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Published: January 14th 2017
13-15 th Jan
My heart skipped a little beat when I woke up and realised I didn't have to do another boat trip - those that know me know, and we were returning to a lovely room where I could get clean and dry! That aside it was up to the Terminal to catch the mini van at 10.30 am for PP. We arrived in plenty of time and were joined by a young Canadian lass and an older English man, we were told to get on board but the first row of seats were reserved hmm????? Anyway we piled in and waited and soon a group of 5 Americans arrived, 2 couples where both wives were originally from the Philippines and one son.
One couple got the first row seats, ok..... Then all hell broke loose as the bus driver tried to add in another 2 removable seats, they went ballistic! It was quite funny really, the Filippino wife was going crazy with the driver who then got the manager and after much yelling and swearing by the yanks, the couple paid for the empty seat next to them and the other couple on the back row paid
to not have another person stuffed in there and to be fair the back seat would have been a nightmare. We also chipped in a bit for that as it meant we wouldn't have another person stuffed in next to us. We then found out these 5 had all stayed on one of the private islands!!!!!!!! And on the way down had hired a private van to take them, so when Howard remarked 'oh so you decided to slum it on the way back with the rest of us then' I was the only one to laugh!!
Anyway all this succeeded in delaying us another 30 minutes, the Americans were taking photos of the drivers licence tag and threatening to report him to the police!! It wasn't actually his fault he was only there to drive, the company were the 'dirty money grabbers'. It all kicked off again when we reached the loo stop and there was another passenger there to be picked up lol I thought we were going to have fisticuffs!!!! The American just slammed the van door shut and yelled 'no way man no way we paid for this, I'll drive the fucking van myself now
Puerto Princessa
Down to the portget us outta here!' The driver did as he was told, the bewildered passenger was left behind and we were off again.
We got to PP in record time, no surprise there and the really bolshy Americans were dropped off first, no surprise there! Once more it took ages to get checked in but we were given a free up grade. Once more the room looks like a laundry! But I did manage to whatsapp Holly and have a good catch up which was great 😊
The hotel appears to have been taken over by a battalion of Japanese tourists, they are so loud!! I attempted to get the lift up to our room and despite being the first waiting I was swarmed by them and had to fight my way in and then got shoved right to the back, only by shouting excuse me did I manage to press my floor button. I was rather taken aback!
The only things we have planned for our last full day was a look at the Port and the Firefly watching Trip for the evening. So after a good sleep in we headed out, we were dropped off in
the port area and there wasn't a lot to see, you are not allowed in but there was a big rusty ship there. All the little shops in the nearby streets have bars covering the windows and just a small opening to pass things through, I'm guessing it might be a bit rough? But it was fine during the day, we walked along trying to find the park but it was shut! But we did get to the Boardwalk area which was lovely. The views across the water to yet more green mountains and hills and all the little boats was really pretty and I guess the original fishing village was also there as we saw lots of wooden houses on stilts collected together.
We made our way back into the town centre, found a dark, cramped market and then Jollibees a kind of Philippine McDonalds fast food chain and had a very cheap lunch and cool down before heading back to the hotel.
That night we were going on a Firefly Watching trip so you can imagine our disappointment when it started to bucket down! It was raining so hard we even borrowed a brolly
from the hotel, the pickup van was late and we were convinced it would either be cancelled or a complete waste of time but hey that would kind of fit with the tours we had already done on Palawan so we just went with it.
The first surprise was that the van drove us down to the boardwalk and then we got off and joined a boat, I had expected to drive for an hour or so at least. Once on the boat it stopped raining yes!! No one wanted to sit next to the foreigners so we had a bench to ourselves until this very large older man and wife tried to cram in on the row in front, she then told us to move up so he could sit with us but as the end of the bench was soaking I told her he could sit there as I wasn't, they then shuffled until the young couple next to them were squashed up.
The boat sailed for about 15 minutes across the bay and I must say it was all rather exciting in the dark! We then all transferred under supervision onto
the small boat to go up the river into the mangrove swamp to look for fireflies. At the point I must add we were told under no circumstances to use flash, no videoing and night mode only so I decided not to bother trying to take photos as the camera on my phone is rubbish at night shots. The reasons for this was so as not to dazzle the boat captain who then might get the boat stuck in the mud and also importantly because it would just scare the fireflies away.
Off we went and the guide pointing out the location of the right mangrove trees which held the fireflies and to my absolute surprise there were loads of them, all twinkling like Christmas lights, it was an awesome sight. However as usual there were a couple of complete knobs on board, who just so happened to be the same seat cramming couple, they used the flash, videoed and kept fiddling with their phones and causing lights. The guide told them repeatedly not to in different languages and I threatened to hit them with the brolly, eventually they got the messages, absolute ignorant tossers!!
Still
it didn't ruin what was a great experience and out on the sea again it was so dark you could see millions of stars and it all felt really special. We were then transferred back onto the big boat and then taken to the floating restaurant, nothing fancy but the buffet was good with fish, crab, chicken and pork, all lukewarm but tasty. Luckily we didn't have to sit with the knobs as I would have had to have said something, they were unbelievable grrr
Back at the mooring point the guide wrapped things up and thanked us for coming, nobody said a word so I started clapping really loudly and eventually the others all joined in ha ha, well I had really enjoyed it and it was definitely third trip lucky!
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