Plumbing Lessons while Island Hopping in Palawan

After a couple of days in Manila, Carolyn, Wilbert and I decided to take a few day trip to Palawan to enjoy some beaches and...well, yea pretty much beaches. After the short flight to Puerta Princesa, we found a cheap hostel, settled in and looked for some authentic Filipino food. Our tricycle driver Boogs recommended a place on the main road in town, so we headed there and proceeded to let Wilbert order us a Filipino feast. We had a handful of Wilbert's favorites including Kare Kare, which is various meats in a peanut type sauce eaten with salty fish paste. Pretty tasty meal if you ask me and definitely expanded my Filipino food vocabulary since all I really knew before was balut.

With our buddy Boogs on a trike.

Kare kare.

Seared tuna.

Sizzling BBQ chicken. Can that even exist?

Bright and early the next morning, we took a 6-hour shuttle bus to El Nido, which is known for its beautiful islands and beaches. We arrived in town about 1PM and looked around for things to do, but most activities start early in the morning, so we were a little out of luck. Our last resort was to try to climb a limestone peak before it got dark out and with the prospect of rain. Luckily, we found some guides that were willing to take us and we were on our way to three hours of sheer horror.

We imagined a pretty leisurely hike to the peak to kill some time and enjoy some views, but we quickly learned that it'd be a little tougher. I brought tennis shoes so I was in a little better shape, but Carolyn and Wilbert only had flip flops, so it was definitely an adventure for them. The climb didn't have a real path - it was pretty much just made up by our guides with plenty of 90 degree vertical climbing on jagged limestone. One misstep and you're done. Envigorating! Even though it started pouring halfway through our hike, I got bitten by mosquitos about 30 times (no joke), and was left with some bloodied hands after some missteps, it was so worth it because the views of El Nido town from the peak were breathtaking. It was nice just to sit at the top of the peak, one foot from the edge, and soak in the views while my heart pounded out of my chest.

These smiles were short-lived.

The amazing view from the top.

The threat of death was worth the potential of getting a cool, new facebook profile picture.

After our 3-hour achievement, we decided we deserved a treat, so we headed to a cool restaurant called the Art Cafe and killed the late night hours with our buddy, San Miguel. (Mind you, we did this the following couple of nights even though our only "accomplishments" were limited to lying on the beach.)

Mr. Miguel says "nice job!"

The next day, with our fingers crossed for good weather, we headed out on an all day beach hopping tour to five islands. They were all gorgeous and although the weather wasn't amazing, at least it didn't rain (another reason for San Miguels!). One of my favorite sights was the Secret Lagoon which you could only reach by swimming through pretty choppy waters to the base of a cliff, but once you got into the lagoon, it was really calm, quiet and secluded.

One of the many beautiful, secluded beaches.

Because I have a lot of down time on planes and buses, I've been doing a lot of reading. Keeping in theme with my travels, I read Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour" which pretty much follows him around the world searching for "the perfect meal." The main point of the book is that the perfect meal is more than the actual food itself. Factors such as the people you're with, the ambiance/location, your attitude at the time all affect how you perceive the meal. My meal on the El Nido island hopping tour was one of those experiences.

The actual food was really delicious, but nothing out of this world - grilled pork/chicken/whole fish, cucumber with vinegar sauce, rice, mango, and banana. Mind you, this feast was made for only the three of us. The reasons I loved the meal so much were a. I was especially hungry that day, b. we were eating the meal on a gorgeous beach, and c. the crew put an immense amount of detailed effort into the meal. I expected them to throw something together for us since it was only three of us and it was a $12 island hopping tour, but they took a lot of pride to grill all the food to perfection, as well as create an amazing presentation for the food - no cucumber was out of place.

This meal deserved views from three angles.

As an aside, one small yet amazing thing I learned from Wilbert was how to flush a toilet with only a bucket of water. Our cottage was pretty low fi, so the toliet didn't flush. I brought this to the attention of the cottage owner and she told me to just pour water into it. OK. I thought this might work to dilute the toilet for a little bit, but eventually it'd get pretty full and nasty. Wilbert showed me that she didn't mean to just pour water into the toilet, but to pour it with enough force to actually flush the toilet. Old hat for Wilbert, but a new trick for this easily impressed city dog.

After our two-day adventure in El Nido, we headed back to Puerta Princesa where we said bye to Wilbert as Accenture beckoned for his talents back in Manila (my talents have yet to be beckoned for back in Seattle). Our first day back on Puerta Princessa we decided to do more island hopping, this time around Honda Bay. El Nido is supposedly a better destination for beaches, but I actually enjoyed the beaches around Honda Bay more. It also probably helped that the weather was actually nice. The beaches we visited (Pandan and Snake Island) were postcard gorgeous with great snorkeling a few yards out from shore. An amazing day to say the least.

No words.

Our second day, we did the underground river tour, which was an impressive sight to see (The Philippines are actually petitioning to get it added to the list of "wonders of the world"). Our tour guide was really entertaining and pointed out a lot of structures including the mask from "The Mask" and the face of Jesus (eerily similar). We also got to see some monitor lizards and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a  monkey steal chips from a lady and freak her out. Good times.

If a giant rock falls on me, this helmet will make sure I look awkward when I'm dead.

Just me and some lizards.

To end our good times in Palawan, Carolyn and I ate at a really cool restaurant called Kalui that served fresh fish with the menu changing daily depending on the catch. And of course, mango smoothies. Always mango smoothies.