Category: Puerto Princesa

We woke at 06:00 again this morning, had some breakfast, and were picked up to go to Honda Bay! 

We picked people up for 2 hours before making the 20 minute drive.

We stopped at a rental area and Kim got some Scuba gear. 

We got to Honda Bay and had to take a boat for 30 minutes to the first island. 

The first island was called Starfish Island, due to there being a lot of starfish. There wasn’t that many starfish, considering the name! 

We swam there for about an hour or so with fish around everywhere! We had some lunch! There was grilled chicken, rice, noodles, fish, watermelon & squid. 

Curtis tried some squid and it was actually not bad! 

We then took a 20 minute boat to the next island, Luli Island, which, when the tide comes in, is fully submerged. 

We met some South African women which we got chatting to and had a drink with. 

We did some swimming here and then went to the third and last island. This island was really nice, smooth sand underfoot and nice water. We swam here for a while before heading back on the boat. 

All in all we had a great time swimming around and we met some good people as well as filming a lot of fish and swimming on the GoPro which you will be able to see on Facebook somewhen soon!

We took the boat back, got back in our bus and got back to the hotel. We were so tired! We got showered and went for some food downstairs. 

We need to pack tonight as we’ve got 2 flights tomorrow to go to our next place, which is very exciting!

 Paalam!

– Mr & Mrs Hale 

Today we’ve been married for 6 months! It’s crazy how time flies, but what an awesome 6 months it’s been. We’ve traveled to 23 seperated places so far and had some great experiences and met some awesome people!

We’ve worked, had laughs, got drunk, traveled for hours on end on busses, boats, trains & planes. Visited temples, palaces, military bases, North Korea, Europe, Asia & more places to come!

Today, we celebrated by getting breakfast, doing some laundry and, whilst this was being done, Kim got a haircut. 

We sat and watched a film for a bit and then went to a nice restaurant, La Terrasse, where we got a whisky & Piña Colada respectively, as well as 2 wonderful meals! Kim had teriyaki chicken with vegitables and Curtis had a traditional Philippine meal of Pork & Chicken Adobo which came with pork crackling. Both dishes were beautiful and delicious! 

We left and got a bottle of wine for the room, some cake and a couple of fudge sundaes and watched a film. 

This seems like a great way to celebrate! Only about 2.5 years left of this traveling malarki! 

Should be a great time, with some amazing blogs still to come! 

Paalam!

– Mr & Mrs Hale 

We woke nice and early, 06:00, to get downstairs for some breakfast, to have showers and be ready. We were told to be downstairs for 07:15, but luckily we were earlier as the mini bus arrived at 07:00.

We set off, stopping at a few hotels before continuing our 2 hour journey to Sabang.

We first stopped at a Mangrove Tree area where there were 2 optional activities. There was a zip line and also a Mangrove tree river tour. Both of these weren’t cheap, so we decided to do the free option, which was walk around the area, go to a beach and inside the forest. This was fun and relaxing as well as being incredibly hot!

We then got back in the van and made our way to ‘The main event’. 

Before we went to the Underground River, we stopped at a restaurant in Sabang (the town in which the cave is located). The food was amazing! There were multiple types of noodle dishes, vegetables, rice, pork in a beautiful sauce. Lots of wonderful food!

We were warned that after lunch there would be rain and, sure enough, there was. A lot!

We got to the boat departure area and went into a motor boat to get to the part of the island which has the river. 

Once we got to the correct area, we saw the sign for the river just before we went in. To preserve wildlife, they provide audio devices to listen to, rather than speaking in the cave. 

The Underground River is naturally formed and is a cave with a river inside it. 

We needed to take a row boat into the cave, so we had a boat man (thank god! Not sure we could do another rowing trip!) who took us around the cave. The cave was obviously very dark, other than the occasional torch light from the boat men. All things were described and the boat man tried to describe things too. 

There were a lot of bats and birds in the cave and we were warned not to open our mouths too often as a bar or dirty water could drip in our mouths!

Apparently, this is one of the new 7 Natural Wonders in the World!

It was an amazing experience and it was an enormous cave and was very beautiful. The boat trip itself was great too, as we got to the front!

When we got off the boat, we saw monkeys, too! 

We all bundled back into the mini bus to head home and most of us fell asleep at one point or another. Being outside all day does that!

We got back and grabbed some food. We got half a spicy chicken to share with some rice. This was really tasty. The sauce was more sweet than spicy, but had great flavour. 

After dinner, we grabbed some dessert and headed home, where we think we will have an early night! Tomorrow is an important day for us, too!

Paalam!

– Mr & Mrs Hale 

We found another beach to go to today, so after breakfast we went out to find it. 

This was a similar walk to yesterday, but down a different street. We were aware that it was near a military base, but not as near as it was!

We walked for a while to turn up at a military base. Upon speaking with a soldier, he directed us to take a right and keep walking, so that is what we did. This took a lot longer than expected and once passing through a few villages, in which the children all wanted to say hello (which was nice), we saw another military base (Navy, this time). So we asked here and were informed that the beach is within the military base and for military personel only! So, we pretty much walked out there for no reason. That being said, it was a really nice walk, and the weather wasn’t sunny (though still hot!), so walking around was much easier. 

We got to see some cool things, such as some mansions and some really nice houses, among some self made houses and shops. It was a really cool experience. 

Kim also has her own shop!

We went to a different place for dinner, just down the road, and let’s say..it wasn’t great. 

Kim had ‘buttered chicken’ (it was fried chicken..) and Curtis had BBQ pork. 

It was all okay, but just not great.

We thought we would watch a film, so we sat down to watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (it’s good). 

We went and got a doughnut and hot chocolate half way through, because why not. 

Paalam!

– Mr & Mrs Hale 

We planned to go to the beach today, so we found out where it was and set off.

Before this, we went for breakfast where they now know our order, so that’s probably a bad thing!

We have left the hotel and, considering it said it was going to rain today, it was incredibly hot with no rain.

We had to walk down one long road for around 1 hour to get to the beach. It was actually a quite nice walk, other than the fact it was very hot!

We got to where the beach was and it was within a 5 star resort! We just walked in and to the beach. 

Turns out, the beach wasn’t very good. It was quite a nice location, and there was some water around, but the beach was walled in. 

We walked across a bridge that was there, which led to a restaurant and nothing else, so was again, disappointing.

We stayed at the hotel resort anyway, dipped our feet (and for Kim, our legs!) Into one of their pools and just relaxed there. It was good fun! 

We then had to make the long walk back to our hotel, so we walked back down the very long road in what seemed like even hotter sun, but it was nice to see other things! We are pretty sure we walked through the main centre, which had some restaurants, so we thought we would go to one for dinner later on.

We took bought 4 beers before we got back to enjoy, got a bucket of ice from the hotel and drank a beer in bed, watching TV. 
We ended up both falling asleep and having a nap for an hour, because we’re old, but we felt great after!

We went to find a restaurant for dinner, but unfortunately none of them were actually any good, so we came back to the hotel and ate here. 

Kim had chicken with rice and Curtis had sweet and sour pork. Both were very nice!

We ate that, got back to the room and relaxed again! We aren’t sure, but we think we may be sunburst..some kind of monsoon season!

Paalam!
– Mr & Mrs Hale 

We woke up for 09:45 to have the free hotel breakfast. We got to breakfast and saw just cereal and bread, which would be fine, but we were then seated and provided with a menu, which was free things such as egg and for some reason, chicken. 

We both got sunny side up eggs and were then offered to add bacon, which we couldn’t refuse! 

We finished breakfast and then went out for a walk to take in the ambiance for such a different way of living. The majority of people travel by tuk tuk and those whole don’t mostly use motorbikes. The roads aren’t particularly safe, nor does anyone follow the lines, but there is still something cool about it. 

We walked around and found a market area, where people sell things like fresh coconuts which grow in the trees around the streets and also woven items. 

We really fancied a beer, so we stopped at the supermarket and bought 2 beers for £0.36 each! We then came back to the room to shower and cool off, as the sun is incredibly warm! So much for monsoon season!

We had a little rest and then went back out to find the boardwalk. On the way to the boardwalk, we walked down a few very back alley streets which gave us a really good feel for how people live here! We met a few people that wanted to say ‘hi’, mostly kids, and it’s a really friendly vibe here. 

We got back from the walk and then went for some dinner. We ate at the hotel again.

Curtis had Stir Fried beef Date & Kim had chicken in hoisin sauce.

We came back to the hotel and Kim really wanted to use facemasks that we got for free from shops in Seoul, so we did. we looked beautiful.

Paalam!

– Mr & Mrs Hale 

🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭Kamusta!🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭

We had an interesting arrival in Manila to start with! 

First off, the flight was delayed when we got on board so we arrived a little later than expected (01:00). 

We then had to get a shuttle to another terminal, but these were not running at this time, so we waited for a paid bus which ended up not turning up, but we were able to get a great priced deal on the taxi.

Once we got there, we were really hungry and it was a very small area. We managed to check in the bags and after, we had to wait in a cordened area before walking to the plane. Whilst we were waiting, we were sat behind someone that was apparently famous in the Philippines, so that was funny to watch all of the people asking to take photos when he clearly didn’t want to any taken!

We had to get some food, so we went to Cinnabons and got 2 cinnamon buns, a coffee and a hot chocolate. This tided us over for a bit. 

We got onto the plane and were comfortable and just wanted to sleep. Unfortunately, as we drifted off to sleep we were provided with food. The problem with this was that it was 07:00 and it was chicken with rice and garlic, which was not ideal for that time of the day! 

We landed in Puerto Princesa and realised we had no idea where we were going! 

We found a tuk tuk and it was an unbelievably cheap price, so we jumped on that and headed to the hotel. All around the city are just tuk tuks and motorbikes, it’s crazy! 

We got to the hotel and paid to check-in early as we NEEDED to shower and sleep. 

We slept for a few hours before deciding we needed lunch. We went down to the restaurant in the hotel to see what was for offer. 

We got beef teriyaki with rice and it was very cheap and very delicious! 

We ate this and then went to the supermarket to find some snacks for the room.

We relaxed for a bit more before going back downstairs to the restaurant where we paid £2.58 for rice, a whole chicken leg & pork all BBQ and iced tea. It was tasty! 

After dinner we went to McDonalds to get a sundae each and the plan tonight is to sleep! 

Paalam!

– Mr & Mrs Hale