entering the archipelago really takes your breath away, passing between islands to enter a small bay with islands jutting out of the sea – a beautiful panorama.
[a very bad video of the 360 view]
the day consisted of stopping off at a few different places to snorkel, visiting a “shrine” on one of the islands (sidenote: i must say that the filipinos love these kind-of things. perhaps one could say that this very catholic country over-emphasizes/pushes it a bit too much.), and having a bbq on the beach. my favorite part, though, was just puttering around through the islands. it is so unbelievably beautiful. my pictures come no where close to capturing it.
i must say … i have mixed feelings about the tour. i did enjoy myself; how can i not enjoy a day of sitting on a boat, snorkeling, lying on the beach? but i was … rather disappointed in the behavior of our “guides”. everywhere we stopped we anchored, which just breaks my heart, to know that we are just killing and smashing the coral below. and often they plowed the boat straight into the corals and we had to walk on the coral to reach the beach. this is appalling – there are tons of these tours every day and it appeared that every tour was similarly anchoring. this is supposedly a marine sanctuary, so why are there no mooring buoys? it would be so simple, and would prevent the destruction of so much coral.
but more so, i was just so saddened that our guides didn’t seem to care – about us, about the tour, about palawan, about the environment, nothing. they were so obviously going through the motions and not the least bit compelled to talk to us about the area or reefs or the philippines in general. they did not introduce themselves to us or speak a word (believe me, i tried). and this is typical of our travel experiences throughout this country. people don’t seem keen to tell you about things and overall there is a general lack of information about whatever it is that you’re visiting.
i hate to say this, but it seems that no one wants to share information about the country with you because they themselves do not have pride in it and what it has to offer. it makes me really sad. how can people not be proud of themselves or their country? geeze, if nothing else this trip and experience in the philippines has made me love and appreciate the states more than i ever thought i could (seriously, i am usually one of the first to criticize it). as i said previously, we are shocked by the lack of filipino-owned tourist operations. but maybe this is part of it – maybe this is part of the whole problem. there is no accountability here, no taking of responsibility for problems (i can’t begin to tell you how many times i have been told that the trash in the marine sanctuary is from long beach and none of it every god-forbid from carmen). so then, from the perspective of the work i am trying to do here, no wonder the marine protected areas don’t work – people have no aesthetic appreciation, no environmental ethic. it is beautiful here and people don’t see it or don’t care. they see a way to make money – whether it be by overfishing, illegal fishing, or these island hopping tours where they anchor the boats and destroy the very thing the tourists are here to see.
i am heartbroken by these thoughts.
and to change topics 100% completely, we had a hell of a time getting off of palawan and back to manila. very long story and lots of complications with flights, buses. suffice it to say that we ended up paying 1500 pesos to get a boat ride to the taytay airport at 4:30 in the morning to catch our flight. and this was the airport:
[yup]
this is the smallest plane i have been on. the runway was dirt, which was a bit nerve-wracking, but the plane is adorable. and the view of the reefs from above was awesome.
so there was palawan. no subterranean river, sadly, but we’ll just have to enjoy that next time.
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