Earth Hour + Paradise and Chaos

Earth Hour - Saturday, March 27

8:23pm
still in front of my computer in the residence room. What am I doing there?! Should be outside looking from the sea front promenade the Hong Kong island turning "black" or as much black as it can be...

8:28pm
finally moving my body out of this room with my camera in my everyday big purse.

8:43pm
Arriving on the footbridge where i normally jog looking at hk island, there are 5 exchange students from PolyU beside a bench with candles and light sticks. After several attempts, here they are doing the word "earth".
9:06pm
After letting these guys going for dinner, I continued along the promenade to find people dancing on rock'n'roll song in the middle of the Avenue of Stars
9:16pm
This was the darkest that I have seen Hong Kong; the corporations that didn't turn their logo off looked pretty stupid.9:24pm
Arriving at the Earth Hour kiosk, the show was already over and they were dismantling the installations, even if the hour was not over yet. Luckily, I cut this 60 made of vents but the bikes that were attached to it to make them turn were already gone.9:30pm
the hour is over and the lights of Hong Kong are turning back on. After all, hk in "black" didn't look bad at all.


Paradise and Chaos

Easter brake was coming up. Didn't want to freeze myself in HK and in China like I did during the Chinese New Year break.

Destination:
First, the Island of Palawan (it is known as HAVEN of the PHILIPPINE WILDLIFE) and then a quick stop in Manila in the Philippines (as I called it: the Chaos)

Crew:
1 Quebecois-Korean, David, 1 Québécois born in Brazil, Michael, 1 Japanese, Aki, David's cousin from the US, Hans, une Québécoise de St-Valérien, moi, and 1 Eastern European named Artur that we met along the way.

Let's start with the beginning: the Paradise

Since I didn't have courses during the week, I left HK a couple of days earlier to go straight to Palawan in a resort and save on the plane ticket. After a connection in Manila, I landed at the small airport of Puerto Princesa just passed 5pm.
On the island of Palawan, there's only power between 6pm to around midnight. Otherwise, people have generators or just no electricity. When the luggage arrived on the conveyor belt inside the airport, there was no power. Everyone on the flight were along the belt to get their suitcases and looked at each other with confusion seeing that the people needed to carry the bags by hands, passing it to the neighbor to move it down the motionless conveyor belt. Once my backpack on my back, got out of there and spotted the lady from Crystal Paradise Resort holding a sign with my name on it.
The van was waiting and only one other person was going to the resort in Narra: a German working in Hong Kong. The driver headed south for a 2 hours ride. The sun went down pretty quickly and the full moon appeared behind the horizon, bigger then usual and with a tint of yellow. The roads to Narra and the resort were not too bad but still construction on them. The driver was honking the horn when getting into a small village as a sign of his presence.
When I finally got to the resort, they had fresh flower necklace and fresh coconut juice waiting for me.
What is fantastic about getting somewhere at night is that you know in the morning you'll discover a whole new place that you saw differently the night before.
Here's the building that I was staying in.
The resort has 3 villas along the water after the rows of coconut trees.

The hotel manager told me to be careful not to be hit by a falling coconut when walking around. The German in the van coming to the resort said that there are more death in a year from falling coconut then from sharks attacking humans. We were talking about how some kids of our generation had been traumatized by the movie Jaws... I had to go to the Philippines to find a German that was also not too keen on getting in the ocean alone because of everything that is in there and blaming it too on this 1975 film and the 3 others that followed until 1987! (I just found out that there is a 2010 trailer of Jaws 5...)

The beach wasn't that amazing. Very narrow.
As in nearly every time I go at the beach when traveling, I cut my foot on a rock under the water on my first day there. I had a whole week and a half with the foot in salty water. It didn't started to heal until I got back to Hong Kong.

After visiting the resort, I booked a lunch a Estrella Falls that was offered by the hotel and hit the road with a driver and the guy of the hotel that takes care of the water sports equipment.

Cutest chapel, out of nowhere. The garland were made with inflated colored tiny plastic bags.
After 2 hours inside the back of a truck traveling in the countryside, we got to Estrella Falls.
The guy from the hotel told me that the government wants to build a hydroelectric dam at Estrella Falls and the population is trying to protect the area. Sometimes you are on the other side of the world and people are facing similar problem to similar situations. The waterfall here had not a big rate of flow, but since they only have power for 6 hours a day, they are looking for any options to produce electricity. Hope they manage to protect the falls and keep it has it is. It was a lovely area where a lot of locals and some tourist come to swim in the fresh water from the mountain and have lunch.


Even the monkeys are getting some fruits.
Mini blue truck: my mean of transportation for the day.

Elections were coming up in Philippines when we got there so on nearly every house there was posters from political parties.




After the visit, I went to catch the little bits of sun left for the day at the resort. Getting to a quiet spot, i tried to lay the towel on an area without tiny sand crab. Was hard and ended up surrounded by them. Even one was stock underneath my towel for the time i spent there...

The manager of the resort was calling it the gecko farm. It's true that there was many of them. When sitting on the balcony, had loads on the ceiling around the lights. I prefer to have geckos more then spiders actually.
In extra of the gecko, there were these cock-chafer but twice the size. I was reading on the balcony about SWOT analysis of construction project in China (having a term paper to hand 2 days after getting back to HK) and the huge not so talented flying bug landed right on my back. (really prefer the geckos)
On the second night at the resort, the moon was still amazing in the sky so had some fun with my camera.



The next day, I was supposed to go on a boat heading for what they call the Turtle Island, that can be seen from the beach of the resort. I was sick when I woke up (nothing from the area, women sickness) and miss the day trip. When feeling better, I decided to lay on what was looking like grass but was dry and prickly. Nonetheless, I felt asleep on my towel and got a big sun burn on my back.



The Friday morning of my departure, I woke up early to take some pictures of the sunrise. Since Narra is on the east coast, wanted to take advantage of it because the following destinations on the island were going to be on the west coast with the sunset.


The manager of the resort, Nick, asked his employee to show me how they remove the coconut off the trees. Pretty impressive how these guys get up there without any equipment.


When it was time for me to go, I had a transport back from the resort at Narra to the airport in Puerto Princesa to meet the guys that were arriving from Manila. I got so used to have cell phone to be able to reach people at anytime that when I can't (as it was the case in the Philippines), just feel lost a bit. On top of that, Aki was arriving on one flight and the 2 Quebecois were on another plane. While waiting for them, I started dealing a transport for El Nido and got one van for all of us with 6 hours of driving for about 7-8000 pesos (about 175CAD).
When everyone arrived, we understood that the van wasn't actually there but they had to drive us to the location office in what they called the tricycle, one of the most common way to get you around. Micheal took a picture of our vehicle; David ready for the ride to go and get the van.
We waited at the location office and were hoping to actually get a van. Finally, it arrived, met our driver, paid cash to the owner and got inside. It took me a moment to stop laughing about the interior decoration.
Leaving the rental, we had to go to pick up David's cousin at her hostel but she wasn't ready so we went to a bank to withdraw some pesos. Waiting in the car for Micheal and David to come back from the atm, the driver started asking me about how much I paid his boss for the transport and showing me the official price list. After an awkward discussion, he finally asked me if "a friend" could come in the empty seat in the front for the whole ride. Getting everyone agreement on this, I told the driver that it was ok but asked him not to renegociate the price anymore (last thing I wanted was to get ripped off).
Finally, we got the pesos out of the atm machine, reached the 6th person for the empty seat (Artur) while picking up David's cousin and hit the road. The guys had barely slept in their hotel in Manila and were sleeping like babies in this lovely environment regardless of the road condition.

Since it was the Easter weekend, a lot of things (meaning everything) were closed in the town of Roxas when we stopped for lunch.
Thanks to our driver, the owner of that restaurant accepted to cook us some roasted chicken with rice and cold beer. That's where we discovered that the Palawan roasted chicken is really the best! (picture from Micheal)
The sun went down before we arrived at destination so we stopped where we had a good view to see the sunset in a bay.
We were staying at the Greenview resort in Corong-Corong, in a small bay just south of El Nido. After dropping our luggages, we walked on the road to El Nido for dinner.
One thing you learn in Philippinos restaurants is to be patient and not to expect to be all served at the same time. Beer and sea food were good once they finally arrived at the table.

Waking up in the morning, I went straight to the beach with my camera to discover the magnificent view.

Then walked in the resort garden around the cottages to take some pictures of the flowers.



I have complained before of my cravings for bacon and the lack of this essential food in HK. Luckily, I had the opportunity to calm my cravings in Palawan! Best bacon for breakfast!
The bread was tasting pretty different from back home; more sweet than usual. Here's a picture from Micheal showing the tasty breakfast and the amazing view from the restaurant that is on the second floor of the main resort building.
One of the great things that the resort has to offer is the island hoping tours. You go on a day tour on secret beaches and lagoons (not so secret anymore). Two guys were bringing the six of us on a wooden pumpboat. The day tours were including lunch on an island. We decided to start with the beginning: Tour A – Big/small lagoons Miniloc & Simisu Islands, 7 Commando Beach.



The island that looks like a turtle.





In the middle of the big lagoon, there was a platform for us to swim from. We all started to do some funny jumps in the water.



Picture from Micheal:
The day tours were including lunch on an island so after the jumping and swimming, we stop on this little beach to eat freshly grilled chicken (Palawan's best), salad and rice. With a cold San Miguel, this was really paradise. Here's a picture from Micheal of the feast:










picture from Micheal:
I cannot look at this picture of Artur without starting to laugh like crazy! Coming back to the resort we stop on that beach to look at the sunset. Artur started to have some fun with a coconut leaf. Thanks to Micheal to have cut this moment!


(picture from David)




When we got to the resort bay, the boat had to stop at a distance from the beach since the tide was low we had to walk from the boat to the resort. The sky went all pink and the view was simply breathtaking. This one is on my top 5 sunset!
We then decided after getting clean from all the salty water (it was very salty in Palawan), to try the resort restaurant for dinner. Here's a happy red customer with her grilled stuffed squid; it was delicious! (picture from David)
The next day, we decided to book another island hoping tour, a more adventurous one: Tour C – Secret Beach, Martinloc & Tapuitan Islands.

At lunchtime, we stopped on another beach and while the fresh fish was grilling, our 2 guides started making bugs and animals out of leaves.



One of the surprise of the tour was the visit of the chapel, built on a very remote island that has the shape of a heart. The Chapel was built ages ago but it is quite deserted now. There are still events that occur there organized by the community.


At the Chapel site, you can climb a very abrupt cliff with tiny steps beside sharp rocks to go where they installed a cross and enjoy the view.
As it shows on this pictures of David below the black rocks that made the islands are pretty sharp, mainly limestone and marble. It is really a contrast with the soft golden beaches. Adding the very salty turquoise water creates a paradise that is hostile (to non marine life).

Here's a picture from Micheal of us on the quay of the Chapel site.
Again when coming back from a long trip after snorkeling, going under rocks to access lagoons, we were welcomed by a wonderful sunset.


We decided for our last night in Corong-Corong to go for dinner in El Nido. We went to the only place in town where they have live music. It was reggae night. The place was full and many singers and musicians went on stage. The bands were talented and it was a great ambiance (beside the huge bug that felt from the ceiling and landed on me before getting down my leg to get to the floor...)
The town of El Nido (the nest in Spanish) was named in 1954 after the bird nest that can be found in the crevices of the limestone cliffs (similar mountain formation then in Guiling, China, Halong Bay, Viet Nam and Krabi in Thailand). These edible swiftlet nests, made of the birds saliva, are very popular in China and are sold at a very expensive price. In El Nido, you can eat them in the famous nest soup in which the nest are cooked in a chicken broth. This is what I tasted with Artur as an starter.
The soup and the ambiance was really good but I had the worst food of my entire trip in that restaurant. I had been lucky so far but not this time and ordered the worst thing on the menu: sizzling tuna steak that came not quite sizzling, dry and over cooked.


The next morning, we were leaving very early to get on another private van to get to Port Barton, leaving our friend Artur behind us. The roads were so terrible. We had left early and everyone just wanted to sleep during the ride but couldn't, at the exception of Aki that was dead sleeping in the passenger site!
On top of the bad road conditions, the dust was coming in the van. At one point, we had all our shirt on our face not to breathe any (except for Aki that was sleeping), but this was nothing compare to the condition in which the people were traveling in the jeepney. These are similar to old school medium size buses back home. The exterior are normally very colorful with yellow and red, lovely decorated. They don't have any AC, rolling the windows fully opened, overcrowded and with people and random stock (worst seen was a motorcycle, not to mentioned animals) attached on the outside. Here a picture of David showing the back of one of them. The ride from Puerto Princesa to El Nido in Jeepney is 9 hours (really, how can you complain after this).
We arrived at the Greenview Resort in Port Barton without any reservation; same owner, different place. Luckily, they had empty cottages for us.







After dropping our luggages, we went to get some food, and drinks. Aki and I were thirsty and ordered Red Horse beers at the first bar we saw thinking we could drink it on the way to a restaurant, but the owner didn't agree with us. We had the finish the beers before continuing our search for some food.
We stopped at Judy's restaurant that was saying outside "Welcome to hungry foreigners". For a place that didn't have electricity at lunch time, they had the best veggie burger with egg, ham, cheese, pineapple; actually, the only thing that was veggie in this burger was the meatball.
another hungry crowd...
Recycling
After lunch, Aki, Micheal and I went hiking to a water fall. On the way, farmer were making more field space by burning some forest area.
It was very hot and humid that afternoon. I was sweating like a pig even if it was a ridiculously easy hike. At least, there was a fresh source of water and an amazing view when we got there. (picture from Micheal)

We arrived back on the beach right on time for the sunset.

5 am the next morning, we were back on the pumpboat heading for the underground river just north of Sabang. I was reading about SWOT analysis regardless of the noise of the pumpboat while the others were sleeping.
Our guides left us in a bay and we had to walk to the park entrance. Arriving to a small lagoon, there was the 8 km long river entrance.
Monkeys and iguanas along the way.



Waiting for our turn to get on the boat. We looked like were all alone waiting on this picture of Micheal but there were a lot of people behind us.
(Picture from David)
David took a picture of the car battery at the front of the boat, giving electricity to the lamp that light up the cave. Safety first!
At this point, the batteries for my cameras went dead. So, no more pictures from me for the rest of the trip (had left my charger back in hk...).
After the visit, we went back on the pumpboat to the town of Sabang for lunch. A van was already waiting for us to get to Puerto Princesa. We ate something quick (in Philippinos sense of timing) and left.
(picture of Micheal)
Kisses from a friend. Would have brought this one in my suitcase. (picture of David)
In Roxas, our driver stopped for some gas; we offered him a popsicle before hitting back on the road. In Palawan, every pops had milk in it to my disappointment.
(picture of Micheal)
Getting back to Puerto Princesa, we went directly to the airport for our late afternoon flight. David's cousin was staying longer on the island. David and Micheal were on the same flight back to Manila with a different airline company than Aki and myself. We were on 3 different flights with 3 different companies... The guys could do their check-in but the counter of the airline company that I was with wasn't opened yet. I waited longer at the airport and then went to join everyone at a pizza restaurant near by. I saw the first driver that took us to El Nido. He recognized me and thanked me again for the pencils I gave him for his 4 kids.
The pizza at the restaurant was the worst I have had (sorry Micheal, I know you didn't agree with this...). The cheese was some single kraft put on top of a terrible crust. No more pizza for me in Palawan!

The Chaos

Leaving the hostile paradise for a intriguing chaos, I landed first at the airport of Manila. I thought there was only 3 terminal at Manila int'l airport but there was another one, without any number, the domestic terminal. I landed at terminal 3 and discovered that David and Micheal that I was supposed to wait for at that terminal were actually gonna land at the small domestic terminal. I waited for the shuttle (the airport shuttle services is a 2 way service, if you're lucky your in an old bus that you don't pay for, otherwise you wait forever in a new van and pay for the ride), the every 15 minutes shuttle was very late. When it finally arrived, the driver was waiting for it to be full to get as much money as possible before leaving. It took forever and once it was full there was too many people and I was sitting in between 2 seats. Finally got to the right terminal and saw David and Micheal waiting for their bags (thank God!). Then we tried to take another shuttle to the terminal 2 to meet Aki that was landing a little after us. Once we got everyone, we found a cab to bring us to the area of Malate within Manila. On the road to downtown, we saw kids in the streets selling necklaces between the cars at a red light; a river that was boarded by shanty town and was more looking and smelling like a dump then a river; the biggest shopping center in Asia; Manila waterfront promenade... We finally got to our hostel, drop the luggage in the room and then went out to find a restaurant. We had found this Spanish restaurant near by in the Lonely Planet guide. The restaurant had good Spanish live music.
Then we walked a little bit around, seeing a private security guard at every commercial entrance with a gun and a bullet belt; kids sleeping in tricycles parked on the street; girls (or what looked like girls) on the sidewalk trying to get guys to come inside "bars".
This was the view from the common area of the hostel that David took a picture from.


The next morning, we got ready but took the time to go eat breakfast beside the hostel. The restaurant had 2 entrances and each of them was watched over by a guard. Going back to the hostel after a good breakfast, we cross an intersection without any road signs with a guard with a shotgun and a sign that was saying to the drivers to pay attention not to cause accident (I thought that they could maybe put a stop sign and that would have been alright)...
We all went to the airport and the guys left for Hong Kong while I waited a couple of hours to take my flight. The waiting seats are mainly outside the airport of Manila at this terminal since people without a boarding pass cannot go inside. After long hours reading about SWOT analysis, I was happy to leave for Hong Kong, even if I would have stayed longer in Palawan...
A lot of things were awaiting for me back in HK; term paper to write and my friend Joëlle was arriving from Vancouver to visit and to go to China together. Our trip to Guilin, Yangshuo and Beijing will be in the next update.