Bahala na

This remarkable river cave is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Artremaru, with seemingly hundreds of other outfitters, offered a classy package deal that included a van, a driver, a guide, park passes, boat tickets, a buffet lunch, etc. It was a little too polished for our liking, so Leisel flagged down a tuktuk. It turns out this was a local guy going to work, with a “not for hire” sticker on his windshield, but would you be able to say no to a beautiful mother of four who speaks Tagalog? In truth, like most people we’ve met here, he seemed more than happy to inconvenience himself to help us. This trip was an official “bahala na” day. It means “Come what may.” We had heard that you needed to order park permits 48hr in advance, that wait times for boats were several hours if not pre-arranged, that guides were hard to find, etc. So we decided we would go poke around. If we couldn’t make something work, then we could fall back on the polished tour another day. Well, Leisel had us on a boat with permits in hand an hour after the tuktuk dropped us off!

After the tuktuk ride from our resort to Sebang, we got on a bangka (boat) to access the part of the park that houses the subterranean river (there is no road access). We’ve seen lots of these bangkas and we enjoyed the chance to ride one. They have LOUD engines, but feel very stable. After the bangka ride, we got helmets and took a short jungle hike past some monkeys to the mouth of the cave/river. Here we got onto a much smaller, guide-with-a-paddle-powered, bangka for the tour of the river itself.

The entrance to the cave, though pretty, was fairly unassuming and blended in well with its surroundings. I never would have guessed it led to such beauty inside. There were narrow passages between open areas with huge cathedral ceilings. Stalactites and stalagmites were plentiful. Like cloud-watching, you could see all kinds of creatures and statues in these formations if you looked closely enough, and our guide pointed out many of them. We saw lots of bats hanging, and were sure to keep our mouths closed as we admired them hanging up there.

After the cave and bangka ride back to town, we played on a beach with great waves for a couple of hours. Then Leisel found another tuktuk to take us back to the resort. This one was smaller and lacked some power. The driver warned us we might have to push on a couple of hills. Sure enough, I hopped out twice to give a boost! Some would say that my weight getting out of the trike helped more than anything, but I know the truth 🙂 All in all, this trip was another smashing success!!