Palawan is one of the lesser touristed of all the islands in the Philippines. It is located within the South China Sea on the northern side and in the Sulu Sea on its southern border. It is known for its pristine beaches, wreck diving, and general lack of a tourist scene. I flew from Siem Reap, via Bangkok and Manila, to Puerto Princesa, the principle city on the island. The city is compact and busy and made for a good transition city into Filipino culture. Astonishingly, 85% of Filipinos speak English as a second language (and they speak it quite fluently too), almost all street signs, advertisements, and shop signs are in English, all the newspapers and most television is in English, and the brand of English they speak here is of the American version (making it doubly easy for me). They speak so much English here that their official language, Tagalog (pronounced TAH-GAH-LOH), isn't even taught in schools, but rather children are taught in English. Even on the ATM screen one is given the option of English or Taglish (rather than pure Tagalog)! Even when Filipinos speak Tagalog I have very little problems understanding since over 20% are loan words from English and 15% are loan words from Spanish. This change from pigeon English (in Indochina) to proper English has made traveling so much better in terms of getting what I want (without getting ripped off too much), getting where I want to go, and doing so in a timely fashion. Another way in which Filipinos are very much like Americans is that they are generally overweight or obese (very noticeable when coming from the much poorer region of Indochina) due to the consumption of junk food and chicharrones (pork rinds) by the bag full.
Coming from Indochina, where the tourist route is heavily treaded upon, Palawan was veritably deserted. I spent 4 days in Puerto Princesa and the only foreigners I met were a group of American Navy guys (for lack of the correct term, soldiers???) who were more interested in what the local women had to offer than I did (if you catch my drift). I did chance upon meeting one search-and-rescue diver among the crew who was more interested in what Palawan had to offer sea-wise and we ended up scuba diving together. Unfortunately, the visibility wasn't great, but there were tons of fish swimming all around us and being down there underwater is a generally agreeable experience. The highlight of my time in Puerto Princesa was a day trip to a fishing village called Sabang which is known for its subterranean river which is located within a cave filled to brimming with swallows and bats. I took a local jeepney (a sort of conglomeration of jeep and car parts smashed together...don't worry photos will follow) for the 3 hour, very bumpy ride south and then hopped on a little boat to take me round to the cave. Along the way we saw several sea turtles bobbing their little heads out of the water for air! Going through the cave itself was rather eerie as the swallows were head diving us at every turn making spooky calling sounds and the bats kept being awoken from their slumber only to dart down towards us before finding a new resting spot. I was glad that we only went 1.5 kilometers inside rather than the entire 8km. When we emerged back into the jungle, we had a picnic lunch which we had to guard from the group of marauding Macaque monkeys who kept leaping at us at every bite. Not only were there monkeys to deal with but there were several huge Monitor lizards crawling around. Monitor lizards are only one size down from the Komodo Dragon and no less intimidating, but Monitors are not aggressive and so simply were lazing around rather than in attack-mode. However, I had planned to walk the 6 km back to the port via the jungle trail, but after seeing the mischievous monkeys and their lizard friends I thought that perhaps I would never make it out alone and so hopped back on the boat for the return trip.
A few days later, I made the very local 9 hour bus trip north to the fishing village of El Nido, known for its crystal clear waters and multiple limestone cliffs jutting from the ocean floor. After a couple of flat tires, I arrived in the late afternoon and the rain to find a delightfully overpriced bungalow on the beach. I had yet to see any 'proper' backpackers and so was looking forward to meeting the few that I thought would be in El Nido. Luckily, I happened to meet them all (only about 6!) on the boat trip I took the following day. We hired a boat to take us to Miniloc Island known for its Big and Small Lagoon which are crystal clear pools of water surrounded by inposing limestone cliffs and are accesible only by kayak. We also went to Secret Beach which is on Maniloc Island and is only accesible only by jumping off the boat and swimming through an underwater hole. It was fantastic! The crew then cooked us up a fantastic fish grill on the white sands of one of the many beaches scattered throughout the bays. I spent the next few days in this fashion: eating fresh foods on nice beaches with new friends, until I decided it was time to move on to another group of islands known as The Visayas. The Visayas proved to be much more exhilarating than did Palawan.
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