01.07.15. It was on a Wednesday morning when Yanti and i woke up early, ate our breakfast at the Marianne Hotel and had ourselves ready by 7:00AM. This was the time we were supposed to be picked up for our tour but it was not realized as the tour guide only arrived at the hotel at around 7:30AM. It was Marianne Hotel who booked us for an
Underground River (UR) tour.
Yes! They are late by 30 minutes. But wait, there's more exciting things which had happened. The guide and van driver took us to Puerto Princessa Gym. I was wondering what we were about to do there, when i was advised by Marielle (Maple Travel & Tours) that they ran out of permit thus, we need to walk in so we could get our permit for the underground river. Permit serves as your ticket to the UR. This is issued by the local government of Puerto Princessa.
It was at 8AM when the permit issuing office opened. We finally got our permit to the UR plus a hardcopy of our certificate of Achievement for having been able to conquer this one of the 7 wonders of nature. This was really a bit off as we were given this paper even though we have not started the tour yet.
From the PP Gym, we headed to several hotels to pick up some other guests who would go with us to UR. It was only by past 9:00AM when we were able to leave the town onwards to UR.
After an hour drive, we had a short stopover at the Buenavista View Deck where a small food stall were housed. This point served as a viewing deck to the Tres Marias island. Too bad i didn't capture the island.
Our next stop over was at the Ugong Rock Adventures (Caving, Zip Lining, Massage, etc). Yes, we only signed up for UR tour but there seems to have been a couple of optional activities. Though this is optional, we didn't really have a choice but to wait for our group to finish their activities.
Yanti and I were so lazy to do the caving so we decided to just grab some refreshments (soda and halohalo). She apparently got bored waiting for the group and decided to go and get some massage.
This view is epic! A pathway which would lead you to the massage set-up under a nipa hut with a beautiful backdrop of the Palawan hills.
Massage area.
Finally! We arrived at the warf at around 12nn. Just in time for lunch. So our guide took us to Gusto Grill to have our lunch buffet (but don't expect much, this was just a carenderia buffet). The food was not bad at all but too far from what we expected by the way Travel agencies oversell their tours. We were advised to have a seafood buffet but we didn't see any sea creatures on the table at all. They served us meat (pork) and veggies instead plus some weird desserts (gelato).
Here i was waiting for our turn at the warf past 1pm. We were queued at number 91. This was really such a waste of time, specially for someone who only wanted to see the UR.
At around 2:15PM, we finally arrived at the drop off point. We kept on telling Marielle to keep an eye of the time as we still had to catch the 6PM (last) trip to El Nido and we need to be back in our hotel by 5PM. Marielle was so positive and we were assured many times that we could get back to our hotel by 5pm.
It was at 3:45PM when we were able to jump off the paddle boat on our way to this Magnificient wonder of Nature.
Good thing Marielle insisted to have us get an audio device with a recording of some UR facts. The VO sounds like a NatGeo talent. There were multilple sections of the UR but honestly, i only remember a few. There's the Cathedral, the Market, and 3 kings. The section's ne were based on the formation inside i.e Mama Mary statue, vegetable resembled rock (eggplant, lettuce, etc.).
I was really amazed with how beautiful the interior of the cave was. It was my first caving experience where i didn't feel like a claustrophobic. The underground river has a total lenght of 8 kilometers but the tour would only ran on the first 1.5km for roughly 45 minutes back and forth.
We finished the tour and was able to come back at the mainland by past 5PM. There was no way for us to get back into our hotel by 6PM as the travel time would take (at the least) an hour and a half. Good thing Marielle was able to make an arrangement with Fortwally Agency to pick up our luggage at the hotel and we were just to wait at Robinsons Mall.
Overall, i really enjoyed cruising inside the cave. However, i would honestly say thay the whole day tour was definitely a waste of time due to some unwanted optional activities. I would suggest thay Travel Agencies should prioritize the Underground River tour over the other sidetrip activities. After all, people go there mainly for the Underground River.
