people will probably be intrigued about the title for this. at least for the emotional investment part. but it was! palawan has always been one of my need to go to destination and i know that it would take more than 1 trip to quench that desire to really explore the so-called philippines’ last frontier.
and that 1st trip did happen last november 22~24. thanks to cebu pacific’s 1-peso domestic travel deals ;). puerto princesa (proper) is super clean! and boy was it so green! or was it typhoon lando who cleaned it up? joke!
not to waste time, we immediately headed to go on an island hopping spree at honda bay. but the rains it seemed was bent on following our rented motorboat as we went from island to island. it has been a long time since i last took a “natural shower” and it was fun to do that on a beach in an island in palawan 🙂 but it was really chilly but we had to do a photo-op as well for posterity hehe.
the rains that day indicated that the scheduled underground cave trip was in danger of being cancelled. the official reason being that the boatman would have a hard time going against the river’s current. so we had to prepare ourselves for the disappointment of not being able to see this UNESCO declared world heritage site.
but luck smiled on us and we got the news that the underground cave tour was on! the 1st half of the land trip was like a demo: smooth! the 2nd half was the exact opposite. the rains had made some parts of the road muddy and i really pitied the van we were on. we pitied it so much that every time we see a muddy road (i.e. reddish, clayish), we would volunteer to get off! or if we do not get off, we would cheer and pray as the van swayed (literally!) through it. there was even a stretch of road that we thought it was really a creek turned road lol.
the travel to and from underground cave though showed one truly admirable trait of the filipino. they were a helpful bunch. they would make sure that one gets through the hard part before moving on. for that alone, the palawan experience was a reminder as well that there is hope after all.
all smiles! rain was still busy picking on other islands but not this one!
maybe the taxes we are paying are not enough?! doing our share to help the govt….this time helping fix the road lol
what a beautiful site! worth the rough travel 😉 and we are still all smiles!
my take 