I am not really an early riser. Most of the time you would find me sleeping the day away. But having slept at 8pm the previous night, I don’t think I can do any more sleeping. Any more, then I might get a headache. Actually, I can’t afford to sleep the day away. Today is the day I go visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site listed Puerto Princesa Subterranean River.
To get to the river, I’d have to take a motorized outrigger to the place. However, the since it was still too early in the morning, (it was not even 6am), the service to the underground river is still not operational. So I started exploring the immediate area of Sabang beach, since I wasn’t able to explore much due to arriving quite late the previous day.
Even though I was still early in the morning, the sun had already risen and it was already bright outside. It seems it is going to be a much better day than the gloomy yesterday. Looking at the far end of the beach, I can see sea spray from the waves crashing onto the rocks near the beach.
On the beach itself, there are hardly any people aside from some fishermen already heading out to sea. No tourists in sight yet. Good. Then again, Sabang isn’t really swarming with tourists to begin with. Most of the tourists who come here are locals from Puerto Princesa or Manila. Additionally, the summer holiday season hasn’t officially begun yet, so even the local tourists are not here yet. Note that the summer holiday season unofficially starts at around the Easter season. People from all over the country would take advantage of the long Easter holidays to go out and see the country. This is one of the places local tourists love to go to.
I grabbed some breakfast near the pier. Nothing much to say about the breakfast here. I approached one of the shops there and they had a couple of huge pots displayed in front. Upon inspection, they actually contained cooked food. I went through all the pots but didn’t really find anything interesting. I just randomly chose some meat, rice and some Milo to wash it all down. It may seem odd to some foreigners but Filipinos also have rice for breakfast.
When the outrigger service finally opened around 9am, I realized that it would be expensive for me to go on an outrigger all by myself. I saw a couple of locals and asked if could share the cost of an outrigger with them. They cheerfully agreed and I’m glad they did. Turns out these guys are from Puerto Princesa City. One of them actually was from Manila and settled in Puerto Princesa. Note that visitors need to purchase the entrance fee from the tourist information center.
Finally, our outrigger was ready. The pier isn’t exactly a real pier, it is just a place where the outriggers are “parked” and are waiting for customers. It seems like there is a system in place for these outriggers. The operators take turns ferrying tourists to the underground river, so each of them get their fair share of tourist revenue. Now I realize why there aren’t any touts around. No one bugging me about whether I want to go see the underground river or not. And that is good for tourists like me.
Since it is not really a pier, we had to wade though knee deep water to get to the outrigger, so wearing shorts is more advisable, you will get wet! Getting on the outrigger itself is a little tricky, luckily, there was someone there to help the passengers board the outrigger. One also needs to be careful wading towards the outrigger because the rocks are quite slippery.
After waiting for the rest of the passengers, we were on our way to see this amazing UNESCO World Heritage Site!
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