Puerto Princesa

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Wednesday 10 Sept

I caught a Cebu Pacific flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa on Palawan Island. It was the first time I'd seen an airline play a game on board. It was just of the kind; first to produce a particular object wins a prize. We landed at the Puerto Princesa airport which was quite small to say the least. There was a single guy sitting at a wooden table with a sign for foreigners to present their passports for checking. It was a bit hard to spot and most people just walked past him. I only saw him because I saw a couple of foreigners lining up. Anyway I caught a trike, for the standard 50 pesos, to the Hotel Fleuris. The airport is very close to the centre of town, just a few kilometres away. Unfortunately the hotel only had a room for the night (probably because of the boxing troupe of 20 people or so that checked in and whom were on the plane with me), but I checked in anyway. The room was pretty nice, especially compared to the other hotels I had been staying at in the Philippines. However it was a bit on the expensive side at 3000 pesos a night. Also I had been upgraded for free to a deluxe room as they had no standard rooms left.

The main reason I decided to come to Puerto Princesa was to see the subterranean underground river. It is believed to be the longest navigable underground river in the world. The river is supposed to be 8.2 kilometres but tourists are not allowed to traverse the entire river. In 1999 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Philippines are also keen to get it into the new 7 wonders of nature currently being decided. I booked a tour for 1500 pesos at the hotel. I had picked up a few leaflets at the airport for similar tours and they were all the same price.

I went for a walk into town and had a look around. Puerto Princesa is the capital of Palawan but it doesn't have the feel of a capital city like Manila or a Cebu City. For a start it's a lot cleaner and less polluted. There are no giant soulless shopping malls, and it just has a more relaxed vibe to the town.

Thursday 11 Sept
The tour was to leave the hotel at 7am, however I had to wait for two other couples. They didn't really seem to be in any rush and seemed nonchalant that it was 7.10am and the tour bus was waiting for them. Once we got on the road our tour guide said that half way the road is good, the other half we get a free full body massage. We drove for an hour and a half and stopped for a break in Buenavista. From here we drove another 20 minutes to the Department of Tourism office to buy our entrance fee tickets. The price of these was included in the tour fee. From here it was another 15 minutes drive to the town of Sabang. Once here, we had to hire a motorised boat (also included in tour price) to the entrance of the underground river. It's another 15 minutes on the motorised boat to the entrance of the river. From here you then take a paddle driven boat to take you inside the cave. You must put on a life jacket and hard hat before boarding the boat. I got to sit in front which meant that I got to control the spotlight which was connected to a car battery.

Inside the cave it's pitch black, as you'd expect. I'd say that if your light went out, you might be in a bit of trouble. Anyway throughout the cave are various stalactites and stalagmites. Some make some unusual formations while others take on a more familiar look. As I was holding the light the guide would instruct me where to point the light. To the right, more right, higher, higher, that's it, you see this one? We call this the chicken leg,...and so forth. There are also literally thousands of bats inside, with a few flying around but most hanging around on the ceiling of the cave. As you travel through you can see a number of different caverns and tunnels leading to who knows where. I think it would be easy to get lost if you didn't know where you were going. However, to be honest I wasn't really blown away. Interesting I suppose but I've seen similar stuff before in regular caves. All up the tour inside the cave took about 45 minutes. Although the river is 8.2km, we were only allowed to traverse a fraction of this.

The paddle boat took us back to shore. The guide said we could either take the motorised boat back to Sabang or take the 5km Monkey trail back. Of course the 2 couples decided to walk while I took the boat back. It turned out that the trail was closed halfway so the guide told them that we would meet them half way. Anyway we took the boat to the halfway point and the guide said it should take them an hour to walk back. Well 2 hours later and they finally show up. No word of apology for taking so long, just totally immersed in their own little world. Anyway just another reminder to myself why I dislike taking tours.

We got back to Puerto Princesa and as I only had the room for one night I had to move to another hotel. I went to the Badjao Inn on Rizal Avenue. It wasn't as nice as the Fleuris but it was more than 3 times cheaper at 900 pesos a night. I took a trike to the hotel which was only about 1km away. I asked the guy how much and he said it was up to me. I only had 30 pesos in small change so I gave it to him and felt a bit bad about it. As I paid 50 pesos from the airport into town earlier, which was the fixed price, I thought I might have ripped him off. Once I got into the hotel I asked the receptionist how much I should have paid. She said 7 pesos is the usual fee for a short trip. 30 pesos is only about USD$0.60, but it still pisses you off when you get taken for a ride (no pun intended). One thing to note is that Puerto Princesa has introduced electric trikes instead of the usual gasoline ones. There are recharging stations around the place as well. I believe the trike drivers come in and get their discharged batteries replaced with a charged one and off they go. It's amazing that a small city in the Phillippines is leading the way with reducing greenhouse gases in this manner. I've always wondered why a small, relatively rich country like Singapore doesn't do more in the way of implementing innovative new green technologies.

Anyway I decided to walk into town to see if I could find a large shopping centre. I went into the NCCC Mall which has one large department store but nothing flash. I couldn't help but notice the religious music being piped through the store's loudspeakers. Every so often they would throw a prayer in also for good measure. Then to my surprise, at 6pm, the entire staff joined one big line and started to dance. I'm not sure but I think they may do this in the States at Wal-mart each morning before opening for team bonding purposes. However this was at 6pm with customers present.

After dinner I got a trike to take me to a bar for a few beers. After consuming several, I left the bar and tried to catch a trike back. I got quoted 20 by a couple of drivers and kept walking. Another guy said 10 pesos but being a bit drunk and having the overcharging trike driver still lodged in my mind I refused to accept anything more than 7 pesos. Hence I ended up walking all the way back, which was a pretty good achievement given I wasn't entirely sure where I was at the time.

Friday 12 Sept

The next day I headed to the public market. I saw a few people selling these strange round hairy things. I asked one girl what they were and she said they were sea urchins. She cut one opened to show me and let me have a taste. It looked like yellow caviar and tasted kind of fishy. I went to buy one from her and when she realised I only wanted one she told me just to take one. I tried to pay her but she would have nothing of it. Turns out they are only 1 peso each anyway, but still it was a nice gesture.

I then noticed they were selling rock oysters. I asked them how much it was for one oyster. They said 20 pesos, about USD$0.40 which I thought was reasonable. I asked them if I could buy 10 oysters. This caused all sorts of confusion and I couldn't understand why. It was only when I realised that it wasn't 20 pesos for one oyster, it was 20 pesos for a plate of oysters. Since they only had 3 plates of oysters, they were confused as to why I was asking for 10. After clearing up the confusion I decided to splurge and buy 2 plates which amounted to about 2 dozen oysters for under USD$1.00...not bad. I took my bounty back to the hotel restaurant where they were kind enough to open up all the oysters and cut my sea urchin for me. The sea urchin was still moving its spines, so I think you are supposed to pour hot water on it first before you cut it open. The oysters required a bit of work to open them all up, so it was pretty impressive of them to do this for me.

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Photos

Puerto Princesa fighting the war on terror
Puerto Princesa spares no expense to ensure it's borders are protected from illegal immigrants and dangerous substances entering the island.

BuenaVista view deck
Rest stop on the way to Sabang.

Monitor Lizard
Looks like he just killed something and had a feed.

Entrance to the Monkey Trail
Consists of 355 wooden steps and 386 hardened and paved steps. It took 100 men 15 days to build.