Last week I was blessed to visit the islands of Palawan. A truly amazing piece of earth.
Before heading off, my expectations were sky high and I was sure they would get shot down, but to my pleasant surprise they were not! Palawan is such a gorgeous place. Palawan's islands can probably
beat Thailand's best beaches and islands (even though it can get close at times), but the unique thing (other than the nature) is that every time I set my foot on a beach there was not a single tourist to be
found.
Trust me, this is a place you want to visit and you should. You can easily find your own island or beach that may be several kilometers long, and its all really cheap. Ok that's the end of the Philippine
promotion talk :)
Nicolas (a good Austrian friend of mine from my time in Singapore) was already in Palawan when I got there. It was really great to see him again after seven months and the setting of our meeting was ever so appropriate. We had travelled together for two months in south east Asia and palawan was a great place to be on another adventure for the two of us.
It started out by renting a motorbike and riding three butt aching hours to the world's longest underground river. This river was idyllically set with limestone cliffs and a beach very close to the
opening. The river was intriguing and full of bats, in fact the guide mentioned that there were 47,000 of them! A bit freaky, especially as they were all on there way out when we were still underground. Very
cool place with large caves within that may have been 40 meters tall at points. We took the three our butt battering return trip at night....
Further north we had time to scuba dive on two Japanese naval ship wrecks that were bombed by American Hellbomber airplanes during world war two. They were both around 140 meters long and 25 meters below the water level. The first was actually not as fascinating as we had hoped, however the second one was very interesting. We dove through small openings that once had been windows or doorways on the coral covered ship we even managed to see two massive generators and the
actual bomb damage.
The rest of the trip mainly consisted of a motorbike trip and visits to beautiful islands. Actually the Danish TV show Robinson (Survivor) was recorded here, and when I was in the airport i met the film team from the Dutch/Belgian Survivor program waiting for some participants. All in all, I am sure this is the nicest place I have seen in the Philippines so far. |
