Choose another map, showing:

• Borneo
• Philippines
• Malaysia
• South East Asia
• Asia
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Puerto Princesa

Flying: Still the safest way to travel

Georgi:

We had heard that air travel in The Philippines is considered to be safe as long as you are flying the regular routes with the well-known airlines. The real lunatic pilots, we heard, were reserved for the more obscure jumps by the have-airplane-will-fly operations.

So it was with some trepidation that we bought tickets on Cebu Pacific Airlines for Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan, the westernmost bunch of islands in the Philippines. But they were cheap, and the travel agent assured us the airline was reputable. As to the obscurity of the route, we had no idea. We had never heard of the place before we started our research, but it did seem as if a fair number of tourists made their way down there.

To add an extra dose of nailbiting anxiety to an already fraught situation, a terrorist plot was foiled in England and all Philippines airlines responded by banning any carry-on cosmetics, so we were assured of mayhem at the airport as well.

However, my fears were unfounded. The airport was mildly chaotic in that unavoidable Manila way, but if you stood in the right queue and paid attention to the sign boards, eventually you got where you were supposed to be almost on time.

Puerto Princesa is a very pretty little town - The cleanest in the Philippines, it is boasted, God help them - but suffers from the affliction of being the kind of place people only ever visit on the way to somewhere else. Because of this, everyone is out to make a buck out of you as quickly as possible, and you can find yourself getting rather irked with people offering you rides in their tricycles.

Another rather annoying feature of this town is that the maximum amount that the ATMs will dispense is 5 000 pesos, which is roughly $100, and these are the last ATMs you will encounter in this little cluster of islands. We had to make about seven withdrawals at great expense to ourselves to guarantee that we would be able to eat for the rest of our time here.

After an awful lunch at Jolibee, the McDonalds of the East, we hopped on a jeepney to Sabang. While we waited to depart, we were hounded by vendors, determined to sell us souvenirs of the jeepney terminus. It was without regret that we left Puerto Princesa behind us.

Ter:

So we didn't crash into the sea. That's good. Let's hope our luck holds. Puerto Princessa is supposed to be a lovely town nestled next to gorgeous Honda Bay, of course I have no idea as we spent all of an hour and a half there. Just long enough to grab possibly one of the worst fast food hamburgers I've ever eaten, and it took a half hour to get to us.

With my stomatch gurgling out threats of a strike, we were whisked off to San Jose bus stop where we hopped on a jeepney which rushed us off to Sabang.

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit