If you come to Palawan you should not miss the Underground River. Is the longest navigable underground river in the world extremely touristy? Yes. Must queue on site to get into a boat? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes, yes and again yes!
Saving tip
Tours to the river are also offered from Puerto Princesa. From Sabang, however, the tour is much cheaper, because you save the long drive to the cave. We paid for our guide, the boat and the entrance fee in total 1.300 Peso paid (ca. 26 Euro).
From Sabang we took a boat to the national park, where we had to wait a while for our boat to arrive. But that was half as bad. We passed the waiting time by taking pictures and watching monkeys.
When it was our turn, we got helmets (safety first) and then we went inside the dark cave. The couple sitting in the front of the boat was allowed to operate the spotlight and illuminate the cave for us.
Snakes and bats
The cave is really very impressive. In it live many bats, birds and apparently also small snakes. We saw at least one snaking its way up the wall. No, I did not jump out of the boat because of fright.
To be honest, my first thought when seeing this mini snake was even: Is she cute. Nevertheless, I am still disgusted by these animals and gladly do without further encounters in the wild.
Accommodation in Sabang
The whole tour can be done in one morning. After that we went to the beach. Sabang has a long and very wide beach, where by the way also our accommodation was: a small bungalow.
For about 15 euros a night (including breakfast) we should first stay in a hut with a leaky door, leaky windows and a hole (!) sleep in the floor. Luckily we were allowed to change to the room next door – it didn't have tight windows either, but at least there was no hole in the floor.
Nocturnal visitors
But there were some in the walls, which we noticed only on our last night. Because when we had just turned off the light, suddenly there was a rustling in the room. When the rustling did not stop, we turned on the light and – saw nothing. But as soon as the light was off again, it started rustling again. This time we took a closer look around the room and – discovered a hole in our cracker bag. The crackers I had tied up extra well in two bags to protect them from ants. But here was probably a mouse at work, which had a craving for cheese crackers and had already nibbled off a corner of it.
So we packed the crackers in a more stable bag, turned off the light and lay down again. Not a minute later it rustled and although Basti was immediately at the light switch and the cracker bag was on a chair, we did not see the mouse. But we discovered the huge hole in the more stable door immediately. By the way, in this bag was all our cable stuff, but luckily the mouse didn't chew on any of it.
And how did the whole thing turn out? We put the nibbled crackers out on the terrace, hoping the mouse would pounce on them and be full afterwards. We took the still intact package out of the cable bag and wrapped it in a towel. After that we didn't have to turn on the light again and in the morning the pack was intact. The pack on the terrace, however, also. The mouse was probably tired of running back and forth all the time.
So, I can't tell you much more about Sabang. It's just a cute little beach town where there's electricity only in the evenings, and where you should lay off the mango shakes and drink fresh coconuts instead😉 .
Camera tricks on the beach
Last but not least, I would like to share with you our magical camera series..