Palawan : Day 1

So Rickey had planned a trip to Palawan with his Better Half to round up the remainder of his 'sabbatical'. Since I had always wanted to visit Palawan, I went along.

Coincidentally, we both ended up on the same flight out.

The only difference was, I paid extra for my front row seats, and Rickey got the white man treatment.

Probably the funniest part of that was the fact that Claudia was shoved in the back row on the flight from Manila to Palawan, whilst Rickey kept his front row seat. White Man Treatment indeed.

For the first time, we actually took a flight at a decent hour to Manila, no more midnight-landing-at-4am flights with a 6 hour layover. We took the morning flight, landed in Manila at 2, with 2 hours to spare for the transfer to the next flight. 

I figured that I would have to use my madskills to get us through if we got delayed.

We got delayed.

There was actually a traffic jam at the Manila airport. Our plane was told to go into a holding pattern. Die Hard flashbacks started going off in my head.

We eventually landed, and after an even longer wait for our luggage (what happened to the days when I traveled on a single backpack?), we got to the domestic gate to catch our next flight.

We arrived in Peurto Princesa just as the sun was setting, so my first mission was to get the lay of the land. 

Rickey picked the hotel (Puerto Pension), and it was an excellent location. It was right above the boardwalk (where all the food is), 5mins from the market, but far enough away from both that we were not disturbed by noise.

The service was very good, the rooms were clean and comfortable, and the showers had excellent water pressure. Probably my favourite part was the table/chairs they set up outside the rooms. We could hang out, play cards, eat, drink...etc. If I had one complaint, it was that the room was a little small...and the furniture was a little wooden (they creaked).

After a preliminary exploration, I recommended heading down to the bayfront for dinner. I had seen huts with people starting fires and grilling food.

Unfortunately, we made our first mistake of the trip. We turned right instead of turning left.

Why was it a mistake, all the awesome food was on the left (which we found out next day).

There was fairly decent food on the right, and it tasted quite good, till we discovered the places on the left.