We also collected John and Fiona from another hotel, so we have 9 in the party. Our tour guide was picked up in town – an impossibly handsome young man who had the three single girls giggling all day. When he fluttered his eyes and flashed his white teeth, and the girls giggled, I thought we had landed in a Mills and Boon romance.
John and Fiona are from Lincolnshire and are making their way to PNG to visit Fiona’s brother and attend what might be the last Goroka Show. Things are fairly chaotic in PNG at the moment and Fiona particularly was worried about the danger.
We’re on our way to the World Heritage listed Underground River and it’s a 2 hour drive to the other side of the island. The road is good and we pass through some lovely, interesting country. Most of the houses are made of nipa and bamboo, We discovered last night that nipa is made from the fronds of a palm-like mangrove tree. It’s easily made, is lightweight and, when it deteriorates, it’s easy to replace.
As we got closer to the underground river, we came to some classic karst country – dramatic, white-faced cliffs and towering crags. The town of Sabang depends on the tourists attracted by the river and has good infrastructure to support international visitors.
We left Sabang in a powered outrigger boat for the ten-minute trip to the cave entrance, then donned lifejacket and funny helmet for the boat trip into the river. That’s two days in a row we’ve had pictures taken with outlandish outfits.
This is must-see attraction. The whole set-up is extraordinary and couldn’t have been designed better by Hollywood. Our little boat took the whole party and was paddled by one man who gave a running commentary. The river is navigable for 8.2 Km but we only went in 1.5 Km. We were warned to keep our mouths closed in case the thousands of bats peed down on us but it was hard because so much we saw was jaw-dropping.
After the remarkable trip, we made our way back to Sabang for lunch at one of the resorts. Marilyn had splashed her trousers when she jumped out of the boat so she decided to buy something else to wear to avoid sitting around in wet trousers for the rest of the day. She found a nice beach dress at one of the stalls on the beach but couldn’t find anyone to pay. Eventually, with the help of our tour guide, Mak, someone at the resort reception took the money – 300 pesos with a discount of 20 pesos, probably for being honest.
On the beach we met this wagon drawn by a carabao (water buffalo). The driver of this ancient vehicle was talking on his mobile phone at the same time.
It was after 3 o’clock when we dropped off John and Fiona and we would have been quite happy to go home, but no, there’s more. We hadn’t got our money’s worth yet so off we went to a Crocodile Farm and Nature Reserve, the house of the late-governor which has beautiful views of Puerta Princesa, a famous bakery, the recently-developed boardwalk in town and the Cathedral.
Needless to say, we were buggered and, after a quick meal at the hotel (much better than last night) we took to our beds earlier than normal. Alvin and Ness, and the other three girls were going out with Mak to sing Karaoke but they are much younger than we are.
Palawan is a beautiful place and certainly as clean as anywhere else we have seen in the Philippines. The mayor has imposed a fine of 200 pesos on anyone caught littering. The residents have gone along with this and the town has benefited. We’re keen to come back because there is still so much more to see.
Mak told us a story about a group of terrorists from Mindanao who plotted to kidnap some rich tourists from an exclusive resort a bit north of here. When they arrived, they couldn’t get past the security so they came back to Puerta Princesa and asked some locals if there was an exclusive resort closer to the city. Somebody mentioned foreign tourists often stayed at one place so off went the terrorists to try their luck.
It seems they managed to grab about 10 hapless tourists and held them hostage. If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. Since then, of course, security has been dramatically improved and the crime rate here is the lowest in the Philippines. Many countries in the world have the reputation as being dangerous and you can’t avoid them all. If you did, and stayed home, you take the risk of being run over by a bus, so there’s not much point.
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