12:30 p.m

Puerto Princesa, Palawan

Here I am back in Puerto Princesa. It’s interesting how familiar the place feels. Then again, I did spend a month on Palawan, and I was in Puerto Princesa for a few days in total. In some ways, though, it feels different. I’ll explain.

The flight was no problem at all. It left at 8:10 as scheduled and landed at 9:30. The jet was comfortable, and I had a sane seatmate this time. I didn’t catch the man’s name, but his wife’s name was Nathalie. They are British and based in Singapore. They’ve only been in Singapore for a few months, but they’ve been taking a lot of quick trips around Asia. And for this trip they decided to come to Palawan.

I asked them about their plans, and Natalie got out a folder that was full of computer printouts. They had a whole tour mapped out with reservations and transportation all set up through a local tour company. I didn’t get to talk to them very much since the man was beside me and he spent most of the trip plugged into his iPod. At the very end, though, he unplugged and I jumped in and started a conversation. They were both very nice, and I hope I’ll run into them again in El Nido.

Arrival at the airport was a totally new experience. I hope it isn’t a portent of things to come. On my first trip here, there was almost no one on the jet. I don’t remember exactly how many there were, but I think I could have counted all the tourists on one hand. And the luggage was carried from the jet on an open wagon. This wagon was pulled underneath a rough shelter where you got your bags.

Now it is completely different. Two jets had arrived, and literally hundreds of tourists got off. We poured into an airport building like an army. Inside this one relatively small room, there was a luggage conveyor belt and there was hardly room to move there were so many people. And almost everyone was being met by a tour company of some kind. You couldn’t possibly get a bigger contrast with my previous trip. I’m very glad now that I came here when I did. Perhaps I should have left it that and been content with my memories instead of coming back.

I had actually made a reservation at a hotel myself. I had a feeling that Palawan was going to be a bit more crowded, and I wanted to be sure of a place to stay. And since I had made this reservation, there was a man out front with MY name on a placard. When these reservations were made, I thought there would be some guy with a local tricycle to take me to the hotel. However, I was ushered into a small bus along with ten or twelve other people. It was interesting that my entire psychology changed. I wanted to walk around and explore and take pictures, but the guy had taken me over. He put my luggage in the bus and he put me on the bus and then he closed the door. The bus was air conditioned, and I couldn’t open the door myself, so I was trapped. And I felt inside that I should stay put. I didn’t have the sense that I was in control of my movements anymore.

We waited quite a while since we had to wait for everyone to get their luggage. I entertained myself by watching various people arrive. I had seen a group of four young Russians on the jet, and they struck me as non tour group types. Sure enough, I saw them walking around looking dazed and being hounded by a dozen touts trying to talk them into taking their tricycles or into going to this or that hotel. It took them a long time to get settled and then set off.

The hotel was something of a disappointment. They were tearing out the roof and rebuilding it, which meant a lot of noise. And there is some kind of sound system right outside the window to my room. And my room is a tiny little closet on the first floor. I remembered this hotel from my other visit. It looked nice. It had three or four floors, and each room had chairs outside on the balcony. But it turns out those were all big rooms for two or more people. They had reserved a single room for me – this closet on the main floor. It’s so small that the bathroom door hits the bed when you open it. When I was here last time, (and just got my own place at random), I had a huge room with all kinds of funky qualities. By reserving this room in advance, I guess I lost control of all that and just got what I was given. There’s nothing really wrong with the room. It’s comfortable and it has everything. Actually it has more than everything – air conditioning, a TV, a stocked mini-fridge, a fan, a full bathroom. And all that for 946 pesos, or less than twenty dollars US.

I had been emailing Carlo back and forth about this motorcycle that I was going to rent. In his last communication, he told me to talk to someone named Mirabel at the Puerto Pension, and she would text him when I arrived. Mirabel, he said, was his auntie.

Carlo seemed somewhat professional in his emails, but he was very amateurish in real life. He was just a kid renting out motorcycles and he didn’t really seem to know what he was doing. He also kind of reneged on his deal with me. He promised to reserve a brand new XRM 125 for me. But, he told me, two Germans came in and took his last two new ones. That left me with an older model – kind of a clunker. I could have done a Seinfeld routine with him – asking him what he thought a reservation was. What good is reserving something in advance when someone else can just come in and take it? Isn’t the reservation supposed to keep it there?

 

 

 

Tags: Palawan Motorbike Trip, Puerto Princesa, Singapore, XRM