We were really looking forward to Christmas & New Year’s in the Philippines. December was horribly cold in Japan, and the lack of central heating, insulation etc. meant we could see our breath inside the house. We knew we had to get away just to get warm.
Things got off to a worrying start though as I found myself quite ill starting about 24 hours before we were set to leave. I fought my way through my last classes. I just couldn’t call in sick before a 3-week vacation…next year maybe, but I was still feeling too new here. Anyway, I persevered knowing that sunshine, a warm breeze, and waves lapping the shore would do me good.
Train to Osaka. Overnight in Osaka. Train to Kansai Airport. Airplane to Manila. That warm breeze hits me as I step outside the doors of the terminal. The sun is bright and palm trees sway and I’m feeling better already.
We spent the night in Manila and set off early the next day by plane to the island of Palawan. We spent a rather quiet Christmas in Palawan’s capital city, Puerto Princessa. It’s really more of a town with its small layout of dusty streets. It was a good place to finish my recovery though, and we enjoyed relaxing in a very pleasant inn. It was mostly quiet aside from the riotous sound of fireworks that began Christmas Eve day and carried right through with increasing volume to Christmas Day. It was like the local young people had spent a month’s wage on all these explosions. They just kept getting bigger and louder. We would walk down the streets bracing ourselves for eardrum breaking blasts. At one point, I saw a pair of boys loading what looked like missile launcher. I told Sarah to cover her ears as the sound of mortar fire erupted.
After the Christmas “war” was over, we were ready to get started exploring Palawan. We caught a ride bright and early for Sabang in this thing…
It’s called a jeepney and they’re all over the place in the Philippines. They’re old American jeeps that have undergone some sweet modifications to make them into sort of buses. Many are wonderfully decorated, but the ride inside is usually not so flashy.
On this ride to Sabang there were around 25 people inside and more on the roof. We traveled some ridiculously bumpy roads for about 3 hours and as far as I know no one fell off.
I really dig this kind of collective transport. Whether in the dolmus’ of Turkey, the collectivos of Mexico, or in Filipino jeepneys, people share common space as opposed to the sealed individual bubbles of our cars. Of course I’m sure many of these people would appreciate the convenience of their own car; however, not only is affording the luxury not really an option, but it seems collective transport serves the whole community in a more sustainable way. Easy for me to say, I'm just a traveler passing through!
Anyway, we made it to Sabang and checked into this cool cottage…
Here we are at Sabang’s main attraction: The Underground River. It’s one of the longest underground rivers in the world. We took a ride on a boat about 2km up the river in total blackness except for the light being operated by some tourist kid at the front. The light revealed thousands upon thousands of bats apparently sleeping on the ceiling. Glad to say we didn’t wake them. My hair is getting near long enough that they might have wanted to nest in it. The light also revealed some truly amazing rock formations, but unfortunately I’m not skilled enough with a camera to have anything to show…
Here's something to show. Outside the entrance to the underground river are some unsettlingly tame monkeys and monitor lizards. With all the visitors, these locals have no fear, but that doesn't mean I didn't have just a bit...
This is the beach at Sabang. Unfortunately we didn’t have the best weather. It poured something awful that night. It sounded like a typhoon pounding away on that little cottage.
The next morning we decided to keep moving and traveled by boat up the coast to Port Barton. The ‘pumpboat’ chugged along through the waves (some quite massive) for a few hours causing Sarah to lose her breakfast along the way.
Port Barton is a quiet and pleasant seaside town. We relaxed for a couple of days, but decided that we wanted to get to El Nido as quickly as possible as we weren’t sure how or when we would return to Puerto Princessa for our return flight to Manila. The dodgy road connecting El Nido to Puerto Princessa had been washed out by a storm before we arrived so we figured maybe we could just fly back from El Nido or something. We weren't really into taking a pumpboat all the way back.
After a longer pumpboat ride further up the coast we began to encounter large, dramatic cliffs jutting out of the sea. This meant we were getting close. Soon we floated into the bay around El Nido. We pulled up on the beach and got ourselves a cottage with this view.
The beach right in town is really narrow, but it’s still a great spot to sit on a veranda and while away the hours.
Here I am on our veranda. All this was ours for around $10 a night. Of course it was pretty basic. No flush toilets & no real service to speak of. Of course this is just fine with me except that one day I discovered that I had inadvertently clogged our hole in the ground toilet. Feeling a little embarrassed, I went to the main house to alert the owners to the problem. The lady of the manor quickly darted inside and returned handing me a plunger. Ah, I just love these vacations. Get away from it all in paradise, and do some plumbing. This would be but the first time on our holiday odyssey that I engaged in toilet repairs. Towards the end of our trip, we encountered a finicky flush toilet in Banaue, but a couple of quick adjustments and I was back in business there too.
So what did we do in beautiful El Nido?
Not much. Upon our arrival we discovered that most flights out were already booked. Nonetheless, we decided to cancel our return flight from Puerto back to Manila and find a way back direct from El Nido. This left us with an uncertain amount of days so we quickly slipped into some serious relaxation.
We hired a boat on a couple of different days to take us to some of the islands around El Nido where we snorkeled and found quiet places to read. I’ve never really done snorkeling before where I can actually see cool stuff so I was very impressed. Lots of colourful fish and ‘breathing’ plant life.
Look, it's the swamp thing...
We spent New Year in El Nido, and like Christmas it was kind of quiet for us. We rang in the New Year on the beach with a few other foreigners and watched the fireworks erupt over town. Like Christmas though, the noise of M60s and other gun-powder filled cylinders was truly deafening at times and went on most of the day and night.
