A Tale of Two Tales(Tails)

The First Tale

Palawan is a beautiful island just to the west of our island of Luzon. I imagine it is much the same as all of the Philippines would be if there were not so many of us living here. We were headed to Palawan to sign our working agreement, called a MOA.  We planned the trip to give us some extra days to visit on the island. Pres. Mosquera is the District President in Puerto Princessa and with his wife has a travel agency. They planned our time there and it was great fun - mostly. 

We began on the first day by visiting some places right in Puerto Princssa. The first was an Alligator Farm

Doesn't this look like great living?!

There were some pretty big alligators in the pond. They raised these guys to breeding age and let them go.

This is the picture of the Island from a hill top

We visited on Baker's Hill, a beautiful garden and aviary

Beautiful birds

I found some projects Dad can do with our rocks

In the afternoon we had our meeting with our wheelchair partner, Bahatala. We really like these people. We met a muslim couple there with their small son. The son had just had the last of his casts removed for club feet correction. He will be in a shoe brace for a few years and then he will be perfect. His life will be a completely different one that it would have been. Anyway, here is a picture of the signing and Cecil Socrates, who runs the organization

Then the fun started. We headed north to Sabang beach. We checked into our wonderful hotel and then dressed for the Underground River tour. From Sabang Beach, you take a Banca boat over to a beach, about a 15 minute ride away, then a short hike and your are at the small lake leading into the Underground River..

I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed, not because the cave you travel through is not fantastic, but because you can only see what is illuminated by a 4" flashlight powered by a car battery. My eyes are just no longer very good to see well in low light.  When I came home I put the pictures in Picassa and added fill light and thought, "Wow, is that what we were seeing". It was a complete new trip through the cave.

Best part for me is that I got to get dressed appropriately for a water activity. Bruce to is dressed for such an activity. He hates shorts.

We walked down the beach in the evening. It was just wonderful. The Sheridan was a beautiful hotel and we sat at dinner and I could see the ocean and the hills at the shore and the temperature and humidity were perfect. It was just one of those magic moments. There are very few tourists, the water is just on the cool side of a bathtub. And the beach was pristine beautiful, absolutely no trash.

The following day we left Sabang beach at 7am so we could make it down to Honda Bay to do some Island hopping. (The Mosquesr’s driver had stayed up in Sabang to drive us. Where he slept I do not know.) We traveled around to 3 islands by banca boat. The first was for snorkeling, Starfish Island. It truly had an area covered with starfish. It was just so much fun. Again, the water is just warm enough to be pleasant. I do not do well in cold oceans, I can only manage for a short time, but this water is all day water. Anyway, they have an area marked off because the corals are so shallow and you can just lay on your stomach and kick your feet and see all kinds of absolutely wonderful fish.  We were anxious to see how great the fish were on the next island and were disappoint that the next two islands were good for swimming but not fish watching. I hesitate to say we went snorkeling as we just lay on our stomachs and look at fish. We wished we had spent the whole time on Starfish Island. But by the time we got back to Honda Bay, about 3 in the afternoon, the water and sun had worn us out and we were ready to be finished. We washed up in a salt water shower, changed clothes and got ready to catch an evening plane for home.

I love to snorkel. I had to rent a mask and I had a really hard time keeping water out. But is was shallow enough you could stand down, unfortunately, on the coral. I guess that is why that have roped off a small area for swimming.

The Second Tale

Unfortunately, the story now turns into a different kind of a memory. We got to the airport (it is a very, very small airport) early. The Mosquera’s driver had been with us all this time and we didn’t have anything for him to do so we had him take us to an early dinner and then drop us at the airport at about 5pm. The plane was scheduled for 8:30. It is always at least an hour late and so we waited, and waited and waited. Then at about 10pm they told us that because of “wind” they were canceling the flight. There actually was no wind but we find that the lights often go out or something mechanical goes wrong. Didn’t really matter, there was no flight. We took a tricycle, our first ride on one, back over to our favorite hotel on the island, got a bed and set the alarm for 4 because they told us to be back at the airport at 5. So we arrived at the airport before 5 and the room is already packed with the people waiting to be re-ticketed. Philippine Air was going to bring in a plane big enough to take all the passengers from the night flight and the morning flight. So they need to get all the canceled flight people ticketed before the morning flight people show up. But we stood in the building and waited til 6am before they started re-ticketing. By now all the morning people are there and it is this giant mob of people. We stood in line for over an hour, waited to board for another hour and they did not finish re ticketing and getting people on the plane til 9:30. It was just too absurd!!!!

When we finally got back to the Manila airport, we ran into Sister Ostler just before we left the restricted area. She is the Mission Pres.Wife in the Manila mission.   She was waiting for Brother and Sister Hiatt. They are full time seniors on Palawan and Sister Hiatt had to have an emergency appendectomy on the island. It hadn’t gone well (the best part of the Philippines is NOT their hospitals!!!!!!!!!) and the Hiatts were on the plane with us coming back to Manila. I hadn't noticed them amongst the mob. I headed back in to find them and help. We stayed with them until Sister Ostler could get them into her van. I felt so bad for Sis Hiatt who was obviously in a lot of pain and had had to wait in that incredible mob of people to get on the plane. She spend a week in the St. Lukes in Manila and is still at the mission home.

So, all in all, I guess I can say with Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Truly our "Tale of two Tails". My Grand-kids will have to wait a while to find our the secret of those two "tails".

I took lots of pictures of Palawan. If you are interested in some more I am sharing the web album