On October 1st 2018 our journey began. After a busy last few months back home in Perth packing away our life belongings, to embark on a one way ticket adventure to south east Asia. First destination - the Philippines...
We arrived in Manila on the first day and slept the night in the heart of the city in a pretty dodgy apartment. We got up early the next morning, headed straight back to the airport and got on a flight to Puerto Princesa - Palawan island. Once we arrived in puerto after a short hour and a half flight we were quick to jump straight into a tricycle and dump our bags at our pre booked accomodation and explore the place. Unfortunately after a good few hours looking around we found that puerto isn’t exactly the “tourist hot spot”. There wasn’t really anywhere to eat (other than street food) no beaches and nothing to see or do to keep entertained. After a quick look on a map we decided our next destination would be Sabang Beach.
We woke up and were in a tricycle at 4am headed for San Jose terminal in search for a jeepney. A jeepney is a small bus that has been left over from the war and converted into a form of public transport for the locals - and everything else they put on it.
We rode the jeepney 4 long and bumpy hours to sabang, winding up and down hills in first gear and going around some pretty sketchy corners on cliff edges.
Once arriving in sabang we were instantly taken by the towns un crowded beach, and beautiful tall palm trees. We walked around for about 2 minutes before being escorted to some beach front accomodation - which we snatched up straight away for 500p a night which we are now realising was an absolute bargain!
Being very unsure on what to do now we were on sabang we were lucky to have been approached by A guy named George. He had dreadlocks most of the way down his back and to locals went by the name jungle George. At first we were not sure about this guy and why he was so inclined to give us advice, help and offer us multiple things to do in and around town - including his off the beaten track hiking adventures. After having a few beers with George and getting a feel and somewhat trust for him we accepted his offer to go on a jungle hike which would lead us to an un explored cave which he had named the “holy cave”. This Is the birthing flow to the famous underground caves, but was completely un touched or seen by most tourists.
We jumped on the roof of a jeepney early the next morning with high hopes of what was to come. After a 30 minute roof top ride we jumped off the jeepney and started walking towards the jungle. We had a 2 hour hike roughly ahead of us and it started out walking through huge open rice fields with a clear blue sky and amazing backdrop of the mountain climb yet to come. We entered at the bottom of the mountain and hiked through thick jungle on our hands and knees climbing through trees, crossing flowing rivers, swinging off vines and walking over bamboo man made bridges.
Once we got through the jungle we reached the end of the walking stage. We are now looking straight up a very tall and steep rock face thinking are we going to climb that? The answer was yes! Full steam ahead we began our rock climb steadily and carefully as injury at this stage was not an option. The climb was tough in some spots but tiring more than anything. We reached the top with great satisfaction after about 30 mins and were instantly rewarded by the huge caves entrance. We rested for a while then climbed down into the cave and deep as we could go before it was pitch black and we could not see anymore. Who knows how much further down the cave went but we were not that keen on finding out. We spent an hour just sitting and looking around at all the different rock formations embedded in the cave walls. There was a protector of the cave, an evil sprit, an elephant, an angel, and an evil looking lizard. Looking directly up was a small hole at the roof of the cave letting in a bright beam of sunshine (hence the name the holy cave). Named after George’s own religion (the holy religion) based on the idea that nothing can exist or live without “the hole”. We will let you think further into what that means.
So after our excellent hike we ended up just hanging out in sabang for a few days, going for lots of long walks and exploring the local go to areas including the surrounding beaches and jungle. We did not go to the famous underground river as this was our first destination of a long trip and we are trying to steer clear of the tourist packed places..
Sabang Beach was nice enough to hang around for a few days without doing that much!
A day before we had decided to move on we spent A few hours on the afternoon on the mangrove river. We payed a local guy with a paddle boat to paddle us up the river to take a look around. From the moment we took off it was absolutely breathtaking, and unlike anything we had seen back home. Apart from the mosquitoes it was a very relaxing experience. We saw a lot of snakes curled up in tree branches, a few monitor lizards on the banks and swimming through the water. The mangroves themselves are unbelievable the way they twist and wind up on each other and some of the trees themselves grew way up into the jungles canopy. The trees drop a seedling from the top branches into the water which have to land upright in the soil to grow a new mangrove tree.
After sabang we headed to port barton and El Nido but we will save our blogs for our favourite and most weird spots!We are traveling around south east Asia for the next 6 months And hope you will follow our story!
Cheers!