Leaving the final frontier

Puerto Princesa was a fairly uninspiring town, but it had fast internet, ATM machines, and comfortable lodging.  I caught up on some research for future destinations and planned my next couple days, and generally wandered around town.  I spent quite a few hours at Mendoza Park at what appeared to be an outdoor semi-permanent furniture/appliance sale and karaoke competition.  The love that Filipinos have for karaoke has been well documented, but there's just nothing like watching 50-year old men belt out power love ballads from the 80's to the general public.  I was a little surprised when the announcer/cashier called out the name of the roving food vendor next to me, and he dropped his snacks and jumped up on stage to throw his all into Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer.  After he finished he quietly walked back to his stuff and continued on his journey down the street.  Awesome!

Anyway...spurred on by a recent post from my favorite (and only) travel blogger that I follow, I hopped a bus from Puerto Princesa out to the sleepy town of Port Barton.  Kent from thedromomaniac.com apparently was just in Palawan for about two weeks, but it looks like he stayed a few days ahead of me at every turn.  He seems like a nut, and it would have been funny to run into him.  At least his excitement about Port Barton gave me the motivation to get out and visit this amazing fishing village before the road gets paved and it turns into El Nido Jr.  As it is now, they only have electricity from 6pm to midnight, and the bars generally stop serving drinks at 11pm.  Not that most people are awake at that time anyway.  Aside from the odd jeepney or two rolling into town, the only sound is the ocean, roosters, and dogs barking.  Walking through the near silent, pitch black streets at night is just magical.

Unfortunately I only had two days to spend there before I had to run back to Puerto to catch my flight to Manila.  The second night I happened to bump into a Swiss couple that I met the day before on the bus, and they forced me to join them for drinks and the fresh caught lobster that they had the kitchen cook up for us.  I tried my hardest to wriggle my way out of it, but ok.  Fine.  If you're going to twist my arm, I'll eat your fresh lobster.  Done.

I finally was able to pull some crappy pictures off my cell phone camera, so I'll just put those up here now.  They're mostly from Coron and El Nido, but better late than never.

An Evening Dip

Coron Island

Boatin

Our secluded beach camp

I caught an early morning motorbike ride out from Port Barton the next day to a junction on the main highway where I could flag down a ride back to Puerto Princesa.  It's possible I left them in the room, but I have a feeling that my crappy cellphone and a nice flashlight were taken out of my bag as it sat atop the bus.  The phone was old and starting to fail (the constant splashing with saltwater didn't help things) and not worth too much, but I am now without any way to use the available wifi, so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about that.

I'll blame it on the lost phone, but it's really only my own fault that I didn't verify my flight time right away when I got back to Puerto.  I could have made my 11:55 flight, but thought it was at 1:50 and didn't get to an internet cafe until it was too late.  Ah crap...another $40 down the drain on a last minute ticket.  At least they're not too expensive.  On the plus side, I ran into my friend John from El Nido in the airport.  He had missed his flight as well, and now also had 5 hours to kill in the airport.  We jumped across the street for some smoothies and beers, and it at least made the wait bearable.  Hurray for good luck!