Monkeying around

Long but interesting day spent visiting communities and sites that are fairly advanced in a project that seeks to provide benefits to communities in return for avoided deforestation of their forests. Palawan is a bit of a tropical paradise and a world away from the choked and crowded Metro Manila.

In the evening we went to a very unique community-based tourism venture where guides from the local penal farm take you out on the river at night to watch fireflies flashing in the riverside trees. With the bio-luminescent plankton in the water I felt like I was in the Little Mermaid - the bit where she's in that lagoon harping on while all the sea creatures dance around and try to get the prince and the mermaid to make out.

This was at the lunch stop where I think things just got a little too much for one of the trip organisers and he felt like dangling over the water...