100 days in Southeast Asia | Part 7 | Philippines: Puerto Princesa & Port Barton, Palawan

PUERTO PRINCESA

 And so we arrived in Puerto Princesa airport at night time, from Cebu. 

A lot of people don’t actually realize that the famous El Nido, where everyone wants to go, is quite far from the airport in Puerto. It is aaaall the way up north in the island.

So basically, you arrive in Puerto and have to catch a van, yes, one of those crazy vans, for 6 hours! Haha Seriously, it is such a hassle and probably scary for a lot of people too (the van). But it works, and remember, this is NOT a cheap island compared to others. Specially up in El Nido. 
  
And also the van to take you up is not that cheap. There’s probably a bus option but it might only be worth it if you have time.

For us, it all worked all well since we knew it beforehand, miracle I know haha, but yeah, and we were not in a rush and we were keen to check out Puerto Princesa and Port Barton before going to El Nido anyway.

 
So we spent 1 night in Puerto, which was enough time to see the town and a few churches (4th photo); the cool brewery (3rd photo) which the beer is not cheap but it is pretty good; and this delicious and cheap restaurant called KaLui (first 2 photos).. oh gosh such tasty food!! Highly recommended!

And get an awful massage before leaving the town. Ew, it was gross. At least it was cheap but man… I wish I remembered the name of the place :S



 PORT BARTON

So we decided to catch the crazy van up to Port Barton, not cheap van as well, but it is the quickest way and I guess we were just keen to get there asap to relax haha…

Port Barton is not very touristy which is great! And it is how El Nido used to be some years ago, has electricity only from 6pm to midnight haha
It is actually not bad, since you will be spending the day out anyway!

We spent 2 nights there and I found it to be good enough. However, we met a couple of people which have been living there for a few months already haha they loved it so much.  

The town itself is tiny, but cute, I can definitely see it becoming the next El Nido super touristy. But for now, it is not, only a few tourists, enough accommodation. So the beach is quite nice and not crowded.

Good this is that because it is not such popular place, the prices are still not too bad, for food, boat tours and rooms.

We had a private boat tour there actually haha It was a lazy morning, so we got up late and realized all the boat were gone, except for one but it was empty. And we found ourselves alone on the beach, not bad actually.
But then, we got lucky!! A fisherman came out of nowhere to chat to us and ask if we wanted to go on a tour on his boat, the only boat left! And since we got a good deal, it left just for us at 10am! 
Pretty nice, we didn’t want lunch so it made it even cheaper and the fisherman let us pick the spots where we wanted to visit and how long we wanted to stay in each place.
We saw thousands of amazing colourful corals, turtles and plenty of clown fish! 
It was a great day out snorkeling. I think the best snorkeling we did in the entire trip to be honest!!
Oh! And make sure to check out the Starfish island! WOW I have never seen so many of them like this in my life! Is stunning. Don’t touch them tho ;)

We stayed in a pretty cheap guest house (can't remember the name but it was on a corner and 1 block from the beach) and it wasn’t great, but at least it was spacious, private and there were no bugs. It had no wifi and no hot shower, but it was so hot that it wasn’t as bad having a cold shower really haha. We paid about $12 per night at that time.

 There is a vegetarian place somewhere around town which serves quite good food, simple and cheap! I can’t remember the name tho. It is quite small, you eat outdoors, it seems to be a house that they just cook inside and bring it outside for you. There is only a couple of tables. Yea so, really small, but good.



The trip from the highway to the Town and vice-versa, is quite rough and I would recommend doing it during the day since at night you can’t see anything and the drivers are just a little bit too crazy as I have mentioned previously.

Next stop El Nido.

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