After a ropey one hour flight from Cebu (Stef almost misses boarding due to another incident with a toilet), we arrive in Puerto Princesa in a rather bedraggled state.
We get picked up immediately by an over enthusiastic trike driver, promising us a free ride to a hotel in the hope that we’ll check in so that he gets his commission. We’re exhausted; we don’t argue.
The hotel turns out to be a whopping 5 minutes away from the airport. It’s dank, dark and overpriced. Stef looks ready to pass out; his white face almost illuminates the shadowy atmosphere.
We can’t stay here.
Instead we sullenly retreat to the Inn next door- hopefully entitled D’lucky Garden Inn. Perhaps our fortunes will improve here.
We’re given a newly refurbished room with AC for a not too unreasonable price; we’re only here to get Stef better so don’t complain. It’s still more expensive than some of the lovely beach front cottages we’ve had in the past, but then its right by the airport, so expected really.
Apart from sitting in their mediocre garden, there’s nothing else to do here, apart from getting a good AC fix.
Annoyingly our friends Rob and Mary are already in El Nido, celebrating Rob’s birthday. It looks like we’re going to miss that one as we still have to renew our visa’s here and somehow stop Stef’s stomach from doing somersaults.
We spend the first day cooped up in the wondrous Lucky Garden, feeling notably unlucky at having to chow down on their pretty disgusting food (it seems they can’t even get a packet soup right). With the only other restaurant around being a swanky French fine diner, we have no choice.
The sooner we’re out of here the better.
Alas, lady luck decides to hide from our garden the following day…quite possibly the worse day of our entire trip…
We start the day with some vile porridge and badly infused tea. We’re down to our last few pesos, so must go into town to withdraw some cash to keep us tided over during our trip to El Nido, where there’s no ATM. We also need a substantial amount to pay for our second visa.
It’s not hard to find a trike to take us into Puerto Princesa’s main town. Once again I have to create a makeshift mask to shield myself from the thick, boggy smog. It’s obstinately humid which creates an even thicker suffocating atmosphere. The town is full of Jollibee’s (Filipino Mc Donald’s), Dunkin Doughnuts and other such rubbishness.
We go straight to a mall, where we’ve been told we can get cash out. We try the first two machines with no joy.
Fiddle sticks.
Still, there are plenty of other cash machines about, so we head over to the next few across the street. No joy there either. Everyone else seems to be having no problem.
An hour or so later, Stef and I have almost exhausted all avenues, taking another trike to the cash machine furthest away. We’re both dripping with sweat (we now cover up every day from head to toe to prevent mosquito bites as Palawan is a Red Zone for Malaria) and getting decidedly ratty with each other. Very soon the Immigration office will be shut, which means will have to stay another day in the god awful Lucky Garden.
We begin to assume that there’s something wrong with Visa, instead of the other idea that our banks have frozen our cards. To test the later theory, we head back to the mall to see if we can make a purchase with my card.
The NCC Mall is a dastardly place with an over-the-top repertoire of Christmas pop songs to make even the sanest person pull hairs. It’s also extremely busy, hot and not exactly organized. Upon entering this commercial jungle we’re confronted with a couple of enthusiastic cleaners who’ve got the task down to a fine art, both mopping in a sycophantic, rather militant union. It seems sacrilege to disturb this duo of domestic soldiers; (Mr. Muscle would be proud) yet they’re taking up most of the entrance with their dramatic ninja style sweeps so that it’s near impossible to pass them, what with all the other gazillion shoppers swarming around like an army of unstoppable ants. There’s no choice; they must be stopped! I move them with my eyes (and utterly miserable stressed no- ATM face). They don’t look happy; but give me enough time to scoot on by to the supermarket’s entrance. For the second time my bag is searched (upon entering the mall, everyone must be searched); finally we’re ready to shop.
Oddly enough, my card works and we manage to purchase some cornflakes, milk and mosquito coils (the cornflakes, for fear of having no money for dinner).
Needless to say, when we leave the mall and try the ATM again, we’re even more confused when my card refuses to work. The time’s getting on now and the Immigration office will shut up shop soon. To add insult to injury it also decides to absolutely piss it down, making our ATM safari all the more dissatisfying.
A few hours later, we return to the aptly named D’ Lucky Garden, wet and penniless. We also have no visa, which means we have “luckily” landed ourselves another night in this wondrous establishment.
After a couple of skype sessions to our respective banks, it soon transpires that the fraud departments have stopped our cards.
With both cards back up and running again, we jump in the nearest trike and hot foot it to an ATM.
To celebrate the fact that we’re no longer penniless and forced to eat cornflakes for dinner, we decide to treat ourselves to a slap up meal at “Ditchays”, a tiny French bistro hidden away from the bustle; strangely placed in a very poor neighborhood. It’s certainly not the locals that are eating here. Still, after the day we’ve had, we need a little TLC.
The food is out of this world.
It’s hard to think we’re in a grimy, polluted city as I chow down on some spiced goats leg, cous cous and homemade yoghurt dip with a sprig of Indian coriander.
A delightful end to a disastrous day.
The next morning, we have a pretty painless time at the immigration office (or shack), grab some long sleeve shirts from a second hand market and manage to score ourselves a couple of private bus tickets to El Nido (the public bus is a notorious bumpy 7 hours).
It’s been an odd few days, fraught with bad food (apart from Ditchays), bad service (by an especially stupid waitress at D’Lucky Garden Inn who could never EVER get our orders right no matter how many times she was corrected) and general bad luck.
El Nido cannot come sooner!
