ABW Dec 2017

hy’s Fun
n
HK thought that we had been lost at sea, and when
we arrived alive but exhausted, we made the Chinese
newspapers front pages! And here was Andy on his
way to his now home territory of Coron where he has
his own yacht these days, and was here on board
talking to a dynamic Filipina who lived in Coron too,
married to a foreigner. We had a great catch up chat,
and are now back in regular contact. How is that for a
coincidence and definitely reflects just how small the
World really is.
.
On the return journey going to Coron, another
remarkable coincidence occurred, which also showed
how small the world is. David, a Vietnamese refugee
who had grown up in Australia, was in the same
little restaurant with his Filipina wife and their 2 year
old twins. We started talking about spirituality and
many interesting things. I then told him how I had
done some work for Art Valdez, as the editor for their
grand maritime history celebration of the Philippines
with the book “The Voyage of the Balangay” by Art
Valdez and Andy Maluche (photographer). Art had
previously been the Filipino who had organized the
first Filipinos and Filipinas to climb Mount Everest. I
told David the story of how one of the Filipinas had
given birth within a year before she climbed Mount
Everest, and when she came back down she named
her child ‘Himalaya’! David then announced that
Filipina and her husband with Himalaya had lived in
the house next door to them in Coron! BUT then he
told me a tragic up-date, since they had had another
child, a daughter, and when they moved to live on a
boat, she had drowned when 3 years old. They had
then wanted to get away from all the associations
so moved away from Coron, and he thought they
had moved to the Himalayas to live. The World was
spinning again.
*** ** ***
Palawan is the Province out of a country total of 82
that contains ¼ of all the islands in the country -
1,780 out of 7000+ islands. In this magical tropical
arena only an estimated 1% of the total country
population lives, with 250,000 inhabiting the widely
spread Puerto Princesa City itself.
39 nine hours later since our arrival at the dock in
Manila we disembarked in Puerto Princesa, meaning
we had theoretically covered 7 miles per hour in all
the time allotted!
It was a great relief to step ashore at 2.30 am, and
Arnold and his trike took us through the city to our
hotel which we had booked for 2 days online from
Manila. They had been informed by me that we were
coming by ferry, since I had asked them the price of
the trike in my online booking to them, and they had
told me P100.
The Victoria Guest House was padlocked and the
front building was in total darkness, and though we
Entrance to the
Underground River
33