It's June hols again and we decided to tick off Palawan from the list. We planned to visit El Nido, which was once voted as the most beautiful island in the world and said to be the last frontier of the Philippines. Honestly, there are many beautiful islands in this nation and I believe there are still others out there yet to be discovered. Boracay was indeed beautiful but it is overflowing with tourists, I know of some friends and colleagues who visited Boracay these years but none went to Palawan yet, so I'm hoping that it will be as rustic as Bohol. Unlike Bohol, where we did an 'island tour' and zip line etc, the charm of Palawan is all out in the sea, at the surrounding islands.
I'm very much a beach resort person. I love the sand, the sun and the sea. So, a very charming place like Palawan has been on my list of places to visit for the past two years. Just like Boracay, it is not easy to get to such a gem on Earth. After flying to Manila from Singapore, we need to take a domestic flight to Puerto Princesa and then another 5h van ride to El Nido. It sound like a longer journey than going to Boracay and we almost changed our mind about heading there. The only good thing about the whole journey is that it is still relatively cheap, at least cheaper than many other places we have in mind.
Not wanting to make the same mistake as we did for the past two June vacations, we tried to set out as early as we could. On top of that, we also have to help tita check in and ensure that she will not lose her way around Changi Airport. Even though both of us were too tired to pack the previous night, we woke up early at 6.30am to pack for the noon flight and we finished well ahead of time. We set off punctually and made it to the airport in time to check in for our flight as well as tita's. Coincidentally, tita was leaving from the same terminal and even the same gate as us, therefore it made things even easier. We arrived at the gate right on time for boarding, bade tita farewell and boarded the plane.
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| Checked in! |
This is the first time I've redeemed a flight on SQ using my Krisflyer's miles and also the first time I fly to the islands on SQ. I was so happy as we only needed to pay $300+ for the taxes and to top up the miles. The onward flight to PPS was redeemed using the voucher from the flight delay we experienced last year at Caticlan so it was also free, I only paid for the one way ticket from Manila back home on the last day.
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| Finally my turn to fly! |
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| Our aircraft |
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| Low caloric meal with two sides and brown rice :) |
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| I've not heard of this brand but it was nice. |
It had once again proven that Manila is a disaster, or maybe it's Cebu Pacific. I've booked a SQ flight that will land in Manila at 3.45pm and an onward flight from Manila at 5pm. I was thinking that things should not go as badly as last year since we are just transiting in Manila, right? Wrong! I've not done that many trips that need transit before, especially one on different airlines. We landed punctually at 3.45pm in Manila, but P took a long time to clear the customs (very long queue for Filipinos but it was a breeze for us foreigners). I thought that we surely do not need to get out of the terminal but I was wrong again. We had to get out of the very crowded airport and run to the Cebu Pacific domestic terminal at one end. When we reached the last call counter, it was already 4.20pm.
The thought of missing the flight had not cross my mind before as I know that SQ is quite punctual and surely 1h+ to transit should be sufficient? P was conversing with the staff and from his tone and anguish expression, I already guessed that the counter had closed and we barely missed the flight by 5min or so. I was relatively calm this time but P was visibly upset. Our immediate thoughts was to rebook another flight on the same day but a quick search shown that there was no more flight going to PPS. We don't have any choice except to rebook another flight on the next day. The only life saver was that there was free wifi at the airport and Skyscanner showed that booking a flight on Philippine airlines is much cheaper (5.3k for 2 person) than rebooking on Cebu Pacific. I really hate Cebu Pacific flights after so many bad experiences! We want to leave as soon as we can and the earliest flight is 5.20am on the next day. There is still 12h to go till our rebooked flight and the next obstacle is to find a hotel to get some rest. Of course, we can also stay in the airport till the flight but that will be quite uncomfortable, on top of the plight we were facing. P chatted with some airport police people and they recommended some motels that are just in the vicinity. It sounded quite good as I didn't want to spend time traveling in this city, remembering the negative vibes I had the previous time. The nice lady (probably with commission) called a few motels and we settled for one motel with free 2-way shuttle to airport at 3k. Spending additional 8k+ seemed bad but at least it solved our problems for now.
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| Dinner place! |
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| I love palabok! |
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| Nice halo halo too |
We reached the motel (Achievers' Econotel) which was just opposite NAIA Terminal 4, I was glad to see that it was surrounded by eateries and cafes. We chose to eat at Mang Inasal as I remembered it tasted really good the previous time we tried it at Boracay. We ordered sisig, palabok, bbq pork and halo halo . I loved the free flow soup and rice they provided.
After the very good meal, we were back in the motel at 8pm, we were wondering if we would even sleep at all as we would be leaving at 3am. However, after a hot shower and some chatting, we knocked out at 10+.
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