19 – Palawan

My Mum (Kathryn) my Aunt (Judith) and Aruna’s sister (Assumpta), arrived in Bacolod from Australia on 14th December and the very next day the 5 of us flew to Palawan for a 10 day pre-Christmas vacation. Some have described Palawan as the Philippines’ last frontier. It’s certainly a challenge to get around but it’s all worth it on reaching the places of stunning natural beauty seemingly almost unknown to the rest of the world.

We flew into the capital, Puerto Princessa where we spent the first night. It is little more than a country town on the east coast of Palawan but we enjoyed a delicious meal at Ka Lui Restaurant. The next day we travelled by van 3 hours on the bumpy dirt road to Sabang on the west coast. Sabang is home to the UNESCO world heritage site known as the Underground River. We rose early and on good advice from a builder who was renovating the beach cottage adjacent to ours, we decided to take the monkey trail walk to the start of the underground river and return by boat (rather than the other way around). It was a beautiful walk in between limestone karst cliffs, surrounded by jungle in which we saw the occasional curious monkey and heard a number of birds. The attraction of the underground river is a 45min boat ride into its dark interior lined with limestone formations and home to millions of fruit bats. A lesser known attraction is a boat ride we took through the mangroves guided by ‘Lady Mangrove’ herself.

Rather than endure that bumpy road again we decided to travel to our next destination, Port Barton, by pump boat – a very pleasant 4 hour trip up the west coast. From here we did a day of island hopping. We were taken first to a remote village where the village Capitan lead us up a track to a beautiful waterfall in the hills behind his village. Next stop was Paradise Island which lived up to its name. We snorkelled off the tiny palm fringed white sand beach which was like swimming in an aquarium there were that many fish! I also glimpsed a sea turtle before he rapidly disappeared into the depths. When we’d had enough snorkelling, a freshly barbequed whole yellow fin tuna was served for our lunch with rice, the traditional soy sauce, vinegar and calamansi dressing and a tomato and cucumber salad – perfect!

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the Bacuit Archipelago off the coast of El Nido town. This area of limestone karsts rising from abundant coral reefs fringed with secluded white sand beaches and palm trees leaves Vietnams’ Halong Bay for dead! It was such a relief to finally arrive at Dolarog Beach Resort after a whole day travelling by boat, then by van, then by boat again. Our spacious and modern version of a native cottage faced the stunning archipelago. The weather was perfect every day – warm, sunny and calm. We spent each of our 2 full days exploring the archipelago by pump boat. It was the most stunning seascape I could imagine coupled with the most stunning snorkelling I’ve ever experienced making it hard to know whether to look up or down! Again, our lunches consisted of freshly barbequed fish when we pulled up on a beach somewhere. I had to pinch myself when we swam through a small hole in a karst cliff approx 1.5m in diameter to discover an enclosed secret beach and coral garden on the other side! Truly amazing.

Having learned from our experience in Bohol of running out of cash and the only ATM in town being out of order, I made sure we were prepared and had plenty of cash on us this time. And it was a good thing we did. We found out only 3 days prior to our scheduled flight back to Bacolod, via Manila, that the airport in Taytay was closed for 2 months and there were no flights! There was no time to get angry about being sold tickets on a flight that was never going to take off, I had to find an alternative way for us to get back to Bacolod for Christmas. Luckily, there was a 19 seater plane that makes 3 flights daily direct from El Nido to Manila and our Resort could book it for us … at 4 times the price of our original flight! But it was our only option. We had to leave a day earlier than planned and have an overnight in Manila as there were no seats available on Christmas Eve. On the bright side we no longer had to spend several hours in a van on the bumpy dirt road to Taytay airport!

To commemorate our final evening in Palawan we had dinner at the end of the resort’s pier surrounded by candle light. A fitting conclusion to a fabulous holiday in one of the worlds most stunning and best kept secret travel destinations!

Epilogue

Warning – refrain from reading on if you’re in the middle of eating lunch!

I have to say I was very proud of Mum who was an expert snorkeller by the end of the trip. While assisting her to descend the tricky boat ladder into the water for her first snorkel, I inadvertently scraped my knee on some coral. I thought nothing of it at the time, but human flesh is the perfect environment for coral to grow. By the time we reached Manila for our overnight stay, I needed to perform some self surgery in the hotel bathroom! I knew what I needed to do as Aruna had done the same thing on a previous snorkelling trip. I had to cut open my knee with a splinter probe, wash out the cuts with fresh water, disinfect them with iodine and patch them up with bandaids. Part of me was glad I finally got to use the medical kit I’d been lugging around for the past 5 months!

(… yep, 5 months – hard to believe I’m half-way through).