palawan, part two

After a whole day of island-hopping, we decided to have dinner at the famed Badjao Seafront Restaurant.  It's quite a distance from the main road, so we had to ride tricycles and arrange for them to pick us up after dinner.  The ambience was great, and we imagine it would be better in daytime when you could see the sea.  At the time we really couldn't be sure if the restaurant fronted the sea or not -- just that I was built on shallow water. But we took their word for it.

The food was also good -- the lemon chicken was so tasty we've already eaten it by the time we thought of taking pictures.  We would have come back for another meal, but there were still other places to try.  It was fortunate that we had our dinner then, because later we found that the Mutya Ng Pilipinas candidates had closed off the place on the following night.

The next day we got up early in hopes of  seeing the Underground River, which we failed to see the other day because of the beauty pageant contestants closing it off.  This time, we succeeded. Yey!

To get to the Underground River site, you'd either hike up the monkey trail (was it a 2-hour hike?), or ride a small boat fit for 4 passengers.  Even under normal conditions, the waves were pretty scary -- at times the boat seemed to be free-falling as it rode the waves.  I was happy to be in a life jacket.

When we got to the other side, it was a short walk through a forest to the mouth of the cave where the river poured out to the sea.  We were advised to keep a good grip on our belongings, especially the cameras, since the monkeys are notorious for snatching tourist's stuff.

Clad in life jackets (the river is 30 feet deep in some areas) and helmets (more for bat poop than for debris), we boarded a boat and a guide rowed for us through the 1.5 kilometer route inside the cave, cracking jokes at appropriate places in the cave, some of which were actually funny.  The cave's  actually much much deeper, but you'd have to get a special permit to explore it further. I wish we had good photographs of the inside of the cave, but we only had point-and-shoot cameras.  Looking at the photographs now, none of them does justice to the awesomeness that we witnessed in that half-an-hour tour.

palawan, part one

I've recently spent five days in Puerto Princesa with several ex-officemates.  I suppose I should chronicle the key events before the details fade into memory.

(Halfway into the post I realized it would be too long,  so I decided to break it up into parts.)

We checked-in at the Liberty Park Pension inn late in the afternoon, then had dinner at the famous Kalui's.  The ambiance was unique and the food was great, even for someone who's allergic to seafood.  After that went to Kinnabuch for a few drinks.

The next morning, we woke up a bit late for the 2-hour trip to Sabang Beach, where we were to take a boat to the  Subterranean River site.  There was a long line to the boats when we got to the beach, which wansn't so bad, except that the Subterranean River site was closed off for the Mutya Ng Pilipinas candidates.  By the time they were done, the tide was too high and the waves too rough for travel by boat, so we ended up just going back to the city. :(

We decided to go to Honda Bay on the next day. Thankfully it's on the other side of Palawan so the sea wasn't wavy at all.  We had a boat all to ourselves for the whole day of island-hopping.

The first destination was Lu Li (short for Lulubog, Lilitaw) , which basically just looked like a desert island because sometimes most of it is underwater.  Afterwards we went to the Pambato Reef site for our first snorkeling excursion.  Despite the reef's overall greenish hue (caused by the storm that hit Puerto Princesa the previous weekend) and fish feeding (to attract fish) being forbidden, it was still quite a breathtaking sight.

[caption id="attachment_184" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pambato Reef"][/caption]

The next stop was Starfish Island, where there weren't much to see except for the starfish scattered everywhere.  After that we hopped to Snake Island for lunch and for fish feeding.  Eliza accidentally took a picture of me feeding the fish:

[caption id="attachment_185" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="at Snake Island, Palawan"][/caption]

As you can see, this was actually near the beach, so the water was not deep and I could afford to not use a life vest.  The real reef was another story.  Also, it doesn't clearly show in the photo, but I'm actually holding a water bottle filled with bits of bread.  It's quite a handy fish food dispenser, since you can bring it underwater with you, whereas if you just hold all the bread in your hand you'd have to keep it above the water or else it gets devoured quite quickly. (I meant the bread, not your hand. Hehe. )

Too bad all of my friends' cameras ran out of batteries by the time we discovered the deeper, more colorful reef in Snake Island (thanks to our boatman who guided us).  The fish there were incredible -- the clownfish and angelfish were the only ones I could name, but there were many more.  You just release some bread crumbs and the fish swarm towards you, some even nibbling at your fingers if you didn't release the crumbs fast enough.

5 minute post

This week has been gloomy so far, like everything is in shades of blue.

Best case scenario, I'm going to have my tonsils removed on January. Worst case, the tonsils hamper my breathing or food intake and would have to be removed by emergency. Meanwhile, I'm losing weight due to loss of appetite.

I'm going to Palawan with former colleagues at the end of November. Yey!

I'm reading Eclipse, the third book in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series.

Bohol, day 2

The Countryside Tour

The rest of day one was just driving to the Bohol Bee Farm, having a sumptuous organic dinner, deciding on the next day's activities (dolphin watching and going to the beach were scrapped thanks to the typhoon causing scary waves at sea) and then getting some rest.

The next morning we were picked up by Mr. Giovanni in a silver Toyota Vios. The car had race-car type upholstering, and as soon as we were on the main road, we knew why. The driver did not waste a second on the road, pushing 95 kph and overtaking some vehicle every ten seconds. We didn't mind, since at that point every extra minute counts given that we've already spent a day of our vacation flying around the country. But Mr. Giovanni was a noticeably careful driver, despite his need for speed.

The first stop was at the Blood Compact Shrine, where a life-size brass sculpture stood depicting the event when Datu Sikatuna forged a pact of friendship with Don Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, a Spanish Conquestador representing the King of Spain, back in 1565. After taking some pictures, we took off to see the tarsiers in Loboc.

Bohol, day 1

Third Time's A Charm

It was a bleak saturday morning, the PAL domestic airport was foggy and the sky promised of rain yet to come thanks to the typhoon Frank. We arrived early to get good window seats since it would be my first time to board a plane. It would be my first time to fly.

We had breakfast at Delifrance while waiting for our flight. Excitement turned to worry when we heard of flights getting delayed and cancelled left and right. Soon it was announced that our flight was delayed due to weather conditions at Tagbilaran. Worry turned to hoping-against-hope when we heard notice that our flight was delayed further. We suddenly realized we might be going home.

Out of town

What better way to spend the first few days off of work than to spend them in Bohol?  Me and my better half will be there for three days and two nights starting Saturday.  This would be my first plane ride, my first time out of Luzon, and if we're lucky, my first time to see dolphins up close! I just hope the weather is fine over there.

Okay, must go now and do some last-minute shopping and then pack.  I promise to post when I get back. ;) (haha that rhymes! :D)

24 hours in Tagaytay

A handful of officemates and I went to Tagaytay this last Saturday for an overnight stay and a hike to the Taal crater. I wouldn't have guessed that we could do so much in 24 hours.

Once we got to Tagaytay the first thing to do was to find a place to stay. On the way to the 2nd lodge, we miscalculated a turn into a downward slope which got the van stuck, and the only way out was to back up. Unfortunately the slope was too steep for the engine to handle even with all the passengers out, so we helped by pushing the van from the front. Surprisingly, it worked. Haha. :D Fortunately the apartment that we got in the lodge was worth the trouble (I am now sorry that I didn't take pictures). It had two floors, air conditioning, a refrigerator, cable, bathroom with a shower and room for six people to sleep comfortably.

Once we were settled in, we did a 15-minute drive to Alfonso to visit The Coffee Farmhouse, which happened to be owned by a family friend of TR's. After a quick tour around the coffee trees and various facilities, we had some coffee, which was refreshing after getting used to the dispenser-type coffee back in the office. We had planned to have dinner at a restaurant in Splendido, but found there a wedding reception was being held, so we climbed the bell tower instead and took some pictures.

We went back to The Coffee Farmhouse to have a sumptuous home-style dinner, then went to the recreation room for some videoke. For a moment then I had thought we were too tired even for sing-along, so I was surprised we managed to try out just about everything inside the recreation room: table tennis, badminton, bicycles, scooters, even those kiddy-size vehicles that move by turning the steering wheel. And then it was time for videoke and some beer. It was almost midnight when we came back to the apartment, and we were all asleep in minutes.

We left at around seven in the morning for Taal, which was a surprisingly long downward drive to the lake. Despite the season, we passed a couple of landslides along the way. It's scary to think what that road would be like during the rainy days. When we arrived at the lake we rented a boat for a 20-30 minute ride to the island.

Shortly upon arriving, we were assailed by the stink of horse dung and offers of horse rides. We insisted that we didn't need horses since that would defeat the purpose of hiking and would mean that we'd have to bring along a stranger each. They were persistent though, lowering the offer from 500 PHP to 300 PHP per horse/stranger, even following us as we start up the trail. After several minutes it got to a point where the offers were more irritating than the horse dung. Thankfully they eventually decided to leave us alone.

After a good hour's trek and some photo shoots along the way, we reached the mouth of the crater. It was breathtaking, literally and figuratively. We could even see steam coming off from some areas at the bottom of the crater. After some fresh buko juice, more photo shoots and more offers of horse rides which we declined once more, we started down the trail. We were dirt-y all over when we got back to the boat, and when we got off we weren't exactly as dry as when we got in. You would've thought the boatman was mad at us by how much we were soaked.

We were apprehensive about going back up the same way we came down not only because of the road condition and the landslides but also because the van might not make it. Fortunately we made it back up with no incident.

Then we went to the Sunrise Hotel to have an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. The food and service was well worth the 365 PHP/person fee even for me who can't eat most seafood dishes.

We went home shortly after that. Even after writing it all down, I still can't believe we did that much in 24 hours.

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(All photos were taken using my 2 Megapixel phone camera)