Thanks to Cebu Pacific for giving us the opportunity to travel again thru the Piso fare promo. I was about to re-book our Bohol trip last October because Aloysius had exams scheduled on that week. After I was told that I will be charged more than 3,000 pesos for the 2 sectors each times 4 persons, I realized that it’s better to avail another trip than pay 3K. So I had reasons to purchase that ticket for a trip in Palawan - this time with Lito in celebration of our 8th Wedding Anniversary and his birthday. Would you believe that our ticket costs only 4,180 pesos? So I just added a thousand for the rebooking, it’s a good thing that the exam schedule was moved. We enjoyed that vacation. You can read my blog entry for the Bohol trip here.
This is supposedly a surprise for Lito, but since I was planning to buy him a camera then I mentioned that we can practice shooting in Palawan. Kahit kailan, can’t keep secrets to myself hahaha. Surprise Spoiler!
Day 1 – A little bit of everything (City Tour, Honda Bay, Great Food)
We arrived at Puerto Princesa City, Palawan at around 10:00am and was able to check-in at Puerto Pension (I love the place-though the room was small, ganda naman ng ambience) around 10:30am. After that, we had early lunch at Balinsasayaw. I ordered the Tanigue ala pobre and Lito had Grilled Tuna Belly, we also ordered their specialty Nido Soup, ang sarap! The buco juice and green mango shake were just icing on the cake. Sarap kumain! Mura pa…our bill cost a little over 300 pesos. Sulit! While eating, Lito and I was voting on what to do next, either we can go island hopping at Honda Bay or have the city tour. And since the scorching heat was unusual these days (it was raining in Manila when we left) we opted for the latter. It’s a good thing our trike driver/tour guide affirmed that we can have both worlds. We just spend little time for each. And so by 12:30 pm, we started the city tour. We first went to Butterfly Farm. Lito had a great time taking pictures using his new DSLR and we finally saw them flying all around. When we were in Bohol, the butterflies were all sleeping because of the cold weather. Then we headed to Crocodile farm, the tour started at 1:30pm, we enjoyed all the great photo opportunities there.
While Lito was busy clicking his camera, I was recording video footages of the little crocs. I had the chance of holding one too. Not too scary because his mouth was tied up. After that, we headed towards Mitra’s ranch, we were not able to go inside because they are expecting foreign visitors. We enjoyed the view overlooking Honda Bay. Next stop was Baker’s Hill. The food was yummy but the garden, mini zoo and statues made the trip there worthwhile. I’m sure my kids would enjoy seeing Snow White, Bugs Bunny and Santa Claus here.
After long trips in between the sites, we finally reached the wharf that will lead us to the islands of Honda Bay. We arrive around 3:00 pm and we are supposed to come back around 5:30 pm just before the sunset. So we barely had 2 hours, we chose to go snorkeling at Pambato Reef and Snake Island. We reached the pambato reef site and it was in the middle of the sea. I was thinking its near an island. It’s a different experience because there’s a current na dinadala ako and the reefs are amazing. Ganda talaga! I just wished that we were here while the sun was shining brightly to see them clearly. We were able to take pictures using the underwater camera but it’s not the same when you seen them up close. I hope the reefs will be preserved. I saw some of them already broken because they are being stepped on by snorkels.
Next stop –> Snake Island. I chose this because this is where I can feed the fishes. We arrive there around 4:00pm so we had the island to ourselves. Awesome place! I enjoyed seeing the fishes coming towards me each time I let go of the bread. We were not able to roam around the island anymore because it was already getting dark so we just took some pictures then headed back to the wharf. It was a long trip going back, we just passed by the Pandan Island, Starfish Island, Cowrie Island which was being rented at that time and lastly the Bat Island. The sunset view from the boat was spectacular. There was a huge outbreak of bats coming out of the island. There were thousands of them flying above us. The boatman said that it’s time for the bats to find food (fruits). I was secretly hoping and praying that we will reach our destination before it gets dark (or before the bats think of us as food). God is good and He made us reach the wharf just before dark as in right after we stepped out of the boat, dark na agad. As expected, we were the only ones the people from the station were waiting.
It was around 6:30pm when we left the wharf. I asked Ms. Bel, the friendly receptionist at Puerto Pension to reserve a table for us at Ka Lui at 7:00 to 7:30 pm. So upon reaching the pension house we just took a quick shower and headed to Ka Lui’s. We ordered the Ka Lui Special, it’s good for two. It was a delightful experience, the food, the ambience, it was amazing! Best of all, the value is so sulit, we had the lato appetizer, the prawns in garlic butter sauce, the grilled tuna, the chicken inasal, the halaan soup and fruit bowl for only 365 pesos. No wonder Ka Lui is really that famous here in Puerto Princesa. Seated next to our table is no less than Gov. Joel Reyes but we were not sure then if it was really him, we took photo ops sana with him.
I was a wonderful day on our Day 1. We had so many activities squeezed in for the day tiring but worth every second of it. A good night’s sleep (without the kids) was all we needed to recharge for another adventure in Palawan.
