Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines

Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines - visited April 18-20, 2018

Domestic Terminal at Ninoy Aquino International Airport

After my travel bucket list item of seeing the Banaue Rice Terraces was checked off, my next one was to visit the Underground River, located in the island of Palawan. Truthfully, it was initially to go to one of the many beautiful resorts in the Philippines. Boracay used to be the tourist spot of choice but lax regulations that allowed businesses to pollute their surroundings caused the Philippine government to shut down Boracay temporarily while they did a cleanup. So I switched my plans from Boracay to Palawan, another tourist destination.

Most people go to the island of Palawan for the beaches and resort spas. El Nido and Coron are the up and coming tourist destinations in Palawan. I’m not really a big fan of beaches or beach resorts. I’m one of those travelers where when I go on vacation, I like to do things and have experiences, rather than lying on a beach somewhere and doing nothing. I can do nothing at home. When I travel, I like to explore new places (and eat). So, instead of beautiful beaches and resorts, I opted to fly into Puerto Princesa as that was the closest airport to get to the Underground River.

The flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa is less than an hour in the air. It was my first time flying out of the domestic terminal at Ninoy Aquino airport as usually when I go to the Philippines, I stick to the island of Luzon as that’s where Manila and where my relatives are located. (Remember, the Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands.) I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the domestic terminal was; it was even better than the international terminal I normally fly out of in that it had more choices for stores and eats. I was dropped off early for my flight as Manila traffic is unpredictable so I had some time to wander around and, okay, yes, I had a waff-wich, also a new experience for me – it’s a tasty waffle sandwiched with the filling of your choice. Not gonna lie – I had two, a savory one (ham and cheese) and a dessert one (chocolate and hazelnut).

The flight was smooth and I had booked my hotel weeks beforehand. Thanks to recommendations from tripadvisor.com, I found the Canvas Boutique Hotel which was touted as being mere minutes from the airport with free shuttle service. And they didn’t lie. The driver came up a few minutes after I emerged from the airport, loaded me into the shuttle and 3 minutes later, deposited me in the hotel lobby. Couldn’t have been easier.

The hotel was perfect for my purposes. The staff was friendly, the room was spacious and clean (and air conditioned!), there was free wifi and free breakfast in the mornings. I had arranged the tour of the Underground River through them for 2,000 pesos (approximately $40 USD). They took care of booking it and all I had to do was provide my credit card for payment and come down the next morning at the appointed time.

The tour accommodated 10 tourists and we were loaded into a shuttle van along with our driver, Emman (not to be confused with my cousin Emman – Emmanuel is a very common name in the Philippines which is still predominantly a Catholic country), and our tour guide, Dean. Dean was very informative and gave us some history about the Underground River, which is one of the longest navigable underground rivers in the world.

It’s a very popular tourist destination and often involves long wait times as it’s also one of the places cruise ships dock so their passengers can go on day excursions to the cave. Groups are given priority if someone has a flight they have to catch later in the day. The Underground River Tour itself is meant to only be a half-day excursion but due to the travel time to get there (about 2 hours from Puerto Princesa) and the potential wait times, the tour companies book it as an all-day trip.

I wasn’t well prepared for the tour as I had been too busy at work to do much prep beforehand. In hindsight, my travel tips for this tour: bring/wear bug repellent (it’s the tropics, after all). If you’re like me and are unprepared, the tour does make one stop before we get to the  pick up spot for the Underground River. It’s meant to be a bathroom break, a photo op with beautiful scenery, and a place to pick up snacks, tsotchkes, sunscreen and bug spray. I got an extra bottle of water and bug repellent.

Second tip: wear lots of sunblock with the highest SPF you can find as that tropical sun is no joke (remember, you’re close to the equator) and bring a hat or something for your head. If you forget or aren’t prepared (hello, that’s me), there are a plethora of sellers walking around the Puerto Princesa Underground River Tour pickup selling hats, freshwater pearl jewelry, rosaries and clear plastic pouches for cell phone protection. I bought a hat for 120 pesos ($3). My relatives probably would’ve wanted me to haggle but, hey, I’m a tourist and $3 was cheap for a pretty straw hat.

We waited a bit at the dock while Dean got out tourist permits. We also got lucky as he found a lone tourist, Mark, who had a flight out of Puerto Princesa later that afternoon and Dean invited him to join our group so we got priority in line (thanks, Mark).

 At the pickup spot, the tour group split into 2 boats and we were ferried across the water to another small island and offloaded onto a stretch of beach. It’s within this that the Underground River starts. Oh and third tip: wear flip flops that you don’t mind getting wet. I completely missed that memo but Dean was kind enough to give me his and went barefoot. Because when you get off the little boat you were ferried in, you go about ankle deep into the water before making your way onto the sandy stretch of beach. Yeah, my leather sandals wouldn’t have done well. I hesitated to take Dean’s flip flops and planned to just go barefoot myself when I left the boat but he insisted and it seemed churlish to refuse when he was so concerned about all of us having a good experience, flip-flopped feet and all.

We did a brief walk, saw a really big-ass lizard (shudder) indigenous to the area and were duly informed to leave the monkeys alone and to be wary of their boldness in snatching at anything plastic bag-like as they’ve learned to equate that with holding food (curse previous tourists who fed them when they shouldn’t have just because they thought they were cute).

The short walk from the beach to the start of the tour was a very beautiful lake where each boat takes 10 passengers and is rowed manually by the guide (not Dean but the Underground River Tour guide, one for each boat). Each passenger is given an audio pack and headphones and the tour can be listened to in a variety of languages. Besides myself, our tour group included 3 young guys from Finland, a Dutch couple, two older Filipino ladies and 2 younger ones in their 20s. Mark, our priority addition, like me, was a tourist from the USA, also Filipino but here for the explicit reason to see his home country as a tourist.

I imagine with 10 people plus the guide in the boat, it’s difficult to navigate and row, especially since most of these guides are not big and bulky. Nevertheless, ours guided us expertly through the Underground River. We entered a cave and from there, were “rowed” or poled (I am extremely ignorant of nautical/sailing/rowing terminology so bear with me) about 1.3 kilometers into the cave and back. The underground river runs longer than that through the various caves but we did the short version as not all of the passages are wide enough to accommodate the boats.

Inside, it’s completely dark, as you would expect from a cave. The guide shines a light in conjunction with what the audio tour is saying as we navigate each part of the cave. There are various stalactites and stalagmites throughout and the tour has a firm religious bent, down to interpreting some of the structures as “the Last Supper” and the nativity. I thought they were interesting rock formations formed over possibly millions of years.

Bats are the natural habitants of the caves and, although it was the sleeping time for most of them, we could hear them, clicking as part of their echo-location way of moving about. We were warned several times that it we were looking up, to keep our mouths closed. Our guide joked that if we felt something wet and cold, that was okay since it was water. If it was warm, that was not okay since it was likely bat guano. Erk.

Fortunately we all had been given helmets to wear to protect our heads in case anything more serious than bat guano dropped on us. These were caves after all. It was all pretty fascinating, gently being rowed down the river and back, seeing the lights sweep over the various cave formations, and seeing what nature had created persistently and patiently over more years than my mind could wrap around. It gives you pause to reflect on all the wonders of nature and the time it took to be created.

At one point of the tour, our guide turned off his light and we were plunged into total darkness to give us a sense of what it’s like for the natural cave dwellers who inhabited this domain. I’m not afraid of the dark but I gained a healthy respect for any and all creatures who made that cave (or any other) their home and what they evolved to in order to survive in complete darkness. It was so dark I could feel that total absence of light pressing onto my eyeballs. If that makes sense. It was dark.

Once we emerged from the cave, we were rowed back to the landing then there was a brief wait before we headed back to the beach to be picked up by the boat taking us back to our original docking place. The tour included lunch at a buffet restaurant. Don’t picture it as a Vegas-like casino buffet set up. It was cafeteria, bench-style seating with the food arranged in the middle of the open-air dining room. All of it was local Filipino cuisine, from adobo to pancit inihaw na isda (grilled fish) and lumpia to maja blanca and watermelon for dessert. As Dean told us ahead of time, “it isn’t fancy but it’s good food.” I would agree. I’m a picky eater but I found enough to eat and enjoy. While not Michelin-star caliber, it was tasty and filling.

After a leisurely lunch, we piled back into the van, waved goodbye to Mark who had his own transportation back to Puerto Princesa and had a merry van ride back to our respective hotels. Similar  to when I went to Belize, I didn’t go for the beaches and leisure but to see and experience something unique, which the Underground River was. I was glad of the experience to top off my tourist stay in the Philippines.

Sagada, Mountain Province, Philippines

Sagada - visited April 16, 2018

The rain continued all the way to our trek to our hotel in Sagada. Before we went to the hotel, we stopped by the tourist bureau and checked in, paying a 40-peso per person fee to cover environmental upkeep of Sagada’s sights. We were to keep the receipt and show it whenever we went to any of the tourist attractions like the waterfalls, caving, or hikes. Truthfully, we were never asked to show it but 40 pesos (less than $1 USD) is little enough that I would advise paying it for the privilege of enjoying what Sagada has to offer.

My cousin Abby had booked us ahead of time at Agape Log Cabin. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but when I travel, I find it best to roll with whatever happens and whatever you find. In the case of the Agape Log Cabin, it wasn’t technically a cabin but rather a 4-story house. The interior gives a log cabin feel with the way it was constructed with bamboo inside. After we checked in, our host showed us up to the third floor, politely asking us to leave our shoes on the first floor as they provided thin, flimsy but clean slippers to wear on the room floors. I am not a fan of shoes in the house (Asian culture) so this was fine with me. Plus it attested to the cleanliness of the floors and stairs.

There looked to be about 3 rooms to each floor with a shared bathroom and shared shower facilities (one person at a time when using). We had booked two rooms, one for me and one for my cousin Eman and Jessie to share. When I say room, I mean room. As in it had a mattress on the ground with clean sheets and pillows and a mirror hanging on the wall. Curtains covered the closed windows. This is a room where the hotel managers expect their guests are just going to use it as somewhere to sleep. It isn’t fancy but it was clean and the several staff we saw were unfailingly friendly and polite. If you want fancy accommodations with room service, go elsewhere. If you want simple and clean, Agape is a good choice.

After the long drive from metro Manila and the trek through the downpour after seeing the Banaue Rice Terraces, we were done for the day and crashed early. But also because we had planned to see the sunrise at Kiltepan Peak in Sagada, about 15-20 minutes from our hotel. Again, drawing from my past Maui experience, this was akin to going to see the sunrise at Haleakela.

Fortunately, the drive to the peak wasn’t as long as the drive to Haleakela so we were able to leave at 5 am and get there in plenty of time before sunrise. The road to get there wasn’t actually constructed for most of the way, as in no cement or concrete/asphalt/tar roads. It wasn’t even gravel for much of the stretch. Instead, it was dirt and rocks and required more careful maneuvering on Jessie’s part. If you didn’t have a car, the tourist office offers transport for 500 pesos (about $10 in USD). If you prefer, you can also hike on foot but wear good hiking boots and start early so you can get there in time for sunrise.

When we arrived, it was to find a crowd of people already there. It wasn’t anywhere near as crowded as Haleakala had been so we were able to find optimum spots to see the sunrise.

Kitelpan Peak is also known where you can see the “Sea of Clouds”. It overlooks some of the Banaue Rice Terraces but the clouds settle low so you can view them as a “sea”. When we arrived, the skyline was grey and just starting to blush pink. It didn’t take long for the sun to rise, casting colors only as Mother Earth and Mother Nature can. I love sunrises anywhere but I especially loved seeing it come over the clouds and climb, diminishing the gray and replacing it first with pink and purple then brighter hues verging towards orange and finally yellow, highlighting the fluffy white clouds.

I especially loved that it was cool. My cousin Eman just about froze to death since it was “freezing” to him but a nice crisp 50 degrees for me without any humidity so I loved it. It was just cool enough that I could wear a lightweight jacket and also appreciate the stands nearby offering hot Filipino breakfast of champorado (chocolate rice porridge), sopas (soup) and arroz caldo (rice porridge with hard boiled egg and chicken). There were multiple stands with the same offerings as well as tables to sit at. I thought it was brilliant entrepreneurship, a common trait in Filipinos, as they provided a service and good that was perfect for that experience.

Arroz Caldo at Kitelpan Peak

My mom makes a really good arroz caldo and the bowls we got were just as good (shh).  I don’t normally eat rice for breakfast but when in Rome….or Sagada. And it was a really good breakfast.

Afterwards, we headed for Echo Valley, one of the tourist spots on the map of activities provided by the Tourist Bureau. Echo Valley is where the locals bury their dead, at both a traditional cemetery as well as against the mountain side if they were to bury their dead in a hanging coffin. It’s called Echo Valley because there’s a point near the top where you can shout into the valley and hear your shout echo. I have never felt it appropriate to shout anywhere near a cemetery or where the dead are so Eman, Jessie and I passed.

Our tour guide in Echo Valley

When we first pulled into the parking lot, we found a local man sitting on the steps. Turns out he was a local guide for anyone who showed up, such as ourselves, so, for 100 pesos ($2 USD) per person, he led us into the valley and told us tidbits about the local customs and traditions on the walk.

First we made a slight climb to a traditional cemetery where he said families could choose to bury their dead here. Then we started to trek downwards on (sometimes slippery) stone steps to make our way into the valley. You need good shoes here with traction, no cute but flimsy flip flops, but serviceable shoes. I had packed a pair of tennis shoes just for the Banaue/Sagada trip but even I had to hold onto the railings as some of the stone steps were wet.

There’s a point on the upper part of the trail where you could step onto an outcropping of rocks overlooking the valley and scream into the abyss if you wanted to hear your voice echo. Hence the name “Echo Valley”. However, both my cousin and I felt that seemed disrespectful of the dead whose cemetery we were in just for the “pleasure” of hearing our own voices echo back to us. We also jokingly thought our own deceased grandmother would come back to haunt us and smack us around for being inappropriately loud among the deceased. We chose to pass on the opportunity and continue to follow our guide down the trail.

The end point of the tour before you turn back is to see the hanging coffins. They’re literally hanging on the side of the rocky mountain/hill(?), wooden coffins that had been affixed to the rock. I’m unclear how as our guide was a little difficult to understand but he showed us pictures of them affixing the coffins in crevices in the rockface, attached with wooden strips. Somehow. The reason some of the hanging coffins are shorter than others if the family has the option to “bury” their dead in a sitting position (hence the shorter coffin) or the traditional laid out position. Our own guide’s father was one of the ones in a hanging coffin as he proudly told us.

After Echo Valley, we did a brief stop at Bokong Waterfalls. It’s a short hike to a small waterfall. Hike might be overstating it as it was a very easy downward trail along stone steps. Not quite as slippery as the ones in Echo Valley so it was much easier to navigate and took no time at all. In the summer heat, I imagine it’d be refreshing. When we went it was cold and Emman and our guide, Jesse, thought the water was way too cold, even for wading.

We had originally planned to stay in Sagada for the day and return to Metro Manila the following day but we had gotten such an early start with the sunrise at Mt. Kitelpan that even by doing the Echo Valley Tour and Bokong Falls, we had pretty much exhausted most of our tourist plans by 10 am that morning. Our original plans were to catch the sunset at a different spot which were supposed to be equally breathtaking as at the Sea of Clouds but it was a long, empty day until sunset.

There were other touristy options we could’ve done but most of them involved a harder, longer hike to different waterfalls or caving. I like to think I’m fairly open to new adventures and I’d never been caving before but I hadn’t planned on going caving in the first place so I didn’t have anything appropriate to wear, including footwear. Plus, let me be honest, as soon as I read there “might” be eels and other creatures and there are parts of the cave where we would be knee-deep or waist-deep in water in the caves (not sure if that was true or not), I bailed on the caving idea. Um, eels? No.

So it was an easy decision to decide to head back to Manila a day early. I had already paid a 50% deposit at Agape Log Cabin that covered our first night’s stay and was on the hook for the second night’s stay but when we talked to the helpful folks there, they graciously agreed to release us for the second night’s stay if we were okay with paying half of the cost of the second night. I thought that was fair since it was likely too late for them to rent out our rooms that night and greatly appreciated their flexibility and understanding.

The only downside is it was another long, winding drive back. Fortunately, the weather was clear and wasn’t pouring rain like the day before. That was another reason we decided to drive back early because there were clouds gathering and we didn’t want to be caught in a similar deluge on the way back as it was more hours of driving through the mountains. We did a brief stop at one point to take some pictures where the views were particularly beautiful.

Bistek (beef steak)

Sisig

The drive back was via Bagiuo, another tourist spot, but as we got closer to Baguio, the traffic got heavier so we veered slightly away, stopped for a late lunch at a place that, according to Emman, was well known for its food then headed back, reaching Manila in the evening. An early ending to my first planned tourist stop but still a good trip.