Thursday, May 04, 2006

Palawan!!!

If you live in the Philippines, you have got to got to got to got to got to got to visit Palawan. I can't believe it! My family loves travelling and it was our first time to go there. It was unbelievable!!! It's just B-E-A-utiful. Got to see the crocs (big ones and small ones), bearcats, ostrich, fed the schools of fishes, saw mangroves, monkeys, bats, monitor lizards, giant mosquitos... it was amazing. Wahh!! I won't be able to describe it and give it justice..so you just have to go there and see it for yourself. Or...you can watch Living Asia. My family's gonna be appearing there. Haha.

Yes..it was a very nice place but I'm a city girl so our 4 days, 3 nights stay there was just perfect.

First day: Half day city tour. That's when we got to see the Crocs. My dad almost got bitten by a small croc. They were scary. Well, first of all they're lizards. I hate reptiles and amphibians. I'm scared and disgusted with them..but they're very very nice creatures. So there we were in the area where there were a thousand crocs in different tubs..then my dad, as always would fool around... Crocs stares are really scary..I didn't have the guts of looking at them in the eye cos those little creatures really looked like they were gonna eat me..and my dad...my crazy dad goes to a tub full of 1 and a half year old of crocs (they were about 15 inches)..

Dad: Why are you looking at me like that? YOU DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!
*he even points at the croc and lowers his head on the tub..
then KABOOM! the croc jumps and was an inch close of biting off my dad's nose.

Haha.. I screamed of course then laughed so hard..

Then we went to the big crocs...the smell was just awful. There were hundreds of them in there and although I was around 20 feet above them..I felt like they were capable of jumping that high and get me. Haha..

The Crocodile Farm also preserved a lot of animals. There were eagles, ostrich, bearcats. But those were the only animals we saw.

After that, we went to Baker's Hill. Not much to see but the vintage statues of Marilyn Monroe, a pirate and some cartoony stuff. Bought C2 Green Tea. Ahhhhh!!!

We went to a small weaving factory where Calvin Klein was said to have been ordering his placemats. It was a nice place. It employs around 50 people from as young as 13 years old to as old as 70 year old, with around 20 weaving machines. The workers probably take turns. Some of them were sleeping on the floor. It was very "third world," shall I say. It was like a small sweat shop. My mum bought table runners, place mats, I bought pasalubongs which cost P5. Neat!

Then we went to this really nice place with cool artworks and giant kois. Merrienda was served there and chilled for about an hour.

Dinner in Badjao. The place was also very nice. It was a giant bahay kubo and it served delicious sea food. The background music was just terrible. Nakaka-empacho. Haha. Fast music and eating just doesn't work...

Second day: Woke up at 7 in the morning for breakfast and preparation for our Honday Bay Tour. We rode a boat that showed the dFirst stop was Snake Island. It was glorious. White sand beach and the perfect place for snorkelling. That's where we got to feed those fishes. We snorkelled probably around two hours.

Then another boat ride that dropped us off in Pandan Island. Another snorkelling experience. It was a feast for our eyes. The corals never seemed to end. There were starfishes too. Had lunch there which was also delicious then we chilled for 2 hours. Amazingly, we were able to extend it because TriShark came and they tourguides loved my dad so much that they allowed us to stay a bit longer. Sarrappp!!!

On our boat ride back, the four of us took advantage of the sun and stayed in the view deck and had our own photo shoot. That was fun. Haha!!!

Washed up and then had dinner in Cafe Arturo. It was a family business...literally! The parents cook, the children serve. I soo loved the food and the place. It wasn't part of the package so if you wanna eat there, you gotta bring extra cash. It was pricey compared to the other restos but it's worth it.

Got back to the hotel and got to see F4 in CNN.. Hahahaha!! Zaza really made sure we won't miss it. Haha!

Third Day: Underground River tour!! Woohoo!!! It was a long drive. We were racing with the other vans. I was asleep more than half the time but the rough road was just too much. Thank goodness for my newly replaced iPod. Haha.

Mayor Hagedorn was there, too. He was on his way to Underground River we found out with the crew of Living Asia. After the boat ride to the river, we waited for around an hour. We watched the Mayor being interviewed when we got to talk to the crew. Then they asked for volunteers who would go in the cave with Mayor. Tricia and Zaza was just soo excited that they raised their hands. They were so excited they didn't get to go in with the Mayor. Haha. It was me, Shark, Mom and Dad. But they just took a shot of us getting out of the cave. Hehe!

Then the 6 of us finally went in (without Mayor), with the 2 Living Asia people on the boat with us. The cameramen rode a separate boat, since a max of 8 people can ride the small boat. They followed us around and we had the tour together with our super funny tour guide named Robin. What we saw in the cave..was...one of a kind. The rock formations were amazing. There was cathedral actually inside. I made a wish of course (as Mayor told me..yeah..close kame). There were formations of The Virgin Mary, The Holy Family, Jesus right were there formed a dome. It really was like a cathedral. There were swallows flying around. One fell on the water that the tourguide caught and we got to touch. There were also rock formations of an eagle, a naked woman named Sharon Stone, a giant jelly fish, a castle, there was even a highway...I forgot the others but there were so many! Then there were the millions of bats. A lot flying around, a lot were sleeping. Robin showed us how dark it was there. He asked for the flash lights to be shut off for 5 seconds and it was frikking creepy. One can't see a thing inside. It was very very very very dark. "Nakakita ka na ba ng wala?" Robin asked us. Yun!! Yun ang wala!!!

After that, another boatride to Sabang Beach for lunch. Great lunch, fantastic view! There were waves finally! (There weren't any in Pandan and Snake Island). Then Mike Marasigan of Living Asia asked us if we're going to the mangroves. It wasn't included in the tour but we wanted to go. So we talked with our tour guide and arranged the mangrove tour. It was a 15 minute walk from the beach. So after having our lunch, we started to walk. It was frikking hot but it was all good! I wanted to see those mangroves. We got there and we arranged for our tour. We looked around the place and there were thousands of tiny mudfishes jumping around. At first I thought they were frogs cos Shark said they were frogs.. Ewww! Then I looked closely..they were mudfishes. It was still disgusting. Hehe. Our paddleboat was finally ready and we started with the tour. The water was dark (it was a mix of fresh and salty water). And I've no plans of swimming in there. No way. We were like in the Amazon...as in like the Anaconda movie. So the tourguide told us the importance of mangoves and the different animals in there when he saw a snake. It was a striped yellow and black snake. It was poisonous. There were 3 snakes, actually on a tree we passed. I made a jerking movement that just rocked the boat and it scared me. I knew I wouldn't drown because we had life vests and we all knew how to swim. I'm just not gonna swim in there. Not in a million years!! Then on my side..again!! Shark saw a frikking monitor lizard that jumped to the water. Wahhh!!! Another reason why I'm never gonna swim in that water. Haha. Then we saw the mangroves. The video cam was running out of battery and it was drizzling, but thank goodness I was able to shoot a video of that place. Then it started to pour. The tourguide even started to sing. It was beautiful song about mangroves in the tune of Paro-Parong Bukid. But the rain was starting to freak me out. It was really pouring! My thought was..we were far from the where we came..there were monitor lizards, and snakes swimming around the water and we might sink if it doesn't stop!! Haha..thank goodness I saw the bridge where we came from a few minutes after. Whew!!!

I immediately ran to the hut and I had to make sure the video cam, my iPod and the cellphones in my back pack didn't get wet. Then we started to head towards Sabang beach. It was raining but it was okay because at least it wasn't hot and we had fun playing in the rain. We started to run towards the beach and when we reached the beach, we bathe in the sea and enjoyed the waves for a few minutes. We had to go back of course, so after washing up, we headed back to the hotel. We stopped over the Vietnamese Village for merrienda.

For dinner, we went to Ka Lui. Again, it was an exquisite place with good food. That was our last dinner in Puerto Princesa.

Next morning, we went home.

Our trip to Palawan was the best. It was the Ultimate PaX (Palawan eXperience)!!! But that was just Puerto Princesa. Next stop: BUSUANGA!! Woohoo!!!

Pictures are in my multiply site. :)

2 Comments:

At 2:22 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

why didn't you bring my waterproof bag? its in my closet...

 
At 9:43 AM , Blogger Edelicious said...

we bought another one. we also bought that waterproof bag for cellphones. The orange bag was too big. The cellphone bag just had the 5 cellphones. Dad's Blackberry and my iPod didn't fit.

 

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