Palawan

Puerto Princesa

Well, let me first give you an impression of my very beautiful hotel here, the Deep Forest Garden Hotel.
My room, so you can verify that I was really here, or you must assume that I am a very good fotoshopper.

The restaurant outside.

The swimmingpool.

And the wine-cellar:

And yes, the food is as good as you would expect after these pictures. No need to say, that I liked it here very much. A very, very nice hotel. Good coffee, good wifi, nice ladies, what does a man want more in life.

The second evening, the lady behind the bar asked which music I wanted on the screen (I was always the first one here sitting at the bar), and I chose a life concert of the Moody Blues. Then the owner entered the bar and it turned out to be his favorite music also, so we started talking. I asked him how he ended up here. He was working in Venezuela and was going home to Geneva, when he stopped here for a few days. But he never left again. Bought this piece of land and builded this hotel. A very nice man, we had our daily conversation from then on. I was very happy to be here, I suppose that's not hard to believe. :-)

That first day I wanted to discover the surroundings as usual. But the hotel is to far outside the town to walk that. So I asked a tricycle to take me around. "Where do you want to go?" I said: "You just show me some things you think tourists want to see. I leave it all up to you.". I don't like guided tours. Those people already earn enough, you are going with a group, while I like to spend everywhere the time by myself, and third, are to expensive. That was a to difficult question, because when we first stopped at an atm, he was talking to another taxidriver where he should take me to. Well, it ended up all perfectly well. I have been away some hours and he only charged me 300 Pesos, so I gave him 400. Here some pictures of Puerto Princesa:

The promenade, there were a lot of restaurants here, so in the evening will look more nice I suppose. And the harbour view is very nice, but not on picture.

As last action he took me to a war-museum, small but I think very interesting for one of my brothers:

And everywhere you look, it is green, green, green here. This island is one big tropical forest.

The underground river

I took a daytour to the underground river. It seems to be on the Unesco list of World Wonders. But actually the tour inside the cave was less then expected regarding the pictures you can find on internet. On the pictures they have lightened the walls, which you cannot reproduce sitting in that boat. And I have been in the Lod Cave in Thailand (see older stories) and in Remouchamps in Belgium, so this was not so special to me. However the total daytrip was certainly worth doing it. As mentioned, it is green everywhere, the road to here was very nice. 

We made some view- and toilet stops, and we were redirected to other attractions upon arrival. The told reason for that, was that it would take half an hour to verify all our names, which of course is nonsense. But ok. We could choose between climbing and caving and come back on a zipline (no, thank you) (( apart from the zipline I would have said: yes)), or a tour on a small river. So, nearly everybody went for the river.

Kees on the Amazone-river

We managed to catch some wildlife on picture:

After the boattrip we got a lunch and then went by boat to the beach of the underground river, say 15 minutes ride by boat. Very nice views of the coast while on the water.

Let me try to upload a short video:

The beach upon arrival:

O, by the way: the life jacket is obligated during the boat trips.

On our way through the jungle:

Nearly there.

And here we are.

Very nice surroundings.

Inside the cave:

Well, that was it in Puerto Princesa, 1 last picture on our way back:

As I said, it' s green, green, green everywhere. One big forest. Very, very nice overhere.  Next stop, I am already here now is El Nido, on the north top of Palawan.