Soju Diaries: Last Moments in Palawan

We planned to take a night firefly watching excursion on the Iwahig River the day we lounged and picnicked at Estrella Falls, but for whatever reason, there was a delay with the family who runs the tours so we were content to sit on one of the picnic benches overlooking the dock and mix 30 cent pints of Tanduay Rhum with Coca-Cola or pineapple juice. When it got to be too late, we all decided to head back into Puerto Princessa for the night and try again after we got back from El Nido.

It was well into dark when we arrived and divided into two canoes. The boys- Tor, Ben and myself occupied one canoe and the girls- Becky, Alicia and Sami followed in another. We were surprised to find that our young Filipino guide was a volunteer, and received no pay. His knowledge of fireflies and the surrounding area was impressive. Among the tidbits that I did not forget was the fact male fireflies flash while flying and females flash while perched. I had expected the fireflies to cover the area in a green glow, but actually, all of the fireflies hung out on a certain type of tree along the bank, and lit them up like they were covered in tiny white Christmas lights. We could also see glowing green plants in the water below. The plankton became a scurrying green fuzz when we slapped the water with out paddles. Our guide was not all business however. When we told him that we lived in Korea he eagerly offered up his opinion of Korean women. "They're hot," he said.

On a more serious note, he did inform us that the river we floated on so peacefully gazing at translucent bugs was the escape route of the few American World War II POWs who escaped their Japanese captors in what became known as "The Palawan Massacre."

Original gate of the Japanese POW camp that was the site of "The Palawan Massacre"

In December 1944, Japanese guards, believing that enemy aircraft was heading for Palawan, ordered the POWs into air shelters, which they soon doused with gasoline and lit on fire. Only 11 POWs escaped and made for the river, while the rest were shot, clubbed, gunned, bayoneted or decapitated as they ran engulfed in flames.

Monument to the fallen POWs

On our last day in The Philippines, Sami and I visited the location for the former POW camp and the site of the massacre. The memorial itself was a harsh statue of a malnourished POW in horrific agony. There was a church nearby the park where the memorial to the POWs stood. The church was big and quiet and we took shelter inside as it started to rain harder. We tried to wait out the storm, but it never subsided so I hailed a covered motor scooter back to the Hibiscus Garden Inn.

We had some time to use up after check-out and the staff there was kind enough to let us sit under the cover of the thatched roof restaurant as it poured. The rain was violent and unforgiving. The timing of the monsoon had me believing that God wishes to extinguish any memory of the horrors that took place at the POW camp up the road. The rain also signified the end of our Southeast Asia vacation. A vacation that brought us to WWII POW camps in The Philippines and Thailand, to torture prisons and mass graves of genocide in Cambodia, to Vietnam War battlefields, to Muay Thai kickboxing arenas, to the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh, and to a foggy pirate boat tour of Ha Long Bay, where a dozen tourists would drown just weeks later. Yes, the rain felt quite an appropriate end to our journey, and I snapped final pictures of the weather beaten, mysterious and yet not out-of-place wood carvings that made their home at the Hibiscus Garden Inn. And then we loaded our bags and drove to the airport.