Today we had another early start. At 5:15 am we met the group downstairs to catch our flight to Peurto Princessa. The weight limit on the plane was 10kg per checked bag. Since my bag was double that I had to leave a bunch of stuff behind at the hotel. I will pick it up when I return to Manila. We also discovered that there are no ATMs in Palawan, so we had to take out all the cash we needed for the week at the airport. I was frantically trying to take out as much money as I could because the machine was not accepting my credit cards.
We finally made it to Palawan and the first thing we did was go to the gift shop in a prison, then the gift shop of a craft place, then a place where the American soldiers were burnt alive. It was not a great tour. I think the tourism in Palawan is still underdeveloped. I also think this tour to the Philippines is still new and they are trying to get the kinks out of it and find places to take us. I thought it was a waste of a morning and I would have much preferred to have went straight to the beach. After the 'tour' we went out for a delicious lunch of BBQ chicken. After lunch we drove an hour to our hotel. The hotel is very basic, but it is beach front. It only has electricity from 6pm to 6am and the whole island is on generator power. The showers only have cold water.
It was cloudy when we arrived at the beach, but that didn't stop us from going into the water. We went swimming in the ocean for hours. The scenery here is gorgeous. Green mountains all around and the water is bath tub warm and transparent.
That evening we had cold showers and then went out for dinner at the place beside the hotel. The waitress was so polite and spoke as though her voice was recorded. She was entertaining.