A second take in Puerto Princessa

The capital of the island of Palawan. Shiz. Sounds like the name of a foreign country. The Most Serene Island Republic of Palawan. Eh! Eh? Visions of Venice just popped up, its history and its glory days, when all trade from the world led to its ports. What the.... getting back to my story of Puerto Princessa.

No comparison between Palawan and Venice, I'd take the sandy white beaches and clear emerald water in Palawan any day. So here I am in Puerto Princessa. Hanging out at the lobby outside my room. Waiting for the tour guide to pick up me for hours of island hopping!

Took this picture as I was sitting down on the comfortable couch. I stayed at a pension house, and it was really cheap. There is a restaurant on top of the roof, so you get a great of view the harbor and great food! Plus, it was cheap food! Cheap and good food.. oh yea! Well... cheap for foreigners anyways. A local might see it different.

And you will see foreigners. Met a Dutchman drinking a San Miguel as I was eating my breakfast, or was it dinner? Nice fellow. Drank a lot! Think he was on his 7th or 8th bottle. Didn't effect him one bit. Damn Europeans. Those guts are built for beer.

Here's a view of the harbor. It was pretty close to the pension house. Just a few minutes walk, and it was clean! Yea, that was a point for the harbor.

Yea, about the tour - it's the Honda Bay island hopping tour. It's cruising around 4 or 5 different pristine beaches, surrounded by clear still water. You could see straight through the water as your banka glides among the solitary waves. The banka is noisy, with its small little engine, but it got us to all the islands. Sweet.

Here you go - swoooooosh, as the banka takes flight!

I can't remember the names of the islands. One island was called Snake island because it was shaped as a snake. Pretty creative huh?

As lunch came, we ate some really good food. Yea, really good food. Should have taken pictures, but I was gorging on the stuff.

So after the island hopping tour, I took a a land tour of Puerto Princessa. Went to a butterfly place, a freakin live penal colony. Yea, a penal colony. Basically a jail but out in the countryside. They farm, grow their own food, and when their time is up, a lot of them stay in the area. Hell, it has great weather, and less crime than the big city of Manila.

The inmates sell trinkets to tourists really cheap. If you need to bring some crap from Palawan, get it from the penal colony. They use local material - shells, wood, etc, etc... and did I say it's bloody cheap? Plus, you have a great story to tell the folks at home where it's made!

Finally at the end of the tour, we came upon a bakery shop. I took a second look. Grinned. Laughed. Up yours Disney! Hahahahaaha! Check out the fine statues of Snow White and her seven dwarves. This place had tons of cartoon character statues.

It was hellya fun...!

There's also a mile long underground river that's pretty popular. Heard it's really good. You'd have to shoot me and drag my lifeless body to the boat to make do that. It's too confining for me personally.

A weary traveler rests in Coron

I'll be traveling around Asian next month, and was looking over some old photos I took in 2006. I'll be doing a recap of previous trips before I take 2 months touring the 3 countries - Kyushu in Japan, Philippines, and Thailand.

The story starts in 2006 when I finally made it to Coron, the most northern island in Palawan, Philippines. Laid down on a hammock on the roof of the hotel sitting on top of the water.

This lone shack caught my attention. With the emerald green waters enveloping the surrounding buildings. I was in heaven. The screaming of the pigs and market next to the hotel was pretty much of a downer.

If you do get out, there's an island hopping tour which you need to prepare in advance. There's also Calauit Island that has giraffes, zebras, and some other exotic African animals that the late Dictator Marcos brought over.

So I arrived in Coron via small airplane. These other tourists were getting on jeepneys to be taken to the expensive resort across Coron. I think it was like $100 dollars a day or something. With that kind of money, someone better pick them up.

There's an internet cafe on the street near the hotel I stayed at, so that was cool. Bringing a laptop with me on my next tour.

Coron is a quiet place, really quiet town. If you want to just relax, unwind and lounge around doing nothing. This is the place.

Sea Dive resort is also PADI certified so you can learn scuba diving on the cheap. Lots of WW2 wrecks around the islands.

The way to the hotel was a walk through a narrow aisle through local restaurants and family houses. I stayed at the Sea Dive Resort. People were excellent, staff and the other tourists were all great people. Especially when you're eating and drinking at the bar area, watching cartoons late night with other tourists. Most of the other tourists were either from Europe or Australia, only a few American old codgers feeling their way around the town looking for girls.

Between Sea Dive and the Coron market is a smaller hotel that has a bar. I was too lazy with the hammock and the great and cheap food at Sea Dive to get out much.

Before you do any of those, go to the Makinit Hot Springs. I flew on a tricycle from the town's nice paved roads which became dirty roads, and really narrow roads and finally I arrived at the entrance to the hot spring.

It costs a few pesos to enter, I think it was a buck. Tell you the truth, when I first saw it, I thought the area was pretty danky. The hot spring is surrounded by dirt and trees. It didn't look like they paid for maintenance.

But you finally get near the hot spring, and its bloody clear! Damn nice I thought, and its hot, really hot. Once you drown your body in that water, its like you're in another world. The body's nerves just tingles with the feel of the water.

I went to Makinit Hot Spring when it was just after noon, so imagine. The temperature is around 90 degrees outside, and the hot spring is around 100 degrees! I was warned I should wait and come back when the sun sets. Forget that, I'm a man.

It felt really good, better than better.

One issue I had. Maintenance has to be kept up! The hot spring was overgrown with algae. Really pissed me off. Overall experience was pretty good. Clean that algae people!