The beautiful island of Palawan

Palawan is a beautiful island full of waterfalls, "archipelagic" islands, caves and one enormous underground river. It was hot the entire time we were there, but the sun was shining too, so we got to enjoy the beaches. (Except for the ones with jellyfish.)

We started in Puerto Princesa which is the main city on the island. We tried to explore the old cathedral there, but it was closed. We tried to explore the museum there, but we were unable to find it. We did, however, find something better, Shakey's Pizza and Mr. Donut. I ate more donuts in the last week and a half than in the last year probably. The town itself was much like most other towns in the Philippines, but it was a great jumping point for the rest of the island.

Our first trip out of PP was to Sabang and the largest underground river. It was a bumpy ride up there (but what ride in the Philippines isn't?), and when we got there, we realized we didn't have enough money to stay as long as we wanted. But we were able to hike the underground river and take a boat ride through it. The cave itself wasn't as impressive as the caves in Sagada, but it was really impressive that the entire river ran through it. There were a lot of interesting rock formations, like the hanging fruit and vegetable garden, where different structures looked like, surprisingly enough, fruit and vegetables. We also saw some 4-5 foot Monitor lizards that were inches from my feet and some noisy monkeys who enjoyed harassing the tourists.

Since we ran out of money, we headed back to PP to get some more and then we headed to Port Barton (a day after we expected because we got up too late for the bus). The place we stayed at in Port Barton was beautiful, cheap and had a lot of nice people there. We went out on a tour of some of the islands and some of the coral. The coral was somewhat sad, as much of it was dead due to abuse, but what was alive was very beautiful. We saw some starfish, a puffer fish or two and a bunch of other colorful fish and coral. I finally got my tan back too, maybe a little more than I had in Thailand.

From Port Barton, we took a jeepney or two to El Nido, which is another jumping off point for island hopping. We stayed in a rather crappy bungalow, but the beach and town itself were very nice. We did another island hopping thing where we saw some more coral and some more fish. We also had a nice beach-cooked fish lunch on one of the islands which was delicious. We brought a lot more money this time, but we still ran out, so this trip was cut short too.

We spent a couple of days in PP recovering from dusty lungs and a messed up neck from our trip in El Nido. Off to the Visayas next.