Palawan Trip - 2nd day

As we have booked beforehand an Underground River tour (that’s P1,200/pax), we were informed that pick.up time would be between 7 to 7:30 in the morning, so 2nd day comes, we got ourselves ready for the full day tour at the famous Puerto Prinsesa Subterranean River.

We were picked up by a van at exactly 7am, we were then informed that there will be eight of us in the day’s tour, so the next 30 mins. has been to pick up the remaining 6 people, 4 of which were foreigners. We then proceeded to a 3-hour drive going to Sabang, the road has been fine for the first 150 km and it became bumpy after, for another 150km. We were impressed by the tour guide (named Frank) as he has an adept knowledge of the province and for 3 hours he keeps on talking and explaining the roots of – and i’d say almost all – the province of Palawan. We reached the wharf at exactly 10:30am and waited for 15mins. for our turn. The boat that would carry us to St. Paul Mountain has a maximum of 6 passengers and they were really strict on that and since there were 9 of us all in all (including the tour guide) we got separated from the group as we preferred to ride the next boat. The sceneries going to the foot of the mountain is so beautiful, the 15mins ride on boat has been quiet. We dock in a beach and through the monkey trail headed to the underground river.

The underground river according to the boatman/guide is 21km long, the water is so deep and it is a combination of fresh and salt water. Regular tourists were only allowed to navigate the 1.5km and should you want to go further, you have to secure a special permit.

The tour of the cave is so exciting, with the different rock formations, one could not deny that it is indeed something that is so familiar to anyone who sees it. They have a cathedral inside and i could not deny that it really is like a cathedral, they also have the vegetable section and a lot more of rock formations to entertain tourists.

After the cave navigation, we again passed by the monkey trail and had a little chat with the monkeys and monitor lizards that comes our way. We then proceeded to the banca were we’ll be brought to the next stop, that is in Sabang beach for a delectable lunch. After lunch we were given ample time to stroll the beach, roam in souvenir stores or even swim in the beautiful beach of Sabang.

On our way back to the busy part of Puerto Prinsesa we stopped in a souvenir shop overlooking the Ulugan Bay, an another beautiful scenery.

Tags: Palawan, Puerto Prinsesa Underground River, St. Paul Subterranean River