Hi Everyone! I’m back from my trip to Palawan. The place is amazing! I’ll be posting some of the photos of the place and the animals I’ve seen during the trip in the coming days. Stay and enjoy…

We took the 1-hour plane ride on a 20-seater 2-propeller plane (from seair.com) from Manila to Busuanga, Palawan. Honestly, that’s the smallest plane I’ve ridden on. There was no control on the cabin pressure and I had to keep equalizing my ears.

Nonetheless, I was very thankful that the trip was not bumpy and saw a lot of nice sceneries. Before falling asleep on the flight, I managed to snap a few shots.

Upon arrival at the Busuanga airport, I took a 30-min jeepney ride to the dock. The ride on the single road was very pleasant, with lots of open spaces with and green grass and friendly locals. You can see the green mountains and feel the cleanness of the air. The soil of the road was reddish – like clay.

When I reached the dock, I had to transfer to Club Paradise’s boat and travel through the mangroves and to the open sea. I know that sounds like a lot of transfers, but believe me, I was enjoying the trip and had to remind myself not to worry too much of the time.

The sight of Club Paradise was amazing! It was a little island with soft, clean sand and lots of green! I was welcomed by the Club paradise staff, singing a couple of welcome songs. It was a bad time for my camera battery to run out of power, but I did manage to get a picture of the map of the island and the spa.

After reading Tingal79’s entry on her Night Safari experience in Singapore, I now have the strong urge to go and visit Calauit Wildlife Safari when I visit Palawan soon.

Calauit Wildlife Safari has an area of around 3700 hectares and features animals from Africa and native to Palawan. It was declared as a protected wildlife safari by the former President Marcos. How did the animals from Africa get there in the first place? Rumor has it that it was brought there by some rich and powerful govt official who wanted to do some huntin in his own jungle.

I’m excited about a trip I will be taking sometime this month. I will be going south of the Philippines to Palawan to accompany some friends visiting the country. It’s a timely break for me since I haven’t gone on a trip for a while.

Back to nature

Palawan is sometimes dubbed the last frontier of the Philippines since most of the natives and the people residing in the area try to preserve the balance and the eco system as much as they can. Although Palawan is known as a diver’s destination (marine life and wreck dives) I won’t be scuba diving (since my friends are non-divers) I will still have a chance to encounter meeting sea turtles, monitor lizards (not looking forward to that) and dugongs.

Dugong

Dugongs or sea cow is a mammal and is on the endangered species list. Even with a diet of sea grass, they can grow up to 3 meters long (about 9 ft.) and can weigh up to 400 kgs! (Who says veggies can’t make you fat?? Haha!) One may think that their size would make them aggressive, violent and intimidating, but actually, dugongs are sometimes referred to as the gentle giants, with no obvious way of defending themselves from natural predators like sharks and crocodiles (or from boat propellers for that matter).

Busuanga (an area in Palawan) is one of the few places in the world where you can observe these gentle giants in their natural habitat.

Paradise?

We will be staying at Club Paradise. Sweet! Escape from the noisy crowd with just sand and the sea on all sides. What’s more, my airfare is a free treat (by my friend) which makes this whole adventure lighter on the pocket. We will be taking a 2-propeller 19 seater plane (scary) from SEAair.

I hope to update you all when I get back from the trip and hopefully have some great photos with the gentle dugongs.