Puerto Princesa Adventures

Puerto Princesa is known to be a home of breathtaking views. It is a "City in the Forest" according to many.
It houses many tourist destinations such as the new member of World Seven Wonders of Nature, the Underground River and the like.

It was late in September 2013, when Roxy and I decided to go to Palawan, because Philippine Airlines had an irresistable promo back then. We got a deal of 1,400.00 airfare ticket (MNL-PPS-MNL) not bad right?
Right After that I looked for a hotel/ pension house that offers both affordable accommodation and package tours, then i found Balai Inato Pension, they are partnered with Topstar Travel and Tours. We had a best deal, a 4d3n accommodation, Firefly Watching that includes dinner while cruising along a mangrove forest, Honda Bay Island Hopping that includes picnic lunch , Underground River that also includes buffet lunch and City Tours.

We left for Palawan last September 27 2013, we arrived around 5 pm. Luckily Balai Inato offers free airport transfers so we didn't have to get a tricycle going to their pension house.

our room in Balai Inato

After checking- in, we took a rest for a while in preparation for our first activity the same day. We didn't have any idea about the thrill the Firefly Watching activity could bring. Until we got to the place they call Boulevard, it's a smaller version of our Baywalk here in Manila.

We Boarded our boat at 7 pm, but we had to wait for the heavy rain to stop and stay at the port for about 30mins. Until the coastguard finally allowed us to sail around 7:30 pm.

on-board while waiting for the rain to stop

We sailed for another thirty minutes when one of our boatment divided the group in half. The first nine took the buffet dinner first, while the other nine including us transferred to the smaller boat while in the middle of the deep blue sea.

smaller boat entering the mangrove forest

The Mangrove forest reminded me of the movie lake placid. Until the Tourguide pointed her red light towards the mangrove trees around, we were mesmerized by the natural christmas tree made by the fireflies.

The place without the fireflies lighting the mangroves and the plankton glittering on the water surface is comparable to the movies lake placid and anaconda. yay so creepy.

We went back to the bigger boat after 45 mins for dinner, the other nine this time transferred to the smaller boat. We then realized that they turned our benches to a buffet table. How creative right?

our dinner while cruising :)

We arrived at our room aroung 10pm.

DAY 2: We woke up the next day, 6:30 am. Our scheduled tour was 8 am, we had our breakast at 7am. I ate longsilog (filipino sausage, fried rice and eggs) and orange juice for my drink. Our van arrived 8am, we headed straight to Underground River. On our way there, the van stopped at what they call halfway stopover "Taratitat" It is a small nipa hut that sells food and some souvenir items.

Then, we continued our trip full of zigzags and bumpy roads going to underground. After an hour Yehey! We arrived at the sabang port, where we had to ride a pump boat for a 15 minute not so friendly trip because of the big waves at that time.

Upon alighting the boat, we had to enter a small trail going to the site. Just beware of the monkeys, they are notorious for snatching food even inside your bags.

Entrance of the short trail

The monkey snatcher haha

After a short trek

This welcomed us

The water outside the river is usally color green. But since it was a rainy season, it's brown. The boatman served as our tourguide inside the cave, they're well- trained.

Hopped in :)

Entrance of the cave- deepest part 27ft deep according to our tourguide.

I will not post an pictures inside, it's for you to see.:)

We headed back to the sabang port an hour after to grab some lunch. It was included in our package though. We had a buffet full of seafoods grilled pork and chicken and vegetables.

Since we still had enough time, we decided to try the SABANG X ZIPLINE. It is 840 meter long ride that will cross a body of water (part of the sabang beach). Going there was not easy, we had to ride a 4x4 ride, a raft to cross a river, walk on a very secluded beach and trek a small hill for 15-20 mins.

Raft crossing the river

Secluded beach

View from small hill

The trek

We traveled back to Puerto Princesa at 4 pm and arrived at 6pm. Since we got tired from the 2 hour travel and all the activities, we just stayed at our room and ordered food for dinner and have them delivered there.

chicken inato for dinner

DAY2: HONDA BAY ISLAND HOPPING

Our day 2 started around 7am, had our breakfast at 7:30. I had tapsilog (braised beef, fried rice and egg). Our van arrived at 8. We stopped by a shop that offers snorkeling and aqua shoes rentals. I got snorkeling gear for 150, aqua shoes for 100 and underwater camera case for 300. We reached the port at 9 am, but we waited for our tourguide for awhile, she registered us for the tour that day.

waiting inside the van

FIRST ISLAND (LULI ISLAND)

This is a Lulubog- lilitaw island. Lulubog when it's hightide, lilitaw when it's lowtide

corals underwater

SECOND ISLAND (STARFISH ISLAND)

From the name itself? I don't need to explain further haha. This is the most exact place where you can take plenty of beautiful pictures. :) This is also where we had our picnic lunch. We went snorkeling while our boatmen and tourguide prepare our food.

LAST STOP (COWRIE ISLAND)

Very different from the 2 previous islands. Cowrie Island is crowded, though the sand is more beautiful. Water activities like banana boat and jetski are available here.

Roxy in Cowrie haha

We went back to our hotel early, so we ordered merienda from the restaurant of Balai Inato, 2 orders of halo- halo and 1 pansit (good for 2 really yummy) then we decided to rest for a while.