Palawan: Sabang

Sabang...wuau...a small village (here they would call it city) that really surprised me (for good). Sabang is in Puerto Princesa, and you can reach it within a 3 hours ride with the Jeepney, even if it is only 120 km away (more or less).

According to my lonely planet guide, there are only a few resorts and hostels to stay in Sabang, but the village has experienced such an increase in tourism, that you can find all the beachfront full of hostels and big resorts.

Why this increase? The Underground River. Declared as the 7th Natural Wonder. the longest underground river in the world. And of coursde a good planning of the tourism. The hotels seem to respect the environment, and there is a very nice and long beach, with a sandroad that separates the hoteles from the beach. Soeven if the 20 meteres salvage zone is not respected 100% (20 from the shoreline to the buildings) it respects the nature environment.

We stayed in one of the hotels in the beach (can't really remember the name (bad marketing of nearly all the hotels of Philippines)). It was nice...simple rooms, nice food, no wifi (hard to find in Sabang),...

The trip to the Underground River was kind of adventurous. We woke up early to catch a boat, but we needed people to make the price lower, so we had to spend some time waiting for other tourists. We finally found a dutch guy, and an australian couple. But it's not that easy. Once you find people you have to put your self in a big queue for the boat....but there is nothing you can do, so my cousin and me, learning from the philippino just enjoyed the waiting talking with a group of teachers from Cagayan de Oro, and playing basketball with the locals! It was a very funny game, and we lost vs a guy with no fingers in his hands and feet.... wuau, he was good, but I can't figure out how he could through the ball that good (allways scoring).

Once we got into the ship and arrived at the Underground River (it's a nice ride by boat) we got into another small boat, to enter the cave. Nice place in there. Lots of stalagmites and stalagtites, a big "cathedral", bats caves, ... the visit is worth it. But what I enjoyed the most, was the way back!

You can go back by boat or take The Mokey Trail. This way back is a 2-3 hours way by foot, going up a few mountains, and discovering a few hidden beaches. The beaches are white sandy and the sea is crystaline. Amazing!

Ah, we took aswell the Zippline. A cable, 800 meters long, that goes from one of the mountains to another white sand beach! The official prize is 550 pesos (9 euro), but we could get it for 350 (6 euro)...but later on, we found out the prize for locals...350, incluiding the visit of some caves in the area! :S Well we are no locals....hahahaha

This day we had to change our hotel, since the first one was full booked, like all the other hotels in the area, so we had to go a bit further away from the touristic beach to find The Blue Bamboo, where we could get rooms for 150 pesos (2,5 euro). The rooms are too basic, with only a matress inside the room, and a shared bathroom...but it was OK... we are backpackers, aren't we? =)

The next day, we took a Jeepney to Salvacion, where you can get another Jeepney if you are going to the north (Port Barton and El Nido), but we were picked up by Mark, who brought us to San Vicente...

More updates soon mates!