35,000 pop in this city, Puerto Princesa, is the only city on this, Palawan Island but the total of the island is about 1 million. Main export is cashew nuts. Tricycles are coloured blue or white depending on day so that is shared between drivers. Main course of income is tourism. Last ships is March and then not til November. 

Mango cannot leave this area cuz they have disease. Gas is 1.68 CAD/ litre…. Wow… how can they afford that? Some boat people from Viet Nam came after war but left to other parts of the world. A half hour into the drive we get a flat tire. 

Some of the homes have walls made of woven bamboo mats and bamboo floor-bahay kubo.., native house used as resting place or lunch area. Usually the very wet season is June July, August, and September and the other is the dry dry season but because of El Nina, they are experience rain regularly now. I would imagine wouldn’t hold up very well in a typhoon. They have been experiencing typhoons in December and January because of climate change….not “normal”. Along the way, we see some rice fields, but they are for personal use only. 

Pinoy is Philippine boy… pinine is girl.  Oops…..spelled it incorrectly before. We passed through a native village of topless women but they are not here right now. We are now in the protected area ….48,000 hectares….  Solar power is only source of electricity.

Destination is Saint Paul Underground River. It’s an hour and half drive to get to where we get a boat to get to the river. While waiting for our boat, the only food offered here is seafood. Lots of vendors trying to sell pearls that we all feel were fake. The part of the river that we going to explore, is 1.5 kms in length out of possible 8+ kilometres. The ride to the river is on a very noisy motorized boat. 

Once at the river, there is to be no smoking (not that we do that anyway) and there is no swimming in area. There are monkeys so no eating or having packages that they will grab from you. We all have to wear hard hats to protect us from the poop from the bats…. Oh and don’t open mouth when looking up…. Lol!