BLeroy

So yesterday we spent most of the day island hopping. We went to this far island called Ahas Island because it was long and thin and shaped like a snake. We stopped there to swim. Lauryn was scared of putting her head under water to look at the fish but our Boatman, some old sailor named Jes, managed to get her to do it and she enjoyed herself. The Boatman told her to feed the fish either biscuits or bread and the fish will swarm so Lauryn volunteered her entire stash of skyflakes.

He was saying just 10 years ago, they didn't have fish there until they put up nets to basically keep them in the area because of the mayor of Puerta Princessa. Speaking of, this place is swarming with gays, foreigners, and mail order brides. People aren't quite sure what to think of me here. Mamang says they probably just think I'm a muslim or something. Still, at least, they still speak Tagalog rather than Visayan because 'd really feel out of place here then.

Lauryn finally also got to ride a tricycle. She wanted to ride in the back because she rode once with Lee and said it was fun. It old her riding here isn't so fun because you're not moving very fast and the roads are really bumpy. Also, weirdly enough we ran into one of our cousins here. A distant relative of mom's - another offshoot of the Jaldon family called Dalagea. He sold us some pearls and stuff like that.

The day before that, we went to the big Tourist attraction here in Palawan, the underground river. We saw a bunch of different kinds of bats and swallows. But before that, we were outside waiting for our boatmen to finish eating lunch. Lauryn and I were playing with a monkey called the Long Tailed Macaque - they were in Wild Boyz playing with the same monkeys. They're really friendly though they kept jacking bags of chips and shit like that from the other people.

They also had these big ugly monitor lizards but they were generally friendly too. People were pulling on their tails and our boatman just said just to make sure to stay away from their head if you're messing with them because they bite hard and can give you infections from the bacteria in their teeth.

When we got out of the river, Lauryn was trying to play with one of the monkeys which then started hopping toward her until the Boatman chased it off. He said the monkey probably thought Lauryn was just going to play with him and then got a bit scared when she got closer.

We're going back to Manila tomorrow. Today we're more or less just relaxing and mom wants to go shopping.