Palawan Vacation

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I know we’ve been back from vacation for a week, but now I’ve finally gotten around to writing a blog about it. So here’s a run-down of what we did over the break ☺

Oct 28, Friday: We got done with school at like 12:15, so Brandon, Marissa and I immediately left for the Victory Liner terminal so we could catch the 1:15 bus down to Manila. We took the deluxe bus, so it actually was quite nice. Similar to first class seats on a plane. However, Manila is only about 150 miles away, but it took us about 7 hours to get there. The first two hours are just winding down the mountains, which can be a little scary at times. Then it’s through all these little towns then it’s Manila. Manila has pretty much the worst traffic ever. Manila is only about 10 miles long and 10 miles wide, but it takes well over two hours just to cover half of it. So we finally got to the bus station and then we had to find a taxi to our hotel. That was an adventure. As soon as we got off the bus, a swarm of Filipino men came to us (mainly me because of the blonde hair) and asked us if we needed a cab. We did, but we knew not to pay too much. So I finally negotiated with the cab a fare to get us to our hotel (only about 3 miles away, but it took about 45 min to get to). After, we realized that we totally overpaid, but we got there safely, so I was happy. The hotel turned out to be pretty decent. On the map it seemed like a really nice part of town (it was right by they Hyatt), but I think it might have been like a mini red-light district. So we obviously didn’t leave the hotel once we got there around 9pm. Marissa had to go to the airport at like 6am and we didn’t have to until about 9am, so we took different cabs the next morning(these ones were arranged through the hotel, so much easier).

Saturday: We left for the airport about 9am since we had an 11am flight. I have never felt so relaxed at an airport. It’s not that the airport was particularly calm, it’s just that anything is better than downtown Manila. And it was nice to see at least a few other white people for a change. The flight to Puerto Princesa was just fine. Once we got there, the hotel driver picked us up and brought us to the hotel. It was about 1pm and we weren’t really sure what there was to do in town (the main thing to do in Puerto Princesa is see the underground river, which is what we had planned for the next day… It’s a whole day trip). We heard about a crocodile farm, so we thought we would attempt to make it there. It was about 15km out of town, but the people at the hotel were really nice and helped us negotiate a deal for a trike to take us there (trikes are really common all over the Philippines, except Baguio because of the hills… They’re like little motorcycles with sidecars). It took a little while to get there, but we made it there. It costed us about $7 for the trike fare, which was probably a rip-off, but we felt like it was a pretty good deal. At least we made some trike driver happy. The crocodile farm was ok. Nothing compared to Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, but for a $1 entrance fee, nothing to complain about. They obviously had some crocodiles, but there was also a nature walk type thing that had a bunch of other animals to see. I think the highlight of that trip was getting to hold a Palawan bearcat. We thought it kinda looked like Camo. After that, we just went into town and had dinner and then we back to the hotel. The next day we were planning on doing the underground river tour. I had read online that they left at around 8am, so we went to book it with our hotel and found out that the only one available for the next day was at 5am. So that’s what we booked!

Sunday: This day started at about 4:30am when we got up to go to the underground river. Our tour van met us at 5am and then we had to pick up like 10 other people from around town before we could drive a couple hours to the area that the river was. The van ride was not very pleasant. It was down really rough roads and we were crammed in really tight. And to make it worse, there was a five year old that had a watch that kept on playing “It’s a Small World After All” over and over again for the whole trip. I don’t know what was wrong with his parents to let him to continue to do that when there were many other people on the van. Incredibly annoying. After about two hours in the van, we made it to Sabang Beach. We hung out there for a little while until a banka boat was ready to take us to another beach near the entrance to the underground river. During this trip we were also with a very interesting (and very common type of) couple. She was Filipino and about our age (and not even 100 pounds). He was Australian and about forty (and about 300 pounds). Apparently many western businessmen come to the Philippines to find wives. And many women agree to this because of the poverty that they have grown up with. This couple was really nice, but it was just really weird to see them together. Anyway, once we got the another beach on the boat, we had to walk a little ways to get to the entrance to the underground river. There, we got on another boat and went on the tour. It was really cool. It is pretty much a cave that has a river going through it, so going by boat (or I guess swimming) is the only way to explore it. The tour was about 45 minutes and it took us into the pitch black cave. We had a flashlight so we could kinda see, but it was impossible to get good pictures. The cave varied in structure. There were parts that were pretty narrow and then there were a couple parts that were at least 100 feet high. Apparently there is about 8km of the river that is navigable, but we only were able to see about 1.5km on the tour. The tour only lasted about 45 minutes, so it was a long journey just for the 45 minute tour, but I think it was worth it. Not something I would do again, but it was neat to see once. Once we got back to Sabang, we had lunch on the beach. The weather then got really bad, so we headed back to Puerto Princesa. It’s a good thing that we went on the really early am trip, because since the weather was bad, the other tours weren’t going to happen since the ocean would have been too rough for the banka boats to reach the beach near the entrance to the cave. That evening we just hung out at our hotel and got packed up since we would be leaving for El Nido the next day.

Monday: We had a van reserved at 9am to go up to El Nido this morning. I totally miscalculated the time that we had to leave, so we were in an incredible rush in the morning to leave the hotel and get to the bus terminal, but we made it before 9am… Just to find out that the van wouldn’t really be leaving at 9 since there were enough people who had booked tickets on it. So we had to wait until 11am. Again, another incredibly crowded van ride. This time it was on paved roads for about 3 hours and then the last 2 hours were on dirt roads. It was only about 150 miles, but it still took 5 hours… In a van. With 10 other people. So it was not the most pleasant day. However, when we got to El Nido, we knew it was worth it. For our first two nights in El Nido, we stayed at Marina Garden, which was right in town on the beach. The rooms were small, but it was still pretty nice. El Nido is a very small town with most of it situated at about a 1km stretch of beach. So that night we just walked along the beach a found a place to eat dinner. The food that we got in El Nido was some of the best that we’ve gotten in the Philippines.

Tuesday: This was our first full day in El Nido, so we decided to do an island hopping tour. This is what El Nido is known for. We left on the tour around 9am and didn’t return until about 5pm. These tours are on the banka boats and they just go around to the various islands. We were in a group of 10 other people (two couples from Manila, two girls from Denmark and a couple from Australia). Our first stop on the tour was a beach that had a “secret lagoon.” You had to climb through a small opening and then another lagoon awaited. That was really cool. Because from the outside it didn’t look like anything was there. But then you climb through and there was a lagoon. Our next stop was on another gorgeous beach. These beaches are definitely the most beautiful ones I have seen in my life. They are almost completely deserted and have been untouched by civilization (except for the boat tours that land there every day, but there aren’t really any marks from that). On this island, the boatmen cooked us lunch. A typical Filipino meal. Whole fish and pork chunks and rice and mangos. The mangos were delicious. They’re finally in season now, so they’re amazing. The other food, not so great. After that beach, we went to another island. This one didn’t have quite the amazing beach, but the snorkeling was pretty good. The boat had to park a ways away from the island, so we had to snorkel to shore. It started out about 50 feet deep (we could still easily see the bottom) and then it quickly got to about 6 feet, so we could see a lot of coral and fishes. There was a valley (kinda) between two islands that the water flowed through that was absolutely gorgeous. So we just kinda wandered around there for awhile and snorkeled. I had bought an underwater case for my camera, so I was able to get some decent pictures while we were snorkeling and walking around this valley-type thing. The next stop was just a spot for snorkeling. We had already snorkeled for at least an hour straight, so we decided to sit that one out and just hang out on the boat. The last stop was another island with a gorgeous beach. This island had some people living on it. Just in homemade huts and living off the land (and I guess the tourists that stopped there). They had a little store type thing that sold juice and beer and chips, so we got ourselves some buko juice, straight from the coconut. They just chop a hole in the young coconut and stick a straw in and we drink it. It’s pretty good. Although it would have been much better had it been cold, but I guess when you’re drinking juice straight from the source on a 90 degree day, it’s not gonna be cold. So we hung out there a little while before heading back into town. That night, we ate at a different place along the beach in El Nido.

Wednesday: We decided that we wanted to stay in two different places while we were in El Nido so we could get a taste of town and a taste of outside of town. The second place we stayed at was called Golden Monkey and it was about 1km outside of town. There weren’t even any roads going to it. A guy from the resort met us in town and picked up our bags and then told us to just keep walking once we hit the end of the beach for about 10-15 minutes and then we would arrive at the cottages. Sure enough, we did. It was an interesting walk. Literally at the end of the beach in town, we just kept walking on a small path that went by many native cottages and animals and then we arrived at Golden Monkey. Our cabin that we had was right on the water with a nice patio that had a nice chair and hammock. The reason why it’s called Golden Monkey is that they rescue monkeys and keep them for a while until they are ready to be released back into the wild. At the moment, they have four little monkeys there. They were really fun to play with and watch. They were almost like little people. It was a little creepy. If you got too close to their cage, they would grab your shorts and look for stuff in your pockets. They almost stole Brandon’s sunglasses from his head. So playing with the monkeys was a nice little bonus there. The staff was so nice and accommodating there. They cooked a fresh dinner for us every night and delivered it to us on our patio. So we ate, just the two of us, looking over the ocean all three nights that we were there.

Thursday and Friday: Both of these days were kinda rainy, so we didn’t really do too much. At least we a nice cabin overlooking the water with a covered patio. So we pretty much spent both days just sitting on the patio and reading.

Saturday: After leaving Golden Monkey, we took a trike to the El Nido airport… If you can call it that. The runway and the road leading to it aren’t even paved. There’s only private charter planes that fly in and out and only to Manila. It’s even more pathetic than the Brainerd airport. The airport consisted of a covered hut. Literally. We got checked in (and weighed) and then just sat in this hut until the plane was ready to go. The plane was a little 19 seater, but it was really cool because it didn’t fly very high (not pressurized) so we could see all the islands around El Nido as we were leaving. So that flight went well. Then it was back to dealing with Manila. We found a cab and bartered with him until we got an ok (probably still ridiculously high) fare to the bus station. There wasn’t a deluxe bus for about an hour and a half, so we just waited at the bus station. Not too bad. Then it was a 7 hour bus ride back to Baguio.

Overall it was a pretty good vacation. Even though we didn’t travel very far distance wise, there was a lot of travel time during the vacation. So that took up a lot of the time. I’m glad we did it, but they aren’t places that I would necessarily go again to. Now on to planning what we’re going to do for Christmas break! ☺

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Photos

In the van to El Nido
This is a fairly typical sight to see all over the Philippines