Late to bed, early to rise, off to see the Hundred Isles. (Acutally it was the subterranean caves, but that didn't rhyme.)After almost being 欺骗ed at the local Chicken Inato on our breakfast bill (to the staff: don't present a menu w/ "in-house" prices then later attempt to charge us extra for not being hotel guests), we shuttle-vanned to our motorized boats and headed for the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. Once ashore (note: Crocs sandals w/ Velcro straps and seawater don't mix) we had a brief trek before reaching the entrance to the cave, even encountering monkeys and small Komodo dragons along the way. Luckily we made it just before the boatmen were off to take their lunch break.
After donning the hardhats and smelly life-vests, we hopped on the boats --8 at a time-- to be paddled into the "Bat Cave" by Kuya Jun-Jun. Manol sat port bow to handle our big flashlight while I sat aft for picture-taking duties. I'm guessing having indivual lamps attached to the hats would've proved expensive and impractical, as every time you turned your head you risk blinding your companions. As such the inside of the cave was enveloped in blackness, and the only natural sounds were made by birds and water droplets from the ceiling. At least you hope it was water and not bats or birds crapping on you.
Kuya Jun Jun's eloquence in describing scientific and historical data on the cave wasn't so much marred by broken English as it was by his heavy accent. Just his luck the one foreign language he didn't have any familiar phrases to throw at us was Thai. On our way into the cave he shouted to his fellow boatman (who was exciting the cave w/ his charges) that his group was Ong Baks. At least the movie reference wasn't bad.Everything inside felt damp (as opposed to humid), and the air had a strange odor, but it wasn't guano, thankfully. One interesting fact I learned was the krrtt rtt sounds often heard in the caves were actually being made by swallows for echolocation, not bats, as the latter would do it w/ ultrasonics, w/c humans can't hear. Almost every picture I took of the cave ceiling crevices had lots of small bats staring back at me, their guano streaming the walls like chocolate ripple on a marbled icing cake. (Mmm, digustingly tasty...)
Many of the rock formations were left
to the imagination as to how to describe them, be it the "Dinosaur," the Mama Mary, or even a somewhat prerequisite "Jesus Face." (At least it wasn't on a piece of toast this time.) We also saw a snake or two. The whole trip took 45 minutes, and you don't get to see the other end of the cave, at that would drag the boat into much stronger currents that head straight to the South China Sea. After we walked back to shore we had sandwiches for lunch, where I had peanut butter before finding (and missed out on) they brought cheeseburgers, too.
A bunch of us headed back to the city, while the group I was with decided to stay a little longer and hang out at the beach. Sand wasn't Boracay quality, but nice, nonetheless. The Thai group ordered beer and noodles, and even befriended a labrador that decided to hang out and sleep by our table. On our way back to the van I spotted a "hermaphrodog" Manol said he saw earlier, w/c made for a definitely weird endcap to My Day On the Beach.
Once we got back to the city we had less than an hour to freshen up before we were again whisked away for our big seafood dinner at the restaurant by the shore. Despite our rush we missed seeing the sunset by a hair. We had to fill up on the food as the Thai group were preparing to take us out for drinks afterwards, and we needed something to absorb all that alcohol.
At the bar/restaurant ((where Tan siblings Tiffany, Tammy and Earl joined us afterwards) I had my first taste of SanMig Premium, w/c differentiates itself from the original Pale Pilsen by the extra ingredient of hop (whatever that is). The Thais brought the Patron and a bottle of Johnny Walker, of which I also took my one (and only) shot. It was like drinking liquid plastic. Aside from billiards, drinking games and eating what looked (and tasted like) squid guts, a portion of the evening was also spent discussing Jazz's "lifestyle," w/ the big distinction between being gay and a "woman trapped in a man's body" being laid out (he/she's the latter).
As the drinking winded down some of us went to Tiffany's "family disco," w/c was located on the top floor of the Ram Tan building. The green laser light setup really spruced things up, but the real "highlight" were some of the dancing patrons, including an old lady that could give pre-Idol Paula Abdul a run for her money, and a skinny dude that danced in front of the wall-mounted electric fan in some weird attempt to keep himself from sweating up a storm. All of us managed to cut the rug as well, w/ brief Gatorade breaks for recharging. If honor of the late MJ Manol had the DJ play Billy Jean and Thriller. And just when I thought we were finally ready to call it a night (at least Manol did), the Tan sisters brought us to a local diner for some Pho noodles. They tasted sweet, almost as if these rice noodles were in mid-transformation from starch to sugar while drowning in pork stock. Some of their friends joined up halfway, where one of them traded sexual come-ons (and put downs) and did the David Blaine cigarette ash trick w/ Jazz. The former she "won," while the latter "got" her. Guess she didn't watch that "Street Magician's Secrets Revealed" TV special a few years back.
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