Arrival

The adventure within the adventure began on time.  Caught the night bus to Manila.  The ‘Manila’ bus essentially comes in three flavors:  1) there is the plush Air Con bus complete with deep reclining seats and bathroom, free wi-fi and even a movie.  2) then there is the Air Con bus.  As best I can tell it is the same bus but without the bathroom, wifi/movie.  Finally, there is the non-air con bus which I can only imagine is hell on earth to ride.  There are only two reasons you would opt to buy a ticket for bus type 3 - either you haven't the money for upgrade, or you are buying a ticket for someone you want to torture.  During the typhoon scare, the PC splurged and set us to Manila in luxury.  I opted to return from Manila, and also take this trip on bus type #2.  This is perfectly fine for me.  There are several small stops along the way where they allow you to disembark, serve nature, and even eat a small meal.  As I think I mentioned these trips are long affairs…. upwards of 11 hours from door to door and sleep is elusive at best, even with the comfy seats.  Anyway, the trip went off without a hitch and I found myself in the bowels of Manila at around 4:30am.  I was nervous of the unknown but caught a cab easy enough and was quickly at the airport where I waited for the 1:10pm flight… I am going to do a separate posts on waits… you just wait!

So, I finds myself in Puerto Princesa after about a 1hour flight.  Caught a tricycle and began scouting for a room.  I had done my research before hand and had a list of potential places in which I was interested (thank you tripadvisor.com).  I settled on a place called the Color Mansion: close to the action, air con, clean, nice owner, shared bath (~$15/nite).  Of course, I had heard by then that there was a tropical storm out there moving my way, so I had that to occupy my thoughts.  How exciting!!!   Nothing like a new years eve tropical storm to juggle your pians, right?!  Anyway, I was pretty exhausted, so after a quick bite to eat and a few beers, I retired.

I awoke early and was eager to learn about the storm.  It was indeed looking bad.  Over 50 people had perished overnight on the island of Bohol (where I went last time) - a giant mudslide just took them out. So sad.  I swear, someone must have cursed that place.  Anyway, this storm was showing no signs of losing force and fears were that it might just increase in intensity as it approached.  It was far enough away for now though and my vacation plans called for me to do a trip to Sabang to visit the underground river.  Well, nothing on the internet nor my Philippines guidebook mentioned that these trips leave at 6:30am and that it is best to book a day ahead!  After some long walking and talking, I just resigned that I had missed out on the underground river.  At some point, I got to talking to a very sweet Japanese woman who was traveling with her family and she suggested that I might be interested in doing an island hopping tour like they were doing.  Hey, that sounded great, and besides, I didnt have any other ideas.   Thing is, as nice as I was, they were traveling as a family and wanted to keep it that way.  Thats fine… this solo traveling doesn't scare me!    Well, it wasn't long before I had jumped a tricycle headed for a snorkeling excursion that would allow me to visit 3 islands in Honda Bay!  

Got to the dock at Honda Bay to witness absolute chaos!  There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of tourists queuing for this boat or that boat, this tour or that tour.   No (zero) organization - and these tour guides do this every single day!  I mean, don't misunderstand, the filipinos working this scene could not be more honest or polite, but the scene is madness because THEY are the only ones who know how the day is going to end, right???   So many languages, lets see, easily this crowd had: French, German, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Russian (I say Russian but there were probably 10 countries in that mix of what I would generalize as ‘Russian” because to my untrained ear, the languages sound too similar).  Oh, I almost l linked in with a group of italians, but that fell through at the last second.  Oh and I talked with a nice couple from New Zealand for awhile.  (Ive got a new place I want to visit, by the way!)

Ok, so I was able to get the help of a nice filipina gal named Emily and she linked me with a great group of folks.  Me being solo helped I might add because I was easier to slip into the boat/group/guide,  I rented my snorkel and mask and we were soon on the water.  There were probably around 15 of us on this bannka…  2 dutch couples and the rest a mix of asian cultures and languages.  

These islands were amazing…   and they just kept getting better with each one we visited.  At the second island, we were treating to a most superb lunch of grilled fresh fish, prawn soup, rice, bananas, pork…. awesome… I mean really amazing!

By the way, Honda Bay gets its name because it is so very deep..  I think Honda means deep in Tagalog!  Who knew?!  Well this made the snorkeling fun because when you ventured off into the water, it wasn't long before the depth dropped, and it dropped rapidly!  This made for some great sites!  

Anyway, we all had a great time… I met some new friends and it ended up being a full day adventure.  I got back to my pension at around 5:30p and was exhausted.  A quick dinner, a few beers and it was lights out for me….. Next morning, I would leave early for Port Barton!!!