Blogs from Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines, Asia - page 9

Things here have been pretty quiet this last week, in terms of activity. Paradoxically, it's been getting noisier and noisier by the day, it seems. Sleep is a luxury here because of it. Take for example: - Geckos croaking in my bedroom, who make their squeak-toy sound any time of day or night. - Up to 3 street dogs vocalizing across the hillside at each other in the middle of the night at high volume. One in particular tends to howl as if doing the deed with another dog. This one is particularly sleep-intrusive, for obvious reasons. - Roosters. 6:30AM is high time for them to start crowing, but it's not uncommon to here them at midnight, 2:00AM or 4:00AM. Like the aforementioned dogs, they seem to enjoy conversing whilst people enjoy sleeping. I find it ... read more

I was so looking forward to our Palawan trip that nothing could dampen my enthusiasm. Mother Nature tried. Typhoon Hanna delayed our 8:15am Manila-Puerto Princesa flight to 11am. But no matter. JR, David, Jen, and I were finally on our way to sunny Palawan! It was a damp, damp, damp Puerto Princesa waiting for us. No storm here. (Palawan doesn’t get hit by storms, our guide said. It’s just the rainy season, silly me.) I have never read a blog about a wet Palawan, so this should be something new. Our tour guide first took us to the Crocodile Farm. JR wasn’t too excited about this but obviously, I was! Check out my photo with a 2-year old croc. I could feel him swallowing during the photo op. The adult crocodiles’ pit was something too. It ... read more

Ahhh - exotic Palawan...gorgeous beaches, pristine virgin rainforest, turquoise sea, waterfalls and underground rivers. Only one problem...you have to get there first! Finally we were leaving Manila...yey! Arriving at Manila's Domestic Terminal we were actually smiling but not for long as we were soon reminded of the ridiculously anal security transport measures in the Philippines. Examples of this are listed below: 1.You are not allowed into the airport terminal without a ticket and passport. Our ticket was booked online and the website just said to turn up with passport and booking number to check-in. So before we were even allowed into the airport by boys-playing-at-being-security-guards-with-fully-loaded-guns we had to find the airline office to get a ticket print out. 2.Finally inside the airport we were split into male and female queues for the baggage check, baggage was ... read more

Last week after three months of long wait, me and my best friend Gie, my high school and college barkada headed for Puerto Princesa, Palawan via Cebu Pacific Air. We planned our trip since March and now that it's time to enjoy, here we are Palawan. July is a rainy month and there's typhoon passing by at Tuesday, so i was kinda worried that our flight on Saturday 14th of July will be cancelled and our vacation be postposed due to increment weather. But, thank Heavens, comes Saturday and the weather is quite cloudy in Manila, no more typhoon. God heard our prayers. We took the morning flight to Palawan, arriving there at 9:50am. A little rain shower welcomes us at the airport. After claiming our luggages we took a tricycle to Puerto Pension Inn, ... read more

"If I only knew about this place sooner" How often do we come across something new or interesting to us and quickly say, I didn't know that, or, what I could have done if I knew about this sooner. Well, such was the case about 15 years ago, during my investment years, as I like to call it. I use to wait eagerly, for the monthly, business magazine to arrive in my post office box. Once I got home, I would sit down and read it from cover to cover. My thirst for knowledge, not just any knowledge, provided me with the desire to learn something new. In this case I was hoping to learn something new from the writers of the different business articles in the magazines. Such was the case when I read an ... read more