Sometimes it’s hard to compare apples with oranges, but after spending 7 weeks in Bali, which we truly loved– full of lovely, friendly, welcoming, and kind people– and finding all kinds of amazing foods that we enjoyed, unfortunately we have not found that to be the case here in the Philippines. As we planned our trip, we looked at all the different places we could go within the country. And there were lots! Neither of us are big city people so we dismissed those, and scores of people told us about this island or that island, but the island of Palawan is what jumped out at us.

We are about a 90 minute flight south of Manila, and even the day we got here things went awry. The flight we were supposed to take at 1:30 in the afternoon kept getting delayed and delayed to the point of where we had to cancel it and get a new flight with a different airline. That flight eventually took off at midnight! Our first room was not what we thought either. The pictures were great, but it was very small, very dark, and felt uncomfortable. Rather than stay there for 2 weeks we left after one night and found another place which was quite attractive.

We’ve been renting a room in a beautiful one story large ranch home, with a terrific bedroom, lovely outside patio eating area, great Wi-Fi, hot shower, and daily access to the entire kitchen and house, plus we have our motorbike. So on paper everything worked. We’re about 20 minutes from the downtown area of Puerto Princesa, but there is not a whole lot here for us. This island supposedly has some beautiful beaches, but most of them are up north in an area called El Nido, which is where we are heading.

One thing that was a cool was a little botanical garden with a display of native wildlife and a cultural visit with some indigenous natives. Where we are staying, in the center of the Island, doesn’t offer much. Our small town is very primitive, and I mean very, and finding something is easy as a cappuccino machine is not easy.

We will be leaving for Vietnam in 2 weeks, and have high expectations. We’ll be in Ho chi Minh City for a few days, then on to another island, with a two-day stop at a luxury resort on the way as part of a writing assignment.

Kathleen and I are usually on the same page as to whether we want to return to different places, and we both agree that this is a one and done.