Philippines: Our Palawan adventure begins…
Palawan was long regarded as the last frontier of the Philippines, even when I visited for the first time 9 years ago. At that time the only airport on the island was in Puerto Princesa, which I flew too before setting off in a local four-wheel drive bus to Port Barton, a then quiet fishing village with only four accommodation establishments. The road was unpaved, rough gravel and mud and the trip took around 7hrs. I was told that El Nido to the far north was beautiful but even more difficult to get to, and so I didn’t make the trip as I had limited time. It is a decision that I will forever regret.
Mass tourism has arrived in Palawan with full force, following the opening of airports in both El Nido and Coron in the north, as well as the paving of the highway from Puerto Princesa all the way to El Nido. Bizarely, the road to Port Barton is still only half-complete, and still involves several stretches of dangerous, muddy gravel road. Maybe that explains why less people visit Port Barton, and why even though it has grown enormously since my last visit, it retains that small-town feel.
We flew to Puerto Princesa from Jakarta via Manila, arriving around lunch time. After the usual haggling over the cost of transport to our accommodation, we set off to the Bamboo Hostel where we had booked their only private double room with bathroom. The hostel had a rating of 9 on Booking.com so we had high expectations and looked forward to out stay there. The owners use the fact that they have also travelled as a marketing ploy, claiming that they know what travellers want. Well, this is the review I posted on Booking.com for their accommodation:
“Very disappointing experience…”
Your score
6.3
Bamboo Hostel has a unique design which made it different from hostels we had previosly stayed in…we liked that aspect for a few hours, but it was not very practical for guests actually staying there…The friendly helpful staff were one of the only positives of our stay there to be honest…
After seeing the reviews and the high rating, this was a big disappointment to us as travellers who travel constantly and who stay in more than 8 hotels, b&b’s or hostels each month. When we stay in a hostel it is always in a private room, as was the case with Bamboo Hostel. For $20/night we often stay in beach bungalows in Thailand or hotels with cable TV in Indonesia , so we felt that the basic room offered at Bamboo Inn was poor value by comparison. What we found most disappointing about our experience at this hostel was that the owners market Bamboo Hostel as being run by travellers who understand the needs of other travellers. But our experience at Bamboo Hostel did not reflect that at all. As travellers what we want is the following:
- A comfy bed to sleep in. – at Bamboo Lodge we could feel the bed slats through the thin, cheap foam mattress on our bed – FAIL
- A good breakfast in the morning if included in the price – here we got a waffle with literally a teaspoon of syrup on two consecutive days, and a poor version of French toast on the other two days, with bad coffee. The bare minimum, and not a piece of healthy fruit in sight – FAIL
- Safe drinking water supplied when tap water is not good to drink – free. Most places we have stayed at offer this. Not Bamboo Lodge – they sell you bottled water at 100% markup on store prices – FAIL
- Privacy. FAIL as the dorm is an open space under a gazebo with mattresses thrown on the floor and no walls, surrounded by a see through net. To get changed guests must walk to the bathroom and get changed in a toilet or shower.
- A hot shower with good water pressure – FAIL as only cold water showers are available here, even though they have 24hr electricity and water. No logical reason not to provide hot water other than being too stingy to install instant water heaters which are used throughout Asia. The same owners also run the adjacent accommodation which does in fact have hot water showers.
Whenever we stay in accommodation I write a review to help other travelers make a decision on where to sleep in as honest a way possible.
We visited the famous Subterranean Underground River in Satang as a day trip, which involved a four hour roundtrip by minivan plus several hours of waiting for the boat to the caves and then more waiting for the guided tour of the underground river. It was a tiring day but as the caves are so unique it is worth the effort…Just avoid taking the optional zip-line or mangrove tours offered in Sabang which the tour company try and push onto you to bump up their profit for the day…
We spent the rest of our time in Puerto Princesa extending our visa by an additional month, catching a movie at a cinema and eating at a few real restuarants. After four days we set off on the five hour trip to the toen of Port Barton, which I last visited 9 years ago. It was barely recognizable due to all of the development, but still managed to retain some of its fishing village charm.
Accommodation for $25/night was a simple room with fan and cold shower. We stayed at two places for 6 days in total…One had electricity from 18h00 – 06h00 by using its own generator through the night, while the other only had municipal power from 18h00 – 24h00. We met a few fellow travellers in Port Barton and hung out with them for much of the time. On our second day we went on a boat trip to a few small islands in the bay, which included some great snorkelling.
The next day we all hiked up to a very cool waterfall near to Port Barton. The hike took us around an hour, and we passed through some beautiful jungle scenery to get there. It was great to have Ingrid and Sebastian from Columbia as our companions in the hike and we had some good laughs along the way.
Of course, as chief photographer on our travels I sprung into action once we reached the main waterfall – my main goal being to get some really cool pics of Akhona at the waterfall. She has something of an obsession with waterfalls, so when we have easy access to one I try and get some good shots of her using the great location…
We are finding that during our travels it is not always that easy to connect with other travellers in a meaningful way mainly because couples who travel together have a bad reputation for nor being approachable or friendly. We have experienced this ourselves – they either barely greet or after a few minutes the needy partner drags away the more friendly partner. So most solo travelers stick to chatting to other solo travellers. We try and talk to all and sundry and have had some success.
Port Barton proved to be a very laid back and enjoyable stop on our travels through the Philippines mainly because we decided to use it as a chill out time for socializing with fellow travellers instead of focussing solely on gathering material for the blog or looking for photo opportunities. We also ate some really good food at fair cost during our stay there, including this massive pizza for $12 at Gorgonzola.
The cherry on the top of our Port Barton experience was spending New Year’s Eve with our fellow travellers eating unlimited buffet at a small restaurant on the beach before enjoying a fireworks display in typical Filipino style…Uncoordinated little fireworks shows set off by various restaurants and families in a fairly haphazard way, including one crazy guy who rowed his boat parallel to the beach about 30m from the shore for about 500m while rockets took off from the front of the little boat!
Puerto Princesa is the main gateway into Palawan and we enjoyed our time there as it gave us a break from the usual life on the road without access to a range of good food and some entertainment. It was nice to sit back in a comfortable cinema seat with popcorn and coke and watch a western movie in English, and then go and have a decent, tasty meal in a modern restaurant. At Port Barton we began easing our way back into the more typical life we have grown used to…a cold shower because of limited electricity, slower service in restaurants, untapped roads, cocks crowing at 4am in the morning. When you travel in less developed countries this becomes the norm…What you do have though are chance to experience a simpler lifestyle and wake up to this in the morning….
