Palawan Travel

Tuesday, March 2,2010 – left for Palawan with daughter Jeanne. Left Manila through Cebu Air Philippines at 17:50 and arrived Puerto Princessa at 19:05. The Puerto Pension driver was not at the airport to meet us when we got there, so we had to call the hotel. He came after 20 minutes, saying that he was at another errand. Meanwhile, we were getting nervous as the crowd at the airport was diminishing, and finally the lights inside the terminal were shut off, leaving us outside in the dark. We were solicited by many tricycle cabs, but were scared for our safety, so we huddled near the door of the terminal which had light, and a security guard. Found out later, that Palawan is one of the safest places for tourists, and that we had no reason to fear for our safety. We found out how true this fact was, after the few days we were there.

The hotel driver got us to the hotel, where Pepito, our guide was waiting. My son, Ricky had prearranged all these, and that really helped a lot. After freshening up at our hotel room, we went out to Kai Lui to have dinner with Pepito, and gave him the money for the tours we were joining the following days: Subterranean Caves on March 3, Honda Bay on March 4, and City Tour in the morning of March 5 before we left for Manila.

Kai Lui was a great restaurant. It’s bamboo ceilings, and décor was outstanding. From the garden area to the restaurant seating, the ambience and service was five star. They had sour mangoes with bagoong and I was asking the waiter if the mango was too sour, to which a gentleman sitting behind us suddenly chimed in, that it was not, and that I could taste his mango and bagoong if I liked. I did, and we struck a short conversation. He said that his name was Noel, and that he was a sales rep who would come to Puerto Princessa often during the year, and that he really enjoyed eating in that restaurant. As for me and Jeanne, we had seafood sinigang, seafood sisig and then we thought we’d try their crispy fish tail. The sinigang was not as sour as I would usually make mine, but it was made out of fresh coconut water, so it was on the naturally sweetish side. The seafood sisig was wonderful. But we could not eat the crispy fish tail. It was too dry and hard, so we let Pepito take that home with him.