arriving in puerto princesa

a couple of months back, susie and i decided to book tickets to somewhere for his birthday. we took advantage of the piso fares of cebu pacific, and after some discussion, we opted to go to puerto princesa, a place that we've both never been to.

as mentioned previously in this blog, cebu pacific cancelled our 4pm flight from puerto princesa to manila, and rebooked us to their 1015am flight instead. because of this, susie and i made sure that we were at the airport early for our 815am flight. we arrived at around 630am, in case cebu pacific pulls another surprise and we end up flightless for the day.

thankfully, no such thing happened, so we ended up entertaining ourselves for an hour and a half. we even bought a postcard of puerto princesa to send to a friend who collects stamps. we kept walking around the airport and playing silly games until our boarding call.

the flight went smoothly, but the landing was one of the roughest ones i've had. the puerto princesa airport sure could use a facelift, and a new conveyor belt. the one it has now doesn't work, and takes up the entire floor space of the airport. because of this, it's every man for himself when the bags arrive. i had to climb up on the conveyor belt to fight for my luggage, because no one was giving proper assistance to the passengers. you have to pay to get assistance. good thing susie and i only had one bag each.

when we got out of the airport, we were greeted by the staff of hotel asturias. we were the first ones on the asturias van, and the driver didn't waste any time. he offered us an underground river tour the next day for P1,200.00, P100 less than what the hotel will offer us. it seemed a good enough rate, so we agreed to it.

after herding all the passengers, the driver drove off to asturias, which was just 10 minutes away from the airport. we were given welcome drinks of buko pandan, and checked in to our rooms, to our delight. we were expecting to get our room keys after lunch, when some of the guests have already checked out, so that was a pleasant surprise.

the room in the asturias, however, was not. for one thing, it was too dark, there wasn't enough light. the paint beside the full-length mirror was flaking off, and there was a hole in the ceiling. the towels they provided looked really filthy. the tv wasn't working, and the bed they gave us were two twin beds pushed together.

rather than dwelling on the bad stuff, we decided to just enjoy the rest of the day. we didn't have much time in the city, after all. we asked the front desk about their tours to honda bay. they only had trips good for 5, and if we were to book that tour, we have to pay P4,500.00 for it. horrific, eh?

so we exited the hotel and approached a tricycle driver. as it turns out, this driver, called raymond, knows a lot about puerto princesa, and gave us a lot of great advice during our stay.

read the next entry to find out about our adventures in puerto princesa, thanks to raymond.