Week 72 - El Nido, Port Barton, Sabang, Puerto Princesa (Philippines)

We enjoyed our “Tour C” boat trip around the Bacuit Archipelagic but felt like we’d spent a lot of time on the boat and not much time on the islands themselves. Rather than take another tour, Rhys suggested we book a taxi boat to drop us at a beach and pick us up later - we chose Paradise Beach on Cadlao Island. After buying supplies for a picnic lunch we boarded our taxi and set out for the island. Halfway there the captain asked which beach we wanted to go to and when we drew closer we pointed at one that looked tranquil. It turned out to be Natnat Beach rather than Paradise Beach and the perfect choice. With a pick up arranged for 3pm we had the entire day to relax in our own little spot of heaven. Other than a couple of kayakers and a few locals we had the beach to ourselves for most of the day with one small tour group turning up for 40 minutes in the afternoon. After being on a busy tour the previous day it was paradise. We whiled away the day reading, walking on the beach, snorkeling into the next bay and sharing our lunch with the scrawny island dogs. 

Me and mum enjoying the sun on Natnat beach, Cadlao Island, El Nido.

Back in El Nido we had a couple of hours before sunset so Rhys, having been there the day before, took us around the bay through the un-touristic end of the village to see some boulders that had been eroded at the base so they appeared to be sitting on tiny little pedestals. We enjoyed El Nido, a lot of the businesses seem to still be locally owned and the tourist side of things is intertwined with the every day life of the village. Everyone we came across was super friendly, people of all ages were waving and saying hello and although it is the most touristy spot in Palawan it still retains some of its rustic charm with electric only running from 6pm to 6am and community wells dotted along the streets, always in use.

Other than a man falling off scaffolding keeping mum awake we all slept well and were out of the guesthouse before 7am. We jumped in a tricycle to the bus station and boarded our shuttle bus to the San Jose junction. The 3 hour journey went quickly and after talking with the driver we were dropped at the bus terminal in Roxas, the better option for finding onward transport to Port Barton. At 11am we left the terminal and 5 minutes later pulled in to a garage where they loaded an engine on to the roof before heading back to the bus station for them to load a few more boxes of fish. Finally on the road and we stopped a couple more times to pick people up and when we finally thought we must be full and people were sitting on the roof we pulled over again to pick someone else up along with 6 sacks of grain to fit in the aisle. A bumpy drive down a long dirt track later and we pulled in to Port Barton. While Rhys waited for the bags to be unloaded me and mum ran around the one track village to find accommodation. After four places telling us they were fully booked we stumbled across one with two free rooms for a bargain price, right on the beach with dark wooden floors and a balcony area with sea views.

We had the afternoon to explore so after lunch at our guesthouse we walked along the beach. Rhys spied something flapping in the sand in the distance and ran over calling us to follow, it turned out to be a spotted ray stranded in the shallows, luckily a local walked by and dragged it back into the water and off it swam. We wandered back along the main road (a dirt track) and stopped at the guesthouse next to ours for a drink before returning there later for dinner. Port Barton is a lot smaller than El Nido and more relaxed. There are only a handful of places to stay and eat, all on one strip between the main dirt track and the golden arc of the beach. 

Helping the ray back in to the sea, Port Barton.

Rhys chilling out in a palm tree, Port Barton.

Our alarms were set and we had another early start as we’d booked ourselves on a tour of the nearby mangroves in the hope of seeing Hornbills. As the mangrove channels are only skinny little passages they can only take little boats through so we were alone with our guide. We were surprised how little wild life there was, no Hornbills but a couple of snakes in the trees, a big fat monitor lizard and lots of brightly coloured Kingfishers. It was very serene and worth getting up for. 

The mangroves, Port Barton.

Back at the beach we had a quick turn around before we headed out again. This time on an island hopping and snorkeling boat trip. Unlike the big boats in El Nido the boats in Port Barton are small and there was only us and another couple on our tour. Our first stop was at the Aquarium Reef, it was an off boat snorkel and was fantastic, possibly our favourite spot in the whole time we’ve been away (or at least top 3, Belize was pretty spectacular). It was quite shallow and the coral was fantastic, lots of different types and really brightly coloured. Although there weren’t many big fish the variety of smaller fish and the sheer number of fish was breathtaking, it looked like a scene from a Pixar movie. 

Rhys snorkeling, Aquarium Reef, Port Barton.

Our next stop was another snorkel stop at White Reef and for lunch we stopped at Paradise Beach, true to it’s name with only a handful of other people on the island. The captain cooked up a huge lunch of freshly grilled tuna and we whiled away an hour or so sunbathing and snorkeling. Compared to the El Nido trip it was all so unrushed and it felt like we pretty much got to leave each spot when we were ready rather than the captain gathering us up. We stopped at another island, German Island and another reef for snorkeling before heading back to Port Barton. German Island was a tiny island with expanses of sand, hammocks strung up in palm trees and a little house where they were rearing (or trying to) baby turtles to release when they were bigger. 

Rhys snorkeling at White Reef, Port Barton.

Mum on German Island, Port Barton.

Me in a hammock on German Island, Port Barton.

With two tours in one day we were pretty tired when we got back to the guesthouse. We stopped by a little cafe for dinner, played cards on the veranda with the waves crashing on the shore as the soundtrack and went to bed.

Leaving Port Barton was a bit of an adventure. As the boats to Sabang were really expensive we decided to take the local bus. We were told it left at 9am so arrived at the stop at 8:30am. It was full and the only option if we were to make it to Sabang that day was to sit on the roof, so up we climbed along with 11 other people. After an hour of touring the town to collect people, packages, boxes of fish and sacks of rice (all tied to the roof alongside us) we were off and braced ourselves for the first hour of the journey along a winding unpaved track. Considering we were squashed in, ducking electric cables and branches and balanced on the metal poles that formed the roof rack the ride was more enjoyable than it had been on the way down inside a jeepney. The track wound between rice paddies and banana plantations up and over the mountains to join the main road. We made a brief rest stop at a little cafe before continuing to the Salvacion junction where we waved goodbye to the bus

Me and mum on the journey from Port Barton to Salvacion on the roof of the bus.

At the junction we found a guy who ran a guesthouse in Sabang who had come to collect some people from El Nido who didn’t show up so he had an empty van. 40 minutes later we had wound our way over the mountain and down in to the bay. Instantly we didn’t like Sabang as much as Port Barton but it is the jumping off point for the Underground River so we collected our bags and walked along the track parallel to the beach to find some Lonely Planet recommended cottages. As in El Nido and Port Barton they were full and we ended up walking most of the way back to the port to find rooms. Although basic the cottages were right on the beach and cheap.

The day ended with a quick exploration of the town followed by a dip in the sea before a super strength cocktail with umbrellas at a posh hotel.

View of the mountains behind the posh hotel, Sabang. 

View of the beach with the tide out from the wharf, Sabang.

After spending hours the previous day trying to work out what time we were supposed to meet our Underground River guide (there’s no internet nor public phones in Sabang apart from at the posh hotel) and meeting a lovely lady from a tour booth who managed to call them for us, we were at the wharf at 8:30am. We wandered over to the boat waiting area to join the rest of our group who had come from Puerto and within 5 minutes were being herded to our boat. The ride was only short, it took us around the bay and to the entrance of the river where we disembarked and waited for our guide to register us before leading us to another boat. The second boat took us in to the caves. The Underground River has been voted one of the new 7 wonders of the natural world. It is the longest navigable river in the world at 22km and our trip took 45 minutes to cover the first kilometre or so. We rowed through ‘the cathedral’ and ‘the market’ with the guide pointing out familiar looking rock formations, Jesus, Sharon Stone and peanut butter among them. The highest point of the cave rises 65m above the river and the cave is home to around 47,000 bats and has a huge population of swifts. Seeing all the bats hanging around was one of the best bits! Back at the entrance we stopped to ogle some monkeys and massive monitor lizards before heading back to the wharf in town. Buffet lunch was laid out in a restaurant nearby and despite it only being about 11am we dug in. All up worth doing and although more expensive to do a tour than DIY it certainly made it easy and cut out any waiting time.

The entrance to the Underground River, Sabang.

Monitor lizards in the Underground River National Park, Sabang.

As we were staying another night in our basic Sabang beach cottages we had the whole afternoon to relax and enjoy the beach. After a quick swim and frolic in the waves (we haven’t seen waves in a while!), Rhys headed off for a smoothie in the posh restaurant to check the rugby/football scores and me and mum found a massage ‘tent’ right on the beach. For £5 each we had a one hour full body massage. Mine was blissful, mum’s was more like a deep tissue sports massage.

Me and mum having a massage on the beach, Sabang.

We met Rhys back at our huts, packed some bananas and walked along the beach and over some rocks to the next bay for an explore. We spent the rest of the day reading on the beach outside our huts before heading to a restaurant nearby for dinner. 

We weren’t due to leave Sabang until 1pm so after a lay-in we walked along the beach to find a spot for a relaxed pancake breakfast. The pancakes were huge (literally cakes cooked in pans) and by the time we’d finished it was time to pack up and head to the road in the village to find our van. To pass the time before the van left we bought mum a fresh coconut to drink (she’d never tried one) and sat with our feet dangling over the port wall. A few more pearl and semi-precious stone bracelet purchases (it’s so cheap!) and we were on our way. We pulled in to the San Jose bus terminal 6km out of Puerto Princesa proper and jumped in a tricycle to take us to one of the guesthouses recommended in Lonely Planet. As seems to be the norm, yet again the place was fully booked, as was the next place we tried. Luckily our tricycle driver knew of another place and although basic we checked in with a bit of awkwardness when the lady asked if she could put more people in our room if they turned up later and we refused.

As it was only early and we were a bit down because the guest house was basic, we decided to head into town to see what it had to offer - answer, nothing. It’s a busy, dirty town, not really set up for tourists. After walking past a modern, blue, pretty ugly cathedral we stopped by the Plaza Cuartel, which was actually a nice little garden square kept as a memorial to American POW’s and then walked to find the non-existent centre. After a detour through a market we wandered down to the bay before circling back to the hostel, by this point we were even more unimpressed with the place. A bit of internet research later and we decided we’d risk the weather (storms have been forecast all week but haven’t emerged) and we found a tricycle to take us the 45 minutes out of town to Iwahig for Firefly boat trips in the mangroves. It started raining on the journey but we pushed on and were there as soon as it opened. We registered, collected our fetching bamboo hats and ponchos and were in the second boat out, beating all the tour groups from town. The fireflies were mesmorising. They cluster on the flowering trees and when you shine a red light at them they hold their breaths and glow to warn you off, thinking you’re a threat. They looked like twinkling Christmas lights and despite them hiding from the rain under the leaves, we could still see hundreds. Back in town we asked our tricycle driver to drop us off at Kinabuch’s, an American style bar and grill in town that everyone seems to go to.

Our only photo of the fireflies, Iwahig, Puerto Princesa.

We woke early the next day and were surprised to see blue skies. We spent too long procrastinating, deciding how to spend the day and ended up heading out for another explore without really having any aim in mind, it was a bad choice. We walked along the main road, pretty much to the other side of town and found nothing that would keep us amused for a whole day. As the sun was shining and the town is pretty horrid we jumped on a tricycle (an old, falling apart tricycle that got a puncture on our journey), rushed back to ours to grab our beach bags and headed out to the Honda Bay Port on the outskirts of town. We ended up chartering a huge boat just for us that gave us the option of choosing any three islands in the area to visit. By lunch time we were pulling up at our first stop, Pandan Island. We found a spot under a tree on the white sand beach away from the tourist hordes and settled in. Although there wasn’t any worthwhile snorkeling, the beach was beautiful and the sea was clear and warm and the shallows were littered with starfish and that’s no exaggeration, every where you looked there were more. We spent three hours there soaking up the sun and watched the storm clouds roll in over the other islands we’d chosen. Rather than visit Luli Island and Starfish Island we decided to head to Cowrie Island, a more touristy stop but further from the clouds. We had time for a fruit shake before our boatmen called us back to the boat to head back to port to avoid the storm.

Mum and Rhys paddling in the sea at Pandan Island, Honda Bay.

Back in town, more internet research had suggested another nice restaurant, Neva’s, for dinner, this time just around the corner from our guesthouse. We ordered a stupid amount of brick oven pizza, ate a dessert meant for four people and enjoyed the atmosphere of the candlelit garden restaurant, an oasis from the hustle and dirt of Puerto.