Our position is yellow arrow on Palawan island Philippines. Nice day and 85 degrees with no rain.
Historical/Background Info:
This
is a new port for us. Puerto Princesa is
a coastal city on Palawan Island in the western Philippines. The island is long and narrow (264 miles long
and 25 miles wide) and is basically a long mountain range the entire length
with a population of 994,000. Abundant
wildlife, jungle mountains, and some white sandy beaches attract many tourists.
Puerto
Princesa is located in the middle of the island on the western side. It is a base for boat trips through the
massive limestone caves and underground river of the biodiverse National Park here. There are also dive sites and it’s the home
to long-nosed dolphins, turtles, and rays.
Puerto Princesa is a first class city with a population of 307,000. It is known as the “Eco-Tourism Center of the
Philippines” and has a number of beach resorts, seafood restaurants (and
others), bars, and shopping malls.
LAST EVENING
Unfortunately the rest of my dinner was not good. Service slow due to kitchen, not Dara. Appetizer cold and my entree overcooked.
Monique's show not that good either. So not a great evening for us.
TODAY
I have a 10:45 tour this morning so I went to the fitness center at 8am to do my treadmill time. But it was packed so I went out on deck 6 and did an hour fast walk. I was soaking wet with sweat after it.
There was a band playing and as we docked. I was on deck 6 taking photos and watching the show.
Buses and vans set to go for the tours.
Band and welcome
Several Philippino crew members and passengers watching the greeting.
Interesting boat passing our balcony.
Crew and passengers call him, "Captain". He is 98 years old and lives on the ship.
Several different dance numbers to watch. Very nice reception for us.
My tour and bus number
This is their "taxi".
Check out the wiring nightmare.
Not sure what this was.
Interesting tree
Jollibee is like their version of McDonalds but they do have McDonalds here too.
A school.
The city jail
Cashew trees
Another school
Taxi
This is a very poor island.
Lots of schools and kids are required uniforms. Each school has different color uniform.
Nice home
Our first stop was at a minimum prison & penal farm. Prisoners live here with their families and are not really guarded. They work on the farm and make tourist souvenirs.
Rice field
At prison with tourist trinkets they made and are for sale.
They had a show for us.
Our bus
Prisoners live here with their families.
All the prisoners are pretty free and wear brown t-shirts and work on the farm.
Where families live
After we left we passed some bramah cows
These are the local buses which are usually packed full.
Local bus packed full.
Government building.
Palawan Heritage Center which is our second stop and pretty much worthless stop.
Above photos to show poverty.
We had at least two "tourist police" with us at every stop. All armed and on back of their shirt it said, "tourist police".
Another pretty much worthless stop.
Final stop here and across the street was the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. You'll have to click on the photo to see what this is about.
I was back on the ship at 3pm. I had made a small sandwich at Coffee Connection for my lunch and at 3:30 caught the shuttle bus to the mall as I wanted to go to a pharmacy. There was a pharmacy in the mall but they did not have what I wanted. So back on the bus for return to the ship. I was back at 4:30 and started working on this blog. Photo upload was snail pace and did not finish until mid dinner. So I am back in suite after dinner working to finish the blog post. I'm so tired. Rebecca finally streaming her soaps after trying all day. Internet was bad today.
Tonight was the Seven Seas Society party at 6pm in the theater. We went to the Mariner Lounge at 5:45 and got our drinks. Left them at the bar and went to the party to make our presence known.
L to R: Nino (F&B Director), Massimo (General Manager), and Bea (Cruise Consultant) and hostess for the evening.
So we made our appearance and then returned to our drinks sitting on the bar. Miso glazed sea bass is on the menu every SSS night which is our favorite.
We started with the Mykonos salad. A Greek salad and also one of our favs.
Miso sea bass with sticky rice. Tonight's sea bass was one of the best we have ever had on Regent. I had a double order. The sticky rice was another story.
My dessert was this white chocolate croissant pudding. Not as good as usual as was over cooked.
We sailed again at 6pm for our next port where we are to be anchored at Boracay Island, Philippines, by 9am tomorrow. The Captain said on his departure PA that the weather there for tendering was iffy. So we shall see tomorrow. We could care less as it is basically a beach stop and we have no plans on tendering ashore anyway. Ok, I am tired and will not proof read this before posting so hope there are no mistakes.
Oh, yes, tonight's entertainment is a concert pianist, Panos Karan. Fifteen minutes until his show but neither of are going.
Thank you for posting the picture of the Captain. I am glad to see he is still enjoying life. If you don't mind, if Ross the pianist is still on board (you posted his picture earlier), tell him that the Gilmore's say hello and want him to play "Could I Have this Dance" for us.
ReplyDelete