Two Days in Puerta Princesa

 December 13, 2010

Senne's Summary: We left El Nido and spent our last two days in the Philippines in Puerto Princesa. We didn't do anything that interesting...so read the rest at your own risk.

As we left El Nido the sun was shining. But as we got a little further into our van ride the rain started pouring down. (I suspect we drove right into the rain that had left El Nido the day before!)

The van ride was uneventful (no broken transmission this time) and relatively short (about 5 hours). When I researched on the Internet before we went, a lot of people said the trip was eight hours, but perhaps that was in the past when the road was in worse shape… they were working on the road, and I suspect it's an ongoing project. Just be aware, that barring any difficulties the trip should be done in about 5 hours.

We arrived back into Puerto Princesa and checked into our hotel. Then we headed into town because we were craving some Western food. We headed over to Shakey’s for Pizza and Milkshakes and then over to Dunkin Donuts for dessert. YUM! I had been craving doughnuts the whole time we were in El Nido. I must have seen Dunkin Donuts when we were in PP the first time and it stuck in my brain! Just so you know the doughnuts were delicious enough to go back for more on the second day 😀

Our original plan was to do the Honda Bay Island Hopping on our other day in Puerto Princesa… but the rain kind of put a damper on that. We’ve already discovered that island hopping isn’t as much fun in the rain! So instead we decided to have a day of nothing…

… well not totally nothing… we did go to town to the POST OFFICE!

Our hotel has a van that will take you into town a few times a day and drop you off wherever you want. We asked the girl at the front desk if they could drop us at the post office and she said no problem. I guess that message didn’t get to the van driver. ☺ When he asked where we wanted to go we said the Post Office. He didn’t seem to understand and was talking to another staff member in Tagalog (she was riding to town in the van as well). She was trying to figure out what we wanted so we showed her our postcards and pointed to the space where you put the stamp. She wanted to read our postcards thinking we had written down where we wanted to go. We kept saying stamps and post office but they didn’t seem to understand. Finally she phoned back to the hotel and spoke to the girl at the desk in. Then she says, "Oh, Post Office" and the driver says, “Oh… Post Office”… and we were left wondering what kind of bizarre accent we must have that they couldn’t understand what we were saying. I think maybe that sometimes we just talk too fast.

Whoa! That was a bit of a ramble wasn’t it… get to the point, Lisa! When we went into the post office (this one was bigger than El Nido’s) there were three windows with girls behind them. None of them made a move to motion us over or talk to us. When I started walking towards one, another lady said, “Stand here” (kind of in the middle of where a line might be). Keep in mind we are the only customers in the post office. Then another lady came in from outside, went behind an empty window and called us over. Guess what???? She HAD stamps!!!! We mailed our postcards! Yes! I was starting to think I was going to have to mail them from Thailand!

One final thought about Puerto Princesa. As we were walking down the street I saw a sign that said, “Segregation is the answer!” No word of a lie! I was aghast! Being a teacher, immediately I was thinking about special needs students. Then my mind jumped to racial segregation (closer to the front of my brain since I’m quite a novelty being a white woman in Puerto Princesa! Did I mention someone tried to take Steve home to meet his sister???). Segregation is not the answer I think to myself! Then as we continue walking I see the back of the sign. I can’t remember the exact words but it was talking about recycling. OHHHHHH… I think… separate the recycling... Okay, maybe in this case, segregation is the answer 😉