out across four hundred wood board steps which traversed an eerie swamp of limestone rocks intermixed with still water and massive mangrove trees, their roots crawling throughout the place like giant snakes. I ascended the trail out of the swamp and into a sprawling dense jungle where a symphony of exotic sounds filled the air including monkey calls and ear piercing insect shrills. Then, the strangest thing happened while I was
hiking through the jungle, it started raining…loudly. The strange part was I could hear the rain pattering loudly like it was hitting a tin roof, but I was not getting wet. The canopy was so dense, the water just drained off the top and down the vines, roots, and stalks of the plants and trees to the ground below without nearly a drop on me. The trail finally ended on a barren stretch of beach, where again, I was the only soul in sight. I took off my shoes, wiggled my toes in the sand, and laid a pristine path of footprints as far as my eyes could see. It’s the same kind of exhilaration you get being the only one to lay down tracks on a snowy mountain in deep powder with not a soul in sight. Simple pleasures!
Tuesday January 9 This morning I awoke with the sunlight and walked down the beach to an isolated spot for some quiet meditation, just me and the sand crabs. Afterwards, I took my camera along for a walk through the tall grassy fields where I ran into a slew of little piglets snorting around the field for food.
They were really playful, rubbing up against my ankles and sweet enough to pose for a few pictures. On down the road a white whooping crane danced around a giant water buffalo. However, today the highlight for sure was a visit to the Mangrove swamps located just a few minutes walking from my bungalow. The Mangrove swamp is a real gem, rarely visited by day tourists who skip over it to see the subterranean river. At the entrance, I befriended a woman named Ida who runs the show here six days a week. Ida walks about four miles to AND from the Mangrove swamp everyday from her village to await visiting tourists who pay the paltry sum of less than two dollars for the tour. Forty percent of the entrance fee’s constitute her salary here…hardly a living wage. Some days she sees ten visitors and some days she sees none. I was her first visitor in two days and she was more than happy to see me. After donning lifejackets, the two of us slowly paddled into the quiet swamp where Ida pointed out interesting aspects of the biologically diverse habitat. The mangrove swamps are home to loads of different
Pigs
"Let us outta here, babe's in trouble" bird, fish and amphibians. Eagle eyed Ida pointed out a small monitor lizard in one of the trees and the very poisonous yellow and black Mangrove snake perched on one of the branches high above. After about a half mile, we spun around and headed back out. When we neared the end of our tour, Ida seranaded me with a a sweet song (as she does for all of her guests) which she wrote about the Mangrove swamp, and its beautiful birds, and lizards, and clams and other things I can’t quite remember. After the tour, we sat around in the ranger station for an hour or so and talked about life in the Philippines and eventually we came to realize we shared the astrological sign of Libra. “Ida”, I said, “I knew I liked you for a reason”, and we both laughed. She spoke proudly of her five children and showed me her passport which had never left her own country in all of her fifty eight years. We exchanged information and I told her to be on the lookout for a nice piece of beachfront property for me because I’m coming back here someday. “If you ever come
Ida of the Mangroves
The serenading tour guide back to Palawan, just ask for Ida in the Mangroves" she said, "everyone knows me here”. I surely will Ida.
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Kris Park
non-member comment
ManGrows
Surely an experience to broaden your horizons. Happy to see things are going so well in your travels. Keep up the good blog (and let us know where you are off to next). Send Jill Ashley and I a postcard from afar. 404 E. 79th Street, #10E New York, NY 10021 From our jungle to yours... All the best Kris