Palawan Vacation, Part II, Underground River

Me and my beautiful wife, Mexica, at the entrance to the park

The main reason we stayed at the hotel we did was that it is close to the entrance to the Underground River. Visiting the river was the highlight of our vacation.

First we took a small boat from a dock near the hotel to an inlet on the coast near the mouth of the river. As you can see in this picture, the island of Palawan has very rugged features, the cliffs in the background were typical of the whole area near the river.

These limestone cliffs are typical of formations all over the island 

From the beach, it was a short walk to the entrance to the cave. There was, however, another highlight of this area, monkeys! To be precise, Long-Tailed Macaques, the primary monkey of the Philippines. I had never seen a monkey in the wild before, and that was exciting in it's own right. There will be a separate blog on wildlife.

At the cave entrance we waited a while for our turn to enter. Entrance is strictly regulated to protect the delicate environment. Only 800 people per day can go in, and the only conveyance is a small boat powered by oar. No motors allowed. Each boat holds 8 tourists plus a guide/paddler.

The entrance to the underground river. 

As far as measured to date, this is the longest underground river in the world, about 8 km, and it is navigable for much of that distance, but the tour we took only goes in about 1 km. It was a very impressive 1 km. The limestone of the cave contains many wonderful and strange formations. From time to time, you could see an offshoot of the cave, going into the distance. Like most large caves, this one has never been fully explored. The darkness was so complete, I couldn't sense the closeness of the walls except when the spotlight was on them. In some places, the river was wide and the roof  was high above. In the highest point, our guide said the roof was 65 m above us.

I say it looks like the root of a giant, if discolored, tooth.

Of course, there were bats, many bats. Neither Mexica nor I got any good pictures of them, though. They were small, brown bats, hanging high in the ceiling of the cave, and the darkness and the distance made good pictures impossible for us. The guide warned us to keep our mouths shut when we looked up. The river, he said, was rich with bat guano. Luckily, the only drips on me were water falling from the ceiling.

We weren't the first ones here, but tourism has increased a lot with the river being named one of the "7 Wonders of the Natural World", so we are sure not to be the last.

3/18/37--Before my time

It was nice to see the sun again

Palawan Vacation, Part I, Arrival

Mexica and I took her mom, dad, and sisters Russia and Miami to Palawan for a few days last week. It was a fun trip. We saw some new things and some very different things. We had some adventures.

Adventure Number One was getting from the airport to our hotel. Our hotel was the Sheridan Beach Resort at Sabang Beach. The airport was the Puerto Princesa airport and they are about 75 km apart, over mountains, and through jungle, quite literally. We arrived at the airport at about 5:15 PM, so by the time we got our luggage and found the hotel shuttle and got situated for the trip, the sun was going down and we made most of the journey in the dark.  That made the whole thing feel very much like an adventure.

Once we got out of the city of Puerto Princesa, we were on a dark two lane road that twisted and turned, with switchbacks and hairpin turns, with only our headlights for illumination. The jungle felt very close. The road was often steep. Most of the time it was a smooth ride, but once in a while the pavement got rough and washboardy--and once in a while, the pavement just plain disappeared. The turns were sharp and it felt like the driver was pushing for speed, sometimes we jolted around and bounced like popcorn in a popper. I think the highlight was seeing a small sign by a wooden bridge, the sign said "Weak Bridge!" We crossed it.

All in all, the trip took about 2 hours. By then the hotel was looking pretty good!

Rainy Day

This is probably the most uncomfortable day I've  had since I've been here in the Philippines. The humidity has been oppressive all day. It's really not been that hot, the temperature peaked in the low 80's, which is mild for here. But, all day the humidity has hovered around 100% and everything feels damp. The floors feel damp, especially the wood. The fabric on the chairs feels damp and the bedding feels damp. Everything is clean and fresh, but it still feels so damp. I took a shower and felt good for a few minutes but then my clothes started to feel damp again. The weather is supposed to be this way for the next few days, and the weather radar shows a large storm system. Thunderstorms are predicted--they're really fun to watch from the 46th floor here.

It rained very hard this morning and many of the streets in the Manila area flooded. The video is from the street in front of our apartment during the storm. Nevertheless, my mother-in-law came by with two of Mexica's little sisters (Russia and Jasmine), and Canada was here already, so there's a house full of beautiful women. Mama Nena made a great dinner and now we're watching (ok, well, they're watching) Filipino TV. They're all giggling and laughing and enjoying the show. It's some kind of talent show, Talentadong Pinoy ("Pinoy are Talented"--if you don't know, Pinoy and Pinay are Tagalog for natives of the Philippines). They have a lot of talent shows and a lot of quiz shows on TV here, and most are pretty funny (even I get some of the humor), but they're really just prolonged advertisements.

It took the family about 2 hours to get here today, much longer than the usual trip of a half hour, because they had to change from cab to tricycle and back again several times--4 or 5 separate vehicles--and it cost 500 pesos, which is more than twice as much as usual, all due to the flooding. The streets were clear by this afternoon, but it's raining again, so the streets are flooding again, so they're all spending the night. It's a little crowded by my standards but not too bad and they're all having fun and mainly, an attempt at a trip home for them would be really dicey.

Cooking Filipino

Mexica and I are working on our Filipino cooking skills. So far, we've developed a pretty good hand with Pork Adobo. Adobo is a basic Filipino food, and really pretty easy, pork, onion, garlic, soy sauce, water, bay leaf, whole peppercorns and something called "magic sarap" (which is an MSG-based flavor enhancer). Most recipes I've read for adobo call for vinegar, but Mexica's family recipe does not include vinegar. Either way, I do love adobo, it's not only easy to make, but it's delicious.

Yesterday I tried making spaghetti Filipino style, and that is a work in progress. I've mastered spaghetti in a more traditional Italian-American style, but Filipinos like their spaghetti sauce sweet and mine tasted too much of Italian spices. I'll have to try again. Today, I'm making Beef Mechado, which is a Filipino variation of a beef stew. I'll let you know how it turns out. It's been fun learning to cook in a new style!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kilo Beef chuck cut into large cubes
• 1 small onion chopped
• 3 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 medium can tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
• 2 potatoes cut into medium cubes
• 1 small carrots, cut in serving pieces
• 1 cup water or beef stock
• 2 bay leaves(laurel)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 sliced lemon or 2 tbsp lemon juice alternative
• 1 red bell pepper
• salt and pepper to taste
• cooking oil

Mechado Cooking Instructions:

Heat cooking oil in pan, add in beef and sear until all sides are brown. Set aside.

In the same pan, saute garlic and onion until soft and fragrant.

Place the beef back in the pan and stir for few minutes.

Add in soy sauce, tomato sauce, bayleaves, water and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat for at least an hour or until the beef is tender.

When meat is tender, add in sliced lemon or a drop of lemon juice. Place in potatoes, bell pepper, and carrots. Simmer until vegetables are tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Turn off heat.

More on "Life in the Philippines"-Rental Agent

The rental agent through whom I rented this apartment has been telling me she is in contact with the condo owner, an Australian, who insists on certain terms for the rental, which I found peculiar. She promised to clarify the issues and get back to me, but she never did.

Well, today I met the owner of the condo. He's an American (not an Australian) and until he arrived in Manila today he did not even know his unit had been rented out--he had authorized renting it, but didn't know it had happened. He had to ask ME how much my rent was. He was not asking for any of the unusual terms the rental agent had requested. One of them was that I would provide 11 post-dated checks to cover the rent from now through next year. Of course he found that as appalling as I did and said he would never do it. They had asked him for 5 years of post-dated checks, but instead he makes a payment each month. He was surprised to find out that he "insisted" that I pay the condo dues. He is paying those. He was surprised to find out that those dues are 2700 pesos per month, as he is paying only 2250 pesos.

Real Estate agents in the US don't have a high rating for honesty, but this woman we are dealing with here takes the cake.

Retirement

Well, I've retired now and I am living in the Philippines. Living here is presenting challenges all the time, but mostly I enjoy it. Nothing happens on time--and any of you know me, know that is a difficult thing for me to deal with. Things are on their own schedule.

We have an apartment on the 46th floor of the Grand Towers II on Pablo Ocampo Street in Manila. We have a wonderful view of Manila Bay. Our first big purchases were a bed/mattress and an air conditioner. The latter is absolutely essential for me, as the heat quickly makes me wilt. I'm getting better but I am not fully adapted yet.

We were supposed to move into our apartment on Monday, the 20th. Instead, we got into a different apartment on Saturday, the 25th. In between, we got delays and foot dragging and things got challenging. We couldn't really afford a hotel for an extra week, so we ended up staying with one of Mexica's aunts for a few days. They were very gracious. The pictures on my Facebook account of me reading to two little kids are of me reading to her aunt's two kids, Yuro and Reika.

Traffic in Manila is SOOOOOO BAD. I was looking out our apartment window and I can see our hotel from there. It is no more than 2-3 miles but driving would take us at least an hour.

I went the US Embassy on Wednesday to get paperwork, and that took me about 3 1/2 hours. Funny thing, the man in line in front of me was from Springfield MA. I never got his story, he was the one unfriendly man in the whole line. The rest of us talked and shared stories and it was pretty interested how we each ended up in the Philippines.

This is a little disjointed, and I am sorry for that. I will post more episodically now, if I can, as I have time. Once we have internet in our apartment, I hope to do better. Right now I'm in a public study room in the apartment complex. Next to the palm trees, the swimming pool and the Jacuzzi tub. More to follow from the Philippines, bye for now!

Heartbreaking Needs-Ketsana (Ondoy)

The caption said these were missionaries, but did not identify a particular church.

I know you are all busy and all concerned with many things. I really do understand that. And, I know that there are many tragedies all around the world every day and certainly every year and that the tugs and pulls of these multiple disasters can be overwhelming. Every one of those disasters yields photos as heartrending as these I've posted.

Nevertheless, I'm going to ask you to consider making a donation to the relief organization of your choice to support their operations in the Philippines. The Philippine capital of Manila, a city of 10 million people, was inundated by 16-22 inches of rain in 6 hours (Katrina dropped 10 inches) from Tropical Storm Ketsana (called Ondoy in the Philippines). The resources of the Philippine government are strained to the breaking point. The Philippine people are mostly poor and struggling in the best of times, and these are far from the best of times. People are going to need clean water, food, shelter, and replacements for the belongings (often meager to begin with). If you can help, please help.

I did some research and ended up giving to a place called Direct Relief International. They usually focus on maternal child health and basic medical supplies. In the current emergency, they say they working on housing, sanitation, and preventing disease outbreaks. The BBB gives them a clean bill of health and they seem to spend most of their money on relief (not on fund raising). There are, I'm sure, hundreds of other organizations doing work that is just as good (maybe better). Please consider giving.

A Day in Three Parts

Part 1-Soccer

I drove up to Whidbey Island today to spend some time with Becky's family, but the main reason I came up TODAY was see one of Lukas' soccer games. So I arrived on time and we drove out to the school yard where the soccer game was to be played. And the other team never arrived. There was some confusion about the schedule and they weren't coming. So, no soccer game. I hadn't expected the World Cup, but this was a bit of a disappointment. For me. The kids, 5 year olds, they didn't really notice, except one boy who was upset because he didn't get his treat.

Part 2-Filipino Food

Becky had told me that there was a new filipino restaurant in Oak Harbor, so we went there. The place is called Tura Tura Island, and the food was great. The waitresses were wearing T-shirts that said "Got Lumpia?" and that was enough for me. We started with lumpia, and then had pancit, bbq chicken, chicken adobo and lechon pork. All very good. There was Halo-Halo on the menu for dessert, but we were all too full!

Part 3-The Beach

Then we went to the beach. It was a beautiful day, mild temperatures, sunny, days that don't happen in May in Washington. The kids found water to play in and Emelia kinda tried to make a sand castle. Lukas got very wet. Zack was just pleased with himself for no clear reason. It was nice and warm and fun. No Boracay, but pretty good!

Earth Day, 2009

I just thought I'd post some random things I found on the web today.



What makes floods in Manila an "Earth Day" posting? The flooding is being blamed, in part, on storm drains that are clogged by trash and debris. One thing I noticed in the Philippines is that littering is unfortunately common. Another thing (not an Earth Day issue) is the mix of tricycles, jeepneys and other vehicles so typical of the islands.

I have to warn you about this link. It is not for faint of heart, but I encourage you to watch it. If you can watch this without crying, I don't want to know you. This is heartbreaking. One of the terrible things about being there, amidst so much want and hunger and need is knowing two things--first, I could help any one of these people I saw, but second, I cannot help all of the people I see. So, who do you help and how do you decide?

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081/Chicken-a-la-Carte

This link tells a similar story, but is set in India. Not as emotionally jarring, but good and (best of all?) very brief at only about 1 minute.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1249/Food-For-Thought/TVE9PStP

And then this one more, with a more upbeat message about being content with the things we have. Now that I've made my last car payment and I admit I'm thinking about a new, bright and shiney car, I need to remember that the one I have works fine and has only 72,000 miles on it!

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1082/Binamban--The-Glorious-Food-of-Lagonoy-/VFVFOVBRPT0rVg==