Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines

[Iluvcruising2]

P,P,P and P!

 

We were on the Legend of the Seas maiden call to Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines, in March 2013, Borneo cruise.

 

It was quite exotic! You may have read my Legend of the Seas review earlier.

 

I have now put more pictures into a travel blog.

 

Here is Part 1.

 

http://guitar123foodandtravel.blogspot.sg/2013/10/puerto-princesa-palawan-philippines.html

[Iluvcruising2]

And here is Part 2.

 

http://guitar123foodandtravel.blogspot.sg/2013/10/puerto-princesa-palawan-philippines_5933.html

[Iluvcruising2]

I have updated some information on my blog posts. Here is some description.

 

The Republic of the Philippines is an island country in South East Asia. It has almost 100 Mil people, with about 300,000 sq km of land and more than 7,000 islands. In addition, more than 10 Mil Filipinos live and work overseas.

 

The Philippines has a long and very rich history. In the late 1960s, it was one of the richest, if not the richest and most developed country in South East Asia. However, Philippines is not in an enviable state today, at least where economic growth is concerned. In terms of GDP per capita, the Philippines has fallen far behind neighbours like Malaysia and Thailand.

 

We visited Puerto Princesa, Palawan, as part of a cruise stop in March 2013. It was an eye-opening experience and I have documented this cruise stop in a 3 part blog post starting here - http://guitar123foodandtravel.blogspot.sg/2013/10/puerto-princesa-palawan-philippines.html

 

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from our visit. We took a ship organized tour, because this was the Legend of the Seas maiden call and there were no reliable local tour operators. A ship organized tour would be much safer because the ship guarantees that they will wait for you to return before sailing off!

 

We wanted to go to the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, to visit the underground river.

 

This was taken on the tour coach, on our way to the river. The town of Puerto Princesa did not look very developed.

 

The tourist infrastructure was not very developed and was scarcely able to cope with the passengers from the cruise ship. We had to wait, a lot. This scene shows you all the waiting passengers to get on a small boat to the national park.

 

It was a 20 minute boat ride on this boat, which can take up to 8. It got rather choppy! But the scenery was very beautiful.

 

Upon reaching the National Park, we had to wait some more! THis was because there were limited number of boats and oarsmen to take us into the underground river. Looks like they were really struggling to cope with a cruise load of passengers, and the Legend of the Seas wasn't a very large ship by modern standards.

 

We had waited so long and finally it was our turn to get into the underground river. This was another boat, on its way out. Well, I think the experience was very interesting, very surreal. However, all that waiting time kind of made the overall journey significantly more unpleasant. Still, enjoy what it was worth. The scenery and waters were beautiful!

[celyvabeach]

Thanks for the review and the pics. I was originally from the Philippines been in the US for 43 years now and often visit the country but never been to Palawan. However in March after our SE Asia cruise which ends in Singapore we will swing by the Philippines to visit relatives. I also have a 4 -day side trip to Puerto Princesa mainly to shop for pearls :) but also scheduled to do some tours.

I see you are from Singapore. Looking forward to visit your beautiful country soon!