Location: Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines

I woke up pretty stressed right off the bat today, since I knew we had a long van ride ahead of us back to Puerto Princesa and I couldn’t find any anti-nausea medication to take with me. We ate a small breakfast and said some last minute goodbyes as we passed by our sleepy friends. The van ride was a little better today, since I knew the road was terrible and the driver was likely to be just as crazy as the last one. We snagged good seats to minimize the sickness… although I still spent a good portion of it clutching the seat in front of me for dear life anyway.

I swear I was as white as a sheet when we got out of the van in Puerto Princesa five hours later, and all Max’s attempts to coax me forward with Oreos failed spectacularly (that’s saying a lot). We did end up grabbing a little tricycle taxi to Tropic Dahlia Hostel, which was a godsend as the wind perked me up enough to make it there with my *ahem* ‘cookies untossed’. I couldn’t quite tell what kind of building the hostel was. It seems to maybe be two houses connected by a makeshift common / patio / reception area?? Everything is totally haphazard: signs made of construction paper, ladybug seat covers, a tv playing the singing competition show The Voice. It’s all kind of like stepping into someone’s home, except there are colourful info graphics and little international flags everywhere.

I was feeling much better being out of the van, and we decided to hunt down some dinner before it got totally pitch black outside. Nearby was apparently the best rated restaurant in the city: NomNom – a little Filipino burger joint with eclectic outer space decorations. The whole thing was painted black with constellations and planets everywhere, while colourful clouds made of what looked like large cotton balls filled with fairy lights hung from the ceiling. The power went out so they brought candles out to all the tables, and turned on a generator to keep the kitchen running smoothly. All the drinks had cutesy names – I drank something called a Blue Moon (which looked a lot like the kool-aid-ish water from the Secret Lagoon we saw yesterday, and Max ordered a ‘build me up butter cuppacino.’ We sat in the dark and ate super tasty burgers (I have to say I’m pretty glad it was dark because the food didn’t look appetizing at all when we took photos).

Earlier we met a German guy in our room who told us the bay walk was worth checking out, and although it was dark already we wandered west towards the water. We know it’s safe to walk around at night here, and were keen to get a taste of a grittier less touristy city. The walk led us past local nighttime grocery markets, an intersection that had so many birds on the power lines you wondered how they didn’t snap under the weight, and many sketchy looking businesses. The sidewalk was never more than broken cement or dirt and we were often dodging holes so large you could break your leg in them! Despite the bumps we eventually arrived at a long boardwalk along the water where restaurants and little carts had set up shop. Filipino children by the dozens were riding around in what looked like go-karts, while their parents watched from the waters edge. Everyone everywhere was carrying flowers wrapped in pink and red paper – it seems like Valentines is very important here. Stalls were set up specifically to sell extra flowers and trinkets just for today. We didn’t buy anything or stop anywhere other than the water, but it was really nice to see a local area full of happy families and children laughing and playing.

We lined up for a Jollibee sundae to take with us on the hot walk home, since we hadn’t found any ice cream on the boardwalk. We sat on the balcony with the little ladybug seat covers, listening to geckos chirp and dogs bark around the city. We’ve had internet issues the last couple of days so we had some writing to catch up on, and took advantage of the cool air outside (no AC inside tonight. Uh oh).

We’re getting close to the end of our time in the Philippines so we’re trying to just soak in what little we have left, and get a bit of relaxing in!

Sav