I spent most of December travelling. Because I had my allowed break time after the field work and the Christmas Holidays (which lasted for about three weeks here) I was able to explore the country. I travelled to Palawan, Manila and Bohol.
I spend one week in Palawan, the rugged westernmost island of the Philippines. The beauty of Palawan is that although there are enough other travellers around that you can spend your evenings in hostels or beach restaurants swapping tips, tricks and travel stories over San Miguels, there are not so many travellers that the island has turned itself inside out to cater to them. While you will have to negotiate with more than one porter, advertiser and cottage owner, you can always find a good, cheap accommodation and a tasty meal. The transportation from place to place is not always punctual, comfortable or transparently priced but the destination is always worth the hassle.
From Puerto, we travel overland to Sabang with some French Canadians and a French guy that we meet at our hostel. On the way to the bus terminal our tricycle gets a flat tire. When we arrive at the terminal we pack into a bus that is already full to the point of accepting passengers on the roof. After sitting in the bus for about 30 minutes we find out that it won’t be leaving yet because first they have to fix the brakes. These are slightly necessary to get us through the 3 hour ride on half-paved roads winding between karst cliffs and rice fields. When we arrive in Sabang we are forced to pay almost twice what the locals pay, you know, the “foreigner price”.
Note: I go back and forth on how I feel about the concept of “foreigner price” here in the Philippines. If there is no price tag on something, as a foreigner, the price I am quoted will usually be higher than what a Filipino will pay but the difference depends on who I am asking. Sometimes, when I inquire “How much?”, I can actually see opportunity knocking (ie. dollar signs) in the eyes of the shopkeeper, motorbike driver, food vendor, etc. etc. Mostly, I don’t mind paying a little extra while I am travelling around. Everyone has to make a living and it gives me anxiety to haggle all the time. In Davao however, my strategy is different. I find out from locals what I should be paying and try to never ever pay more because - Damn it! I live here too! (Not to mention that I am working for FREE to save THEIR national bird.)
Back to Palawan. From the start we intend to spend only one night in Sabang and then head north to El Nido, preferably by boat. As it turns out Sabang is like that place you can check in to but you can’t check out of (where is that again?). At least you can’t check out without wandering around town for three days trying to arrange a reliable boat at a reasonable price and then find enough people that want to go with you in order to fill it up. This is not to say that my days in Sabang aren’t great ones though. Over the course of the three days our group swells to include:
- two Swedes – both named Peter, later aptly renamed Sven-Peter and Peter-Sven
- three Australians – Sam, Ben and Chris who are on a one month Philippines drinking tour
- a German couple – Katharina and Christian
- a Brazilian diver named Guillie
- myself and Natalia, the other trainee working with me in Davao
- the French Canadians - Alex, Julien and Nicholas
In Sabang, we hike the “Monkey Trail” through the jungle to the Puerto Princessa Subterranean River National Park along which we see monitor lizards, monkeys and snakes. We take a boat ride into a cave on the longest underground river in the world. Our boat guide says “You know?” after every sentence and keeps cracking the same joke about bat shit. Obviously, he is hilarious and we all enjoy the experience immensely. We have breakfast on the beach as restaurant and cottage porters haul supplies on carts pulled by carabaw. We paddle up a river in the middle of a mangrove forest with Lady Mangrove, our guide, who sings a song she wrote about the forest before getting us to plant our own mangrove sapling. We watch a grouping of sea turtles ride waves near the point, every so often popping their heads up out of the surf. In the evenings, we lounge on the beach and drink bottles of Tanduay rum (a favourite as it is delicious with Nestea and costs 55p for a 26) and San Miguel Beer. And finally, we hop on a 25 foot banca boat early one morning to brave the 7 hour trip to El Nido.
We reach El Nido, which is situated in the Bacuit archipelago and is surrounded by some of the best snorkelling and diving in all of the Philippines. Some of us reserve a boat and spend a day island hopping and snorkelling out in the bay. It is my first time ever snorkelling (not surprising as I grew up about a million odd kilometres away from an ocean and a cold one at that). Guillie is a big help in getting me started and pointing out things to look at. I am a bit anxious at first because deep water makes me nervous but there is so much to see that I forget it fast. Tons of little tropical fish, beautiful corals, a green turtle. Katharina even sees a reef shark. We hop from island to island, snorkelling the different reefs. Guillie asks me if I want to see a lionfish which is “very, very beautiful but very, very poisonous”. When we swim back over to find it it’s already gone. I am not really so disappointed.
I spend a day in Puerto, mostly shopping because there are tons of incredible things made by the indigenous people – the Palawan (pronounced pah-lah-wun as opposed to the name of the island which is more like pah-laaaaaah-wan). A girl in one of the shops spends about an hour teaching me how to play this indigenous game involving seashells and a lot of estimating. She totally kicks my butt and I buy a bunch of stuff from her. From Puerto I head back to Davao for a few days of work and to do laundry in preparation for my trip to Manila.
I spend one week in Palawan, the rugged westernmost island of the Philippines. The beauty of Palawan is that although there are enough other travellers around that you can spend your evenings in hostels or beach restaurants swapping tips, tricks and travel stories over San Miguels, there are not so many travellers that the island has turned itself inside out to cater to them. While you will have to negotiate with more than one porter, advertiser and cottage owner, you can always find a good, cheap accommodation and a tasty meal. The transportation from place to place is not always punctual, comfortable or transparently priced but the destination is always worth the hassle.
I fly into Puerto Princessa where I stay at a beautiful hostel with a vine and bamboo enclosed patio that is visited by bats at night. Highlight: meeting an incredibly interesting Austrian gentleman who has been around the world about 8 times and who after a few San Migs. is conned into admitting that in addition to a fancy telecommunications job, he works for the Lonely Planet, which is why he is in this hostel to begin with. Can you imagine?!
From Puerto, we travel overland to Sabang with some French Canadians and a French guy that we meet at our hostel. On the way to the bus terminal our tricycle gets a flat tire. When we arrive at the terminal we pack into a bus that is already full to the point of accepting passengers on the roof. After sitting in the bus for about 30 minutes we find out that it won’t be leaving yet because first they have to fix the brakes. These are slightly necessary to get us through the 3 hour ride on half-paved roads winding between karst cliffs and rice fields. When we arrive in Sabang we are forced to pay almost twice what the locals pay, you know, the “foreigner price”.
Bus ride to Sabang
Note: I go back and forth on how I feel about the concept of “foreigner price” here in the Philippines. If there is no price tag on something, as a foreigner, the price I am quoted will usually be higher than what a Filipino will pay but the difference depends on who I am asking. Sometimes, when I inquire “How much?”, I can actually see opportunity knocking (ie. dollar signs) in the eyes of the shopkeeper, motorbike driver, food vendor, etc. etc. Mostly, I don’t mind paying a little extra while I am travelling around. Everyone has to make a living and it gives me anxiety to haggle all the time. In Davao however, my strategy is different. I find out from locals what I should be paying and try to never ever pay more because - Damn it! I live here too! (Not to mention that I am working for FREE to save THEIR national bird.)
Back to Palawan. From the start we intend to spend only one night in Sabang and then head north to El Nido, preferably by boat. As it turns out Sabang is like that place you can check in to but you can’t check out of (where is that again?). At least you can’t check out without wandering around town for three days trying to arrange a reliable boat at a reasonable price and then find enough people that want to go with you in order to fill it up. This is not to say that my days in Sabang aren’t great ones though. Over the course of the three days our group swells to include:
- two Swedes – both named Peter, later aptly renamed Sven-Peter and Peter-Sven
- three Australians – Sam, Ben and Chris who are on a one month Philippines drinking tour
- a German couple – Katharina and Christian
- a Brazilian diver named Guillie
- myself and Natalia, the other trainee working with me in Davao
- the French Canadians - Alex, Julien and Nicholas
Sabang beach
In Sabang, we hike the “Monkey Trail” through the jungle to the Puerto Princessa Subterranean River National Park along which we see monitor lizards, monkeys and snakes. We take a boat ride into a cave on the longest underground river in the world. Our boat guide says “You know?” after every sentence and keeps cracking the same joke about bat shit. Obviously, he is hilarious and we all enjoy the experience immensely. We have breakfast on the beach as restaurant and cottage porters haul supplies on carts pulled by carabaw. We paddle up a river in the middle of a mangrove forest with Lady Mangrove, our guide, who sings a song she wrote about the forest before getting us to plant our own mangrove sapling. We watch a grouping of sea turtles ride waves near the point, every so often popping their heads up out of the surf. In the evenings, we lounge on the beach and drink bottles of Tanduay rum (a favourite as it is delicious with Nestea and costs 55p for a 26) and San Miguel Beer. And finally, we hop on a 25 foot banca boat early one morning to brave the 7 hour trip to El Nido.
Hiking the Monkey Trail
Underground River
Lady Mangrove
Planting a mangrove
Tanduay
About 15 minutes out and everyone and everything is soaking wet and I am already green. But it is a beautiful day and after popping a few motion sickness tablets I am able to stand out on the bow of the boat as long as I keep my eyes on the horizon. Every so often the coolest little flying fish rise up out of the water and flap along the surface to get away from some unseen danger below. We pass by dozens of little islands each with high cliff walls and secluded beaches. Someone manages to convince the boat drivers to stop at one so we can swim. I am relieved just to be able to put my feet on solid ground for a while.
Boat ride to El Nido
We reach El Nido, which is situated in the Bacuit archipelago and is surrounded by some of the best snorkelling and diving in all of the Philippines. Some of us reserve a boat and spend a day island hopping and snorkelling out in the bay. It is my first time ever snorkelling (not surprising as I grew up about a million odd kilometres away from an ocean and a cold one at that). Guillie is a big help in getting me started and pointing out things to look at. I am a bit anxious at first because deep water makes me nervous but there is so much to see that I forget it fast. Tons of little tropical fish, beautiful corals, a green turtle. Katharina even sees a reef shark. We hop from island to island, snorkelling the different reefs. Guillie asks me if I want to see a lionfish which is “very, very beautiful but very, very poisonous”. When we swim back over to find it it’s already gone. I am not really so disappointed.
Island Hopping
Christian, Katharina, Guillie and I
One of our stops is at Secret Beach, which is completely encircled by high karst walls with the only way in being to swim through a small opening in one of the rock faces. Before we can make it back to El Nido we get stuck in an afternoon downpour but it passes as quickly as it came up and on Miniloc we watch the sun go down over the island dotted bay.
Secret Beach
Some of the islands we stopped at
Sunset on Miniloc
The next day I will have to head back to Puerto Princessa for my flight and some others will be moving on to the islands further north so we return to El Nido and farewell party into the morning hours.
Chris - "Beer anyone?"
Katharina and I
Partying in El Nido - note Sam dressed as a lady boy
At 7 am, I am scrambling to get to the pick-up point for my ride. Somehow I make a wrong turn and end up in a slum where, what can only be described as a “guard monkey” tied to a table, jumps out screaming and trying to bite and claw at me. Then an old lady comes and joins in yelling at me to get lost. I stumble back into the street, shaking my head and wondering if that really just happened. Even now I’m not so sure.
I spend a day in Puerto, mostly shopping because there are tons of incredible things made by the indigenous people – the Palawan (pronounced pah-lah-wun as opposed to the name of the island which is more like pah-laaaaaah-wan). A girl in one of the shops spends about an hour teaching me how to play this indigenous game involving seashells and a lot of estimating. She totally kicks my butt and I buy a bunch of stuff from her. From Puerto I head back to Davao for a few days of work and to do laundry in preparation for my trip to Manila.
