Here is one that you missed David. It has a wikipedia page also. But the UNESCO page has more information.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/652/ I visited this while I was in the Philippines in June. It is quite spectacular and a very fun tour. You take a banca across a bay on the south China Sea to the entrance. Then walk through the jungle and see large monitor lizards. The tour is conducted in mostly Tagalog with a few english words tossed in....and from the laughs of my two traveling companions...the narrative was very colorful. I was able to understand "Texas sized".....while the guide shown a light on a large stalagmite. After the tour, I talked to the guides that spoke english. They reported that the river is navigable to a rock slide around 4.5 kilometers into the cave. But the tour only goes about a kilometer. You do pass through some very large chambers.....and in a very spots...tantalizing black holes could be seen high up on the walls. There weren't any obvious infeeders...and the guides said that there are not any tributaries that enter the cave......but there was a lot more water coming out of the entrance....than was going in at the insurgence. I asked the guides if it was possible to make a through trip...and I got several different answers.....but later talked to a guide who helped explore the cave. And he said a breakdown pile can be reached from both sides...but it was not possible to find the way around. After our tour; we walked back to Sabang on a trail called the "Monkey Trail". Its a wooden walkway that climbs up and over the spectacular tower karst that surrounds the underground river. It seemed like there were caves and pits everywhere. Or at least enough to keep a few cavers occupied for a couple of days. After the tower karst the trail wound through the jungle to several isolated crescent shaped coves...where you could see coral reefs just below the surface of the ocean. Swimming was not permitted due to the coral...but we finally found a beach and took a swim. As we approached Sabang....we had to wade across the discharge from the mangrove swamp as it flowed out into the sea.....and I was stunned by how much water was coming out of the swamp. The fresh water discharged from the swamp was much greater than the subterranean river appeared to be......later that day, we toured the mangrove swamp. And we passed several openings that appeared to be caves where the swamp came up to the karst.....our guides were not aware of anyone ever entering these entrances. I asked where the fresh water came from...and was told that there are several large springs...but the tour did not get close enough to see these. We spent several more days in Sabang enjoying the beach and snorkeling on the coral reefs. And we heard that there are numerous large pits and caves up in the mountains.....but it was a three day round trip hike just to get up there......There are also several other wild caves that you can tour.....and some areas of amazing tower karst surrounded by rice patties. Of course those rice patties were once mangrove forests. We also met the Mayor of Puerto Princesa....he has been very instrumental in getting the National Park established and getting UNESCO recognition for the Subterranean River.......He asked me "when can you come back and see the other caves?" --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
