Random Thoughts

It's been years since I wanted to go to Palawan. People would usually tell me that Palawan is waaay better than Boracay. Well, after staying there for 4 days and 3 nights, I can say that both offer wonderful and yet different experiences. Boracay is more of beach, food & dining, and night outs. Palawan is more on the relaxing part, tours, island hopping, and a lot of seafoods!

I just love Palawan. I'm not saying that I love it more now than Boracay, I would still go back to Boracay because I wanted to bring Alex there. But being in Palawan makes you appreciate the beauty of our country. It made me realized how much we are actually blessed to have such wonderful "treasures" and I would say that Palawan is doing great in preserving it! Kudos to Palawan for being so clean and I think almost everyone there loves their town and takes care of it very much. I would want to go back there again hopefully when Alex is old enough to be able to join us in the tours. :)

Anyway, we left Manila at 7 AM thru Cebu Pacific (thanks again to PISO fare!). We arrived at Puerto Princesa around 8:15 AM and they said that our flight was early. Yes, it was a good start! :)

Welcome to Puerto Princesa!



We got the Asturias Hotel package where it includes round trip airport transfer. The van was so late I think we waited for more than 30minutes before it arrived. But it was ok since the weather was cool and we were only having the half day city tour for this day so weren't really in a hurry.

We liked the lobby of the Asturias Hotel. It was refreshing. Although not the typical 5-star hotel lobby of course but it was more than what we had expected. Breakfast was not yet included in our package so we just tried to ignore our hunger and tried to go to sleep (LOL! Kidding...). We actually took our breakfast in the airport so we were still full and decided to wait for lunch.


Asturias' Front Desk


Lunch was Yummy!


Overlooking the Pool...

Our half day city tour started around 1:30PM. The hotel booked us at Ellen's Travel and Tours and we liked it so much because they were on time that day.

First stop is Butterfly Garden. It was small and not too much butterflies but the place was nice and refreshing (how many times did I mention this word already?). We took a couple of photos here and we were so happy with the results. (Well, actually Hubby took most of our photos of the entire trip so you will be seeing a lot of ME on the photos. LOL!)









Second stop is the Crocodile Farm & Nature Park which is very interesting. There were a lot of crocodiles there, ostriches, and guess what? Hubby get to hold a baby "bayawak"! It was scary so I didn't dare hold it! LOL! There were also some souvenir shops here.








Scary Baby Crocodile!

Third stop is the Ihawig Penal Farm which was not really a farm but a prison. There's not much to see in this place though but there is a shop where you can buy some stuff made by the inmates. Really interesting. The place is huuuuge! And what I like here is that inmates get to be rehabilitated as well. They do farming and a lot of stuff. We only bought some stuff in the shop because we wanted to support the inmates. It was a nice idea really and it would be good if they implement something similar here in Manila. :)

Fourth stop is the Mitra Ranch owned by of course the Mitra's. It was just a view deck of the Honda bay and they opened it for public. It was nice for picture taking. We didn't stay here for long though because there's really not much to see.

Fifth stop is the Weaving Shop (which I completely forgot the name). It was pretty interesting and their stuff were nice too. We were able to buy some place mats and table runner for the house. The tour guide (named Jasper) said that they export their products and one of their clients is Calvin Klein.

So, there, our half day city tour was over. Hubby and I had fun! We got hungry after the tour, good thing we bought some chips. It's really good to bring some snacks especially if you have a husband like mine who is always hungry! hehe! Kidding Hon...Anyway, after some snacks, we took a nap, then had dinner afterwards at the hotel then took a dip at the pool.

Coming up next...Our Second Day - A trip to the Underground River!