2020.02.06 – El Nido – Puerto Princessa (Php) – After breakfast at nearby restaurant, we took a moto-tricycle to the bus terminal a half km away. We promptly boarded our comfortable 9am express bus for the 5.5 hour journey to Puerto Princessa. Upon our arrival at the bus terminal, we were surrounded by a crowd of moto-tricycle drivers. After some negotiation, we were brought to our accommodation some 6 kms towards the town center. We settled into our room after swapping rooms again. After an early evening meal at a nearby Filipino restaurant, we walked along the lively Bayview area.

2020.02.07 – Puerto Princessa – Puerto Princessa (Php) – At breakfast, we were disappointed by the stingy courtesy breakfast offered by our mid-range hotel. Later, we jumped into a moto-tricycle to reach the office of the Subterranean River National Park where we were hoping to buy a permit for a day-trip to the Underground River. After reaching the location specified in our guide book, we learned the office had moved, last August, to a brand new building closer to the town center – just a few blocks away from our hotel. At the office, we learned some disappointing information regarding the cost of this tourist attraction. After much consideration, we decided to give up the idea of visiting the Underground River as the cost and the 5 hour transportation time did not really justify the 30-45 mins visit of the river. Later we walked over to the town’s Cathedral and Plaza Cuartel – the site of WWII Palawan Massacre. We spent much of the time relaxing on our room’s balcony, chatting with our room neighbor and walking around different neighborhoods. For our evening meal, we took a moto-tricycle for 2km to a highly rated restaurant which offered a Balinese decor. We enjoyed so much the great and reasonably priced food and atmosphere that we made reservation for the following evening. Even if the restaurant required us to take our footwear off before entering the premises, surprisingly Jenny did not mind. We enjoyed the walk back to our hotel.

2020.02.08 – Puerto Princessa – Puerto Princessa (Php) – After breakfast, we went in search of businesses offering foot spa. We located one that Jenny had found on the internet. She fully enjoyed a 1h 20min foot spa. Later we stopped at a nice cafe for lattes and snacks. Back at our hotel, we continued to relax and follow-up on our travel planning. In the evening, we returned to the same restaurant as last night.

2020.02.09 – Puerto Princessa – Boracay (Php) – We had an early wake up as we caught a moto-tricycle at 5:45am for the nearby airport. As we had previously done our check-in on-line, we only had to drop-off our luggage. Although we preferred a direct flights from Puerto Princessa to Boracay, none were available. We had a long 4 hour connection in Cebu, the 2nd largest city of the Philippines, before arriving at the tiny airport of Caticlan. Before reaching our hotel on the island of Boracay, we had to take a moto-tricycle from the airport to a dock ferry area. Along the road, an army check point inspected at length our passports. At the dock, we had to pay various eco/entrance fees in addition to our transportation cost of the 15 min ferry. Before boarding the ferry, we also had to show proof that we had our booked accommodation on the island of Boracay. We learned, while in Puerto Princessa, that the extremely popular island of Boracay had been completely closed, by government officials, to tourists in April 2018 for a period of six months. In order to sustain the livelihood of the island many new rules were introduced including no sand castle building! As our ferry docked in Boracay, the rain started to fall, slowly at first but more heavily later on. Under a downpour, we scrambled to secure an e-tricycle to reach our hotel some 4 kms further. After relaxing a bit after our hotel check-in, we dropped by a nearby Korean restaurant for our evening meal. Later we walked along the busy streets to discover that we had landed in the middle of resort-filled island catering mostly to Korean tourists.

2020.02.10 – Boracay – Boracay (Php) – After our hotel’s courtesy breakfast, we strolled over to the jewel of Boracay – White Beach – some 500m away. Under a covered sky, we enjoyed walking along the 4km shallow fine white sand beach. We saw a dozen of boat loads of day trippers leaving the beach. Although the beach was lined up with restaurants and a wide range of accommodations, it was nice to see the new island rules ensured that no sun beds or touts cluttered the nice beach. After our 7+kms long walk along the beach, we stopped for some coffee. Back at our hotel, we relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon. Neither of us felt the urge to swim on the nice beach as we had enjoyed plenty of swimming during our 3D2N tour. To our surprise, it started to rain again at the same time as yesterday. We opted to have our evening meal at a Japanese restaurant across the street from our hotel.

2020.02.11 – Boracay – Boracay (Php) – After our relaxing breakfast, we continued to relax in our room. Just before lunch, we explored the restaurant offering along the D’Mall, a pedestrian walkway leading to the White Beach. Unfortunately, all the pricey places appeared to cater to the resort tourists. As we walked again along the beach, we estimated the tourists originated at 50% Korean, 30% foreigners and 20% local. Although we saw many business signs in Chinese, we saw very very few Chinese guests (if any). Sadly we noticed several Chinese restaurants were simply closed and locked out. We had a wonderful evening meal at a roof top restaurant highly rated on TripAdvisor. We had attempted to visit this restaurant the previous evening but it had been closed for a special event.

2020.02.12 – Boracay – Manila (Php) – We had our last hotel’s complementary breakfast at 7am. We had to retrace our journey back to the Caticlan airport. We hopped on a moto-tricyle to the ferry dock. There we paid another hefty fee (eco, ferry, moto-tricycle, …) and boarded a small ferry boat for the 15 mins crossing to the other side. We were surprised that our moto-tricycle ride from the ferry dock to the airport was less than 500m as opposed to the 2+ km on our way to Boracay. We discovered that the small airport’s arrival and departure buildings were located at opposite ends of the landing strips – a first in our experience. Although Jenny was concerned that we would be late for our 10:10am flight, we arrived at the airport two hours ahead. The 45 mins flight to Manila was uneventful even though we tried unsuccessfully to answer the on-board flight quiz. As we arrived at Manila’s Terminal 3 airport, we had to ride a taxi for 5km to our hotel nearby Terminal 1. We were not surprised that Manila’s traffic congestion had not changed since we left it a month ago. Our overnight accommodation was quite comfortable. In the late afternoon, we took a taxi ride to explore the SM Mall of Asia (MoA) – the fourth largest shopping mall in the Philippines. Although we walked a few sections of the MoA, we were more focused on finding a restaurant for our evening meal. Later, we discovered a dozen of restaurants along the waterfront behind MoA. After being informed of a 1 hour waiting time at a popular buffet restaurant, we made our way to the other restaurants. As this was our last evening in the Philippines, we opted to splurge ourselves by walking into a more expensive buffet and hot pot restaurant in the same area. The offering was excellent. As we ate too much, we opted to walk the 6 kms back to our hotel.

As a wrap-up to our travel in the Philippines, we really enjoyed the politeness and warmest of the Filipino folks. It was very easy (and convenient) to communicate with everyone in English. It was also surprisingly easy to get around – both locally (e.g. taxi, moto-tricycles) or between islands (e.g. ferries, flights). This was probably the first country Jenny and I agreed that would likely be a great retirement destination.