Palawan

After arriving at the airport in Puerto Princesa, we took a trike for a couple miles to the Trattoria Inn.  This place is not very fancy, but they offer rooms with air-conditioning and TV (no hot water) for under P1000.   We chose this place because they have a shuttle service to the underground river.  I checked around the city, and their shuttle service was the cheapest I could find.  The best thing about the Trattoria, is their bar/restaurant.  The foot was excellent and moderately priced and the bar is the meeting place for many expat's.

Since we had some time before heading out to Sabang (underground river), we hired a trike driver to take us around Puerto Princesa and show us the sites.  Not far from the hotel is White Sand Beach.  To get there you have to hike about 1/4 mile down board walk through a mangrove forest.  

The third picture shows the same board walk at high tide. Luckily we didn't run into any snakes or other nasty critters.

White Sand Beach is the family gathering place for the local barangays.  There is no entrance fee for the beach, but if you want to rent a small bahay cubo (cabana) to get out of the sun, it will cost you P50.  You don't have to walk very far to find a cold San Miguel and food for sale.  I was absolutely the only foreigner on this beach, and with all the kids running around, I heard plenty of "hey Joes".  I never figured out how all these Filipinos knew that Joe (not Cletus) is my real name.  

We also went to Iwahig, the open prison where you supposedly can buy plenty of handicrafts dirt cheap.  Even Mavel's bargaining aptitude didn't get us much of a discount.  Later, I saw many of the same trinkets at the Puerto Princesa airport for even less.  You would be better off visiting the Irawan crocodile farm instead.

The next morning, we met with our fellow travelers in the lobby of the hotel.  Most of them were just doing a day trip, but Mavel and I had plans to spend the night in Sabang, and then catch a banka up to Port Barton.  There's probably only 30 miles of paved highway on the entire island of Palawan, so the 3 hour trip to Sabang can be a real butt buster.  If you take this trip, you should try to get as close to the front of the FX as possible.  Your spine and tail bone will thank you for it. 

In Sabang, the best hotel in town is the Sabang Beach Resort.  For P500 a night you get a nipa style room (picature 6) with shower, toilet and electricity until 10:00 pm.  There are other places to stay such as Mary's Beach Resort and Panaguman Beach Resort.  Mary's was alright, but I liked Sabang better.  To get to Panaguman Resort you have to take a banka from the pier and then you're stuck there until it is time to check out.  Panaguman may offer you lots of privacy, in picture 7 you can see that we had the whole beach to ourselves.  Over a 3 hour period, we saw maybe 4 people walk down the beach.

To get to the underground river, you have to go to the Sabang pier and pay the park entrance fee and then take a banka across the bay or you can walk there on the "monkey trail".  The banka drops you off at the beach and from there you get a small canoe and head into the cave.  They provide you with a large flood light powered by a car battery.  The whole trip takes less than an hour and covers about a mile.  But the trip from Puerto Princesa and back is well worth the hour you'll spend in the caverns.

The next morning, we found out that there was a typhoon building up out in the South China Sea, so the regularly scheduled boat trip to Port Barton and El Nido was cancelled.  The only communications available in Sabang is by radio and of course that day, we couldn't get through to make arrangements for an FX ride back to Puerto Princesa.  I was freaking at thought of having to take the jeepney back.  Luckily, an FX arrived with a day tour that had two unoccupied seats ... in the back.

The next day, we caught a SeAir flight up to El Nido.  This area has  the most spectacular limestone formations I've seen since Ang Thong Park in Thailand.  For P500, you can rent a banka to take you out to the towering Miniloc and Mantinloc Islands. There isn't much of a beach in El Nido, but the town itself is quite nice and has plenty of small hotels.  The electricity in El Nido wasn't turned off until midnight.  There are 2 airlines flying out of El Nido, but not on the same day.  We decided to leave the day Air Soriano was flying.  The flight scared the hell out of both of us and even the flight attendant was turning green around the gills.  On top of that, this airline charges about P1000 more for foreigners than for the locals.  If I went here again, I'd take SeAir back to Puerto Princesa and then Philippine Air to Manila.  It cost about the same.