Palawan Trip – 3rd day

When we came back from the Underground River tour, we were informed by a staff from Lola Itang that we were not booked for a Honday Bay Tour on the next day as there are no available half day tour (as we need to leave on the same day back to Manila). We were then advised that we can actually go there on our own but might cost us a little more than being in a package tour, and since there would be no other choices, we decided to just make it on our own. We rented a tryke for P300 to take us in the Honday Bay Wharf and fetch us afterwards.

The ride to the wharf via tryke is 20mins. We rented a banca that has a capacity of six persons for 1,100, the bigger one costs only P1,300 and that has a capacity of 12. Before we board the boat we were asked by a Fisherman with his big fish, as we will be needing it for our lunch, a more than a kilo fish (sorry, i forgot what its called) has costs us P200. We also rented snorkeling gears (P100 each) and bought a couple of breads for fishes (P15).

Our first stop has been Cowrie Island, though we did not disembarked as the Island is still under construction (the facilities). Next stop is the Pandan Island, known for its many Pandan plants, we roamed in the Island and navigated for 30mins., and proceeded to Snake Island. Its called Snake not because it has snakes in the island but because of its shape when you’re looking at it in an aerial view. We had our lunch at Snake Island, a very good lunch and we also had our first snorkeling in this island. Lots of beautiful fishes, colorful and lively school of fishes. After, we went to Starfish Island, a great island too, lots of starfish, the boatman managed to get us a live starfish, for the purposes of pictures and had returned it in the sea afterwards.

The travel from one island to another would take 10-20 mins via a motorboat. All islands has great beaches, fine sands and they were actually white in color, just like in Boracay, only that the beaches here are not maintained properly but all in all, great for swimming and snorkeling.

Our last stop is the Pambato Reef, in here we feasts our eyes on beautiful coral reefs, some of which glows, and these were said to be alive, colorful coral reefs and fishes is right in front of us. The experience is really exceptional, our guide has been very accommodating and helpful.

We were back in Lola Itang at exactly 3pm, just in time for us to prepare for our trip back to Manila as our flight would be at 5.45 in the afternoon, and we want to make sure that this time we wont be denied of boarding :D

We made it to the airport at 4.20pm and no hassle so far.

Tags: Honda Bay, Palawan, Pambato Reef, Puerto Prinsesa

Palawan Trip – 2nd day

As we have booked beforehand an Underground River tour (that’s P1,200/pax), we were informed that pick.up time would be between 7 to 7:30 in the morning, so 2nd day comes, we got ourselves ready for the full day tour at the famous Puerto Prinsesa Subterranean River.

We were picked up by a van at exactly 7am, we were then informed that there will be eight of us in the day’s tour, so the next 30 mins. has been to pick up the remaining 6 people, 4 of which were foreigners. We then proceeded to a 3-hour drive going to Sabang, the road has been fine for the first half of the road going to Sabang and it became bumpy after, for the remaining half. We were impressed by the tour guide (named Frank) as he has an adept knowledge of the province and for 3 hours he keeps on talking and explaining the roots of � and i’d say almost all � the province of Palawan. We reached the wharf at exactly 10:30am and waited for 15mins. for our turn. The boat that would carry us to St. Paul Mountain has a maximum of 6 passengers and they were really strict on that and since there were 9 of us all in all (including the tour guide) we got separated from the group as we preferred to ride the next boat. The sceneries going to the foot of the mountain is so beautiful, the 15mins ride on boat has been quiet. We dock in a beach and through the monkey trail headed to the underground river.

The underground river according to the boatman/guide is 21km long, the water is so deep and it is a combination of fresh and salt water. Regular tourists were only allowed to navigate the 1.5km and should you want to go further, you have to secure a special permit.

The tour of the cave is so exciting, with the different rock formations, one could not deny that it is indeed something that is so familiar to anyone who sees it. They have a cathedral inside and i could not deny that it really is like a cathedral, they also have the vegetable section and a lot more of rock formations to entertain tourists.

After the cave navigation, we again passed by the monkey trail and had a little chat with the monkeys and monitor lizards that comes our way. We then proceeded to the banca where we’ll be brought to the next stop, that is in Sabang beach for a delectable lunch. After lunch we were given ample time to stroll the beach, roam in souvenir stores or even swim in the beautiful beach of Sabang.

On our way back to the busy part of Puerto Prinsesa we stopped in a souvenir shop overlooking the Ulugan Bay, an another beautiful scenery.

Tags: Palawan, Puerto Prinsesa Underground River, St. Paul Subterranean River

Palawan Trip – 1st day

Our scheduled flight is 9:45 in the morning via Air Philippines, we arrived in the Centennial airport one hour earlier, much to our surprise the check in counter for our flight does not have a queue line, that actually made me glad, thinking that maybe we’re really that early. Unfortunately, it was the other way around, we were late, no, not late, we were just behind those other passengers who made it in the last count for all the seats in the plane *lol* to cut it short, we were denied to board the plane. A staff from the airline reasoned out that every flight has 5% overbooking for cases that not all confirmed passengers make it to the flight, well, that i find unfair… lesson to learn is whenever you book a flight with Airphils, be at the airport at least 2 hrs before departure time.

Anyway, to compensate our wasted time, we were offered a free roundtrip ticket to any local destination (valid for 1 year) and free meals until the next flight – which, we waited for 6 hours – as our flight was moved to 4pm the same day.. to make things simple and easy for everyone, we agreed and signed the quit claim form.

We arrived at Puerto Prinsesa airport at 5:20 pm, and there we were met by Mildred, a staff from Lola Itang Pension House where we earlier booked our accommodation (visit www.lolaitang.com), the ride to the pension house is 10 minutes in a van (when you book at Lola Itang’s, the airport transfers are free of charge.) Our prior booking for a city tour was cancelled, thank God we need not to pay any… city tour is P500/pax, also at Lola Itang’s, they can do the booking with the tour agencies w/out extra cost.

Lola Itang pension house is within the commercial areas of Rizal avenue in Puerto Prinsesa, and our first day was spent roaming the area.

Pictures are available in the next posts.

Tags: Air Philippines, Lola Itang, Palawan, Puerto Prinsesa