Another World Heritage Site that become a New Seven Wonders of Nature I have visited this year, the heavily advertised underground river of Puerto Princesa on the beautiful island of Palawan which at present claimed to be the most desired tourist destination in the Philippines at least in the eyes of Filipinos. I began my trip at the airport of Puerto Princesa, which is the capital of Palawan, after almost two hours' drive on the almost perfect concrete road passed many beautiful bays and forest; I finally arrived at the small beach village of Sabang which located on the different side of the island. It is important to note that after the Underground River become world famous, the park authorities started to limit the number of visitors per days, so it is necessary to book the time slot in advance especially in the high season. So, the best advice is to deal with travel agent or hotel to arrange all permit and transportation before you decided to visit.

After relaxing in my hotel, my guide took me to the port where I realized that the place is really popular for locals, I saw hundreds of Filipinos were waiting for their queue to be on boat in the large tent. Looking at locals was quite interesting, as most of them already worn the souvenir T-shirt with catching phrases liked I've been to Underground River, Underground River Conqueror, even before they actual visit the site! After waiting for an hour, I finally able to be on boat, the ride took around 30 minutes along the coastline of pretty Karsts Mountain and forest before mooring in the small, lovely bay. Then I walked into the forest until I reached the small lagoon which is the Underground River's entrance. Here I saw another large crowd waiting for another boat trip to go inside the Underground River, this place seems to be less organized than at the port, tourists have to wait and sit in the forest or on the beach and let their guide to fight for the boat queue (another reason to have guide)! I waited in the forest about 20 minutes then my guide gave me helmet and life jacket and took me the boat. Each boat can carry 8-10 persons including boatman. On my boat, there were Filipinos and two Japanese, but the boatman welcomed us with English, Korean, Japanese then local language. The boatman paddled us into the cave and warned us about bat shit which sometime dropped like a shower rain inside the cave!

The cave inside was so dark, the boatman and person who sat on the front row had to work together to light the way. There were many nice dripstones and strange shape rock formations. It is very interesting to hear what locals imagined and named those bizarre rocks, and the Christian Filipino did their best to suit their faith, so I saw rocks looked like Virgin Mary, Nativity, biblical places etc. and the biggest chamber called the Cathedral. Some stones named normally like mushroom, corn etc, but some got strange name like Sharon Stone because it looked like sexy lady! The boatman took me back to the entrance but the different port, before back to Sabang by boat. The tour was surprisingly enjoyable, the cave and the underground river were very interesting, and the locals on the boat always praised the wonder of the cave as god's genius creation. For Filipino, the cave is a real wonder by God, but for me this is not the first time I saw subterranean river, I saw the similar ones at Gunung Mulu in nearby Malaysia which is not developed as tourist attraction at all and Wulingyuan National Park in China which dammed the subterranean river to high enough for boat riding! However, the one in Philippine is in the middle, they developed the place for tourist industry while keep the cave pristine as much as they can, and that really nice for preservation. In my opinion, Puerto Princesa's underground river is not a world wonder, but a really nice World Heritage Site.