We’re going international with a trip to the tropical Palawan island in the Philippines. This gorgeous Pacific island has turquoise clear waters, impressive sea stacks, amazing food, and tons of island adventures, and it’s a very affordable place to visit! There are so many things to do in Palawan and we’ve been several times so we are bringing the best of the best recommendations to this episode.

• Palawan Travel Tips
• Puerto Princesa Penasco
• Honda Bay 
• Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center
• Bakers Hill 
• Ugong Rock Adventures
• Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park 
• El Nido Island Hopping
• El Nido Palawan Beach 
• Coron

Palawan Islands Philippines – Episode Transcript

1 (37s):
Welcome to this weeks episode of the Travel Squad podcast. Today, we’re taking you with us to The Beautiful Island of Palawan in the Philippines. And the Philippines is always going to have a really special place in my heart because I am half Philippina. And I feel like the Philippines in general is just so underrated, but truly it’s a hidden gem with so much to offer.

1 (1m 18s):
There’s so much to do. And in this episode, we’re specifically going to be focusing on the island of Palawan and polo. One’s famous for its beaches, the underground river, and we just can’t wait to tell you all about it.

4 (1m 31s):
I love Palawan. I have gone with Brittany twice to the Philippines and each of those two times, we have gone to Palau on with her family on family vacations, going back to her motherland. And I can definitively say Palawan is one of the most beautiful places that I’ve ever been to on earth. And I truly believe that it should be on every avid travelers bucket list. That’s for sure

3 (1m 56s):
It is absolutely on my bucket list. The whole country of the Philippines is on my bucket list. And for all of you listening to us right now, do yourselves a favor and Google image search Palawan. Yeah, it is gorgeous. Just do that and set yourself up for this episode. I cannot wait until I actually have the chance to physically go there myself. It’s been on the top of my bucket list for as long as I’ve known Brittany that’s 18 years now,

1 (2m 21s):
You were going to go. I

3 (2m 23s):
Was, but then we got diverted to the Caribbean, but it’s still in the top of my bucket list. I cannot wait to go and I have been to Thailand. So it’s kind of similar in the way that it looks with the beautiful, big stacked rocks and cliffs. And if it’s anything like Thailand, I know I’m going to love it.

2 (2m 39s):
I have not been to the Philippines, but I’m super excited for this episode because anytime Jamal and Brittany talk about the Philippines, they’ve got some wild stories, like they’ve almost died in a monsoon. Jamal had to call the police because Brittany was apparently kidnapped. Jamal took a ham in his luggage to the Philippines. I mean just like wild stories that I love

4 (3m 2s):
Real wild stories. None of those is particularly happened on Palawan, but we’ll get to it. And when we do a general Philippines episode, I guess, or maybe if we have the right segue into it for those stories in this episode, but let me just say something. I want to make an agreement right now, squad trip to Philippines after COVID what do you

3 (3m 22s):
Say?

4 (3m 24s):
I’m looking forward to it. I

2 (3m 26s):
Can’t wait. I want to go to Megan Saul.

4 (3m 28s):
I can’t wait to go back to Mangan assault and I’m going to get to it when we talk further in this episode, because I’ve mentioned it so many times to Zana, I’m going to let all your listeners know what it is later on in this episode.

2 (3m 38s):
So let’s get right into it. Start with the tips.

3 (3m 42s):
Palawan Travel Tips, hit us with them.

1 (3m 44s):
So in the Philippines, the currency that they use is pesos and it’s approximately 50 pesos to one us dollar and everything in the Philippines is super cheap. The most expensive thing is going to be your plane ticket, but in terms of like eating out or transportation, everything is super cheap. So you really want to carry small change because if you have a lot of large bills, you might not have the opportunity to break them.

4 (4m 10s):
Yeah. And in a lot of places to do, keep in mind, cash is king and a lot of countries, particularly in the Philippines. Yes. If you’re in a resort area or hotel, they will have credit cards. And not saying that a lot of shops don’t take it, but do be mindful. You do want to have a good amount of currency in the Philippines. And Brittany is right. Do have that small change,

1 (4m 31s):
Especially because it’s a great place to try street food. And you know, these street vendors don’t have a credit card machine. So you want to have small bills on you and cash on you. And when you take transportation, they don’t have credit cards either. So you’re, you need to pay for it in exact change in cash.

3 (4m 48s):
Do you feel like if you had a large bill, people kind of give you flack and don’t don’t have the change you don’t want to give you change.

1 (4m 56s):
Yes. And I also think that the Philippines is a third world country as beautiful as it is. So if they see you pulling out a larger bill, they might say that they don’t have change to give back to

3 (5m 6s):
You. I see. I see.

4 (5m 8s):
It’s almost like Mexico in that sense. For example, like even though in Mexico, they have large denominations of their bills too. A lot of people can’t break them. Same situation in the Philippines.

2 (5m 18s):
I, you know, as you were describing it, all I could think about was Mexico because they called their dollars pesos as well. And I remember just needing water and all I had was a big bill from the ATM and no one wanted to break it so I can get water. And I’m like, this is your money. This is what you gave me. This sucks. So,

1 (5m 34s):
So Jamal, why don’t you tell us the next tip because you need it the most.

4 (5m 38s):
I need both of these ones the most and thanks for throwing shade at me and saying I’m so pale and white skinned. If you’ve listened to many, many episodes, you know, I’m notorious for getting burns. I have a great burn story which happened in Palawan, which we’ll go over, but that leads us to our next tip. Definitely do bring some sunscreen. If your skin sensitive like me, maybe carry that Alovera too, just to help Sue with it. It can’t hurt. And definitely do bring bug spray and mosquito repellent. You are in a tropical place, tropical islands in the Pacific. You want that mosquito repellent and bug repellent just as well.

2 (6m 15s):
I love the fact that you said bring Alovera because I can not tell you how many times we’ve traveled. And Jamal always gets burnt. And every single place in the world, Brittany has gone into a pharmacy or huge mall to buy the aloe Vera.

4 (6m 27s):
You know, I’m giving out tips and this is one time where you should probably throw shade at me for coming unprepared. I can’t tell you how many little mini bottles of Alovera I’ve bought along the way when I’ve gotten burned. And I have a collection of them. And I always forget to bring them on the trips, but nonetheless, I do pick up some Alovera cause I need it.

3 (6m 45s):
How about English? What’s the English speaking like there for the American setting over.

1 (6m 50s):
So in all of the tourist settings, everyone speaks English and in general, most people speak English. So it’s very easy to get around and communicate with people. In fact, in most cities, the signs are in English as well. Oh

3 (7m 4s):
Cool.

4 (7m 4s):
I found that to be really interesting. Throw out all the Philippines, let alone just Palawan like Brittany said, the street signs all in English. I’ve never seen it in the native language. It’s funny. The only thing I really see in the native language is the news when they have it on, but street signs, everything like that, all in English. So you’re in good hands. But again, with any foreign country that you go to, we always recommend knowing some key phrases in the local language. So do look that up, but you will be fine getting by with just English.

3 (7m 31s):
The key phrase that you should know

1 (7m 33s):
Salama which means a month. Thank you.

3 (7m 36s):
Thank you. How about cheers? I

1 (7m 38s):
Don’t know. Cheers. Okay.

3 (7m 39s):
You guys, you can obviously tell it was not on the trip to pull out one.

4 (7m 44s):
Otherwise you would have known that would have been the answer you would’ve just given to all of us. Instead of asking the question, I

3 (7m 48s):
Owe it to our listeners to go well,

4 (7m 51s):
When we have the squad trip, you’re going to know it for it to be the first one.

1 (7m 54s):
The Filipino people are so happy and just trying to communicate with them and using just small key phrases just goes a long way. They really like want to make your experience a better there. And so if you throw a thank you or just treat them with respect, they just go above and beyond for you. Oh, that’s

3 (8m 14s):
Nice.

4 (8m 14s):
Another really good tip to know about the Philippines is yes, you can probably do some things on your own, but the Philippines really is a country where you’re going to want to do the tours. There is transportation, but their local bus system isn’t really even super organized. You get around and little tricycles like you would see maybe in Thailand or what they call jeepneys, which are like private buses. So there aren’t really any definitive lines. So transportation is really hard to do so therefore we do recommend that you book tours. So yes. Get to your destination, whatever city you’re going to, but look on vide or look on this one company called Mingo tours.

4 (8m 54s):
Every time we’ve gone to the Philippines, we’ve used them. They arrange somebody to pick you up from the airport, take you to your hotel, give you tours in the city that you’re going to be in. So do look into using Viator and Mingo tours, highly, highly recommend.

1 (9m 10s):
Yeah, my mom is a Filipino native and every time she goes on vacation with us as a big group, she always books us through Mingo tours. Another tip that we have is that pocket Wi-Fi would be really helpful because in the Philippines, a lot of the wifi in the hotels is super, super shitty. Like they might advertise it, but you’re not really going to get a good connection. So what would be good to have pocket wifi with you?

4 (9m 36s):
That’s very, very true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been struggling to check my work email for like 30 minutes waiting to like open it and load. So definitely do get that pocket wifi. You’re going to need it.

3 (9m 49s):
And is that something that you would get online and have them mail to you like you did with Japan?

4 (9m 53s):
So they don’t have a system like that, like Japan does, but bring a pocket wifi from here and take it with you. There are other companies for that and that’s what we would recommend people actually do. Just do your research online, Google pocket wifi, get it from here and take it with you.

2 (10m 8s):
Okay. And how big is the islands? Like what airport did you fly into or how many airports do they have?

4 (10m 14s):
Yeah, so Palawan is one of the many islands of the Philippine archipelago. I love that term, right. And it’s actually quite large, but it’s very, very narrow. So it’s almost the distance of the entire length of California, but really, really thin. So there are two main airports. One is Puerto Princesa, which is actually the capital of that island and province. And that is in the center of the island. So it’s a good starting point in that sense that it’s very central. The other main one is an El Nido, which is in the very Northern end of the island. But do keep in mind, wherever you go in the Philippines, pretty much everything is routed through Manila, which is their capital on, on a different island.

4 (11m 2s):
So if you’re in Puerto Princesa and you want to go ahead and get to El Nido, you’re not going to be able to have a flight from there to El Nido. You’re going to have to go back to Manila, Manila, El Nido. So otherwise then it’s just driving. So that’s just a general tip of the Philippines. Everything is rerouted through Manila. There’s no like really directs between other smaller cities.

1 (11m 22s):
Oh, I have one last tip that I just thought of that I wanted to share with you guys. So, you know, when we went to China, they have the Squatty toilets and we went to Japan. They have the toilets with the birthdays in the Philippines. They also take going to the bathroom very seriously and connected to each toilet is a spray hose for you to wash up with. So you’re going to find it in every single hotel in your accommodations, a toilet with a spray hose to

3 (11m 51s):
Clean. I think Americans are just the nastiest bathroom, people in the whole world, everywhere else has some kind of water and cleansing contraption, except for America.

4 (12m 1s):
There are countries like to keep it fresh in the Philippines is one of them. Yeah. So, whereas in Japan, like you said, Brittany, they have the bodies within the toilets. These ones are just the straight hoses, but that tip led me to think of another tip. So rest assured any hotel that you’re going to be in is going to be regular Western style toilets, have a seat, but I will say this a lot of public toilets that I’ve came across in the Philippines are Western style toilets, but without the seat. And I know we’ve touched on that in some other episodes. I can’t stand when I see that. So do be advised. There may be situations where you come across a public toilet that doesn’t have the seat.

1 (12m 36s):
Good tip Jamal,

2 (12m 37s):
Get your squat game on,

4 (12m 39s):
Get your squat game on.

2 (12m 40s):
And you know about those hoses though, in the bathroom, Jamal and I, our parents have hoses in their bathroom. They brought it back from the middle east and they installed it in the bathroom.

1 (12m 49s):
That’s exactly what the Philippines hoses look like. They just look like hoses that are connected to the toilet. Just like the ones that you have at your parents’ house.

2 (12m 56s):
So the hoses in a public space though, kind of like grosses me out because it’s like, how dirty was someone’s hand when they grabbed that hose? Like, did they wipe yet or did they not wipe yet? You know,

4 (13m 8s):
That’s a really good question. If you’re concerned about it, use some toilet paper to grab the hose. I got

2 (13m 14s):
Really good

1 (13m 14s):
Tip, but you know what, Jamal, You don’t go into the ladies rooms. Often. They sometimes don’t have toilet paper and just have the hoses. So just keep that in mind as well. And another thing to be aware of some of these hoses, they got pressure.

4 (13m 32s):
It could be a good thing or a bad thing, not good in public, but maybe in the private bathroom.

1 (13m 37s):
My mom installed some of these hoses in her home and my sister went to go visit her. And she was like, oh my God, I almost blew my vagina off with the pressure.

2 (13m 46s):
Oh God.

4 (13m 48s):
So you gotta be careful on that too much pressure could ruin the game

2 (13m 51s):
Spray cautiously, but you know, I mean, it just makes me laugh. Cause these are all S words, spray, squat shake all, all going down in the Philippines bathrooms.

1 (14m 2s):
So just want to give you guys a little bit of background information on Palawan and it is one of the most beautiful islands. In 2016, it was actually rated the most beautiful island in the world by travel and leisure. And it just has such incredible natural seascapes and landscapes ranging from jungle to white sand beaches. And it is one of the most bio-diverse islands in the Philippines with wildlife.

2 (14m 31s):
What kind of wildlife are we talking about?

4 (14m 34s):
You’re going to see some big iguanas and lizards out there. I think it’s called the Philippine Eagle. It’s a really rare endangered bird, but they’re one of the largest Eagles in the world. They are native to the island of Palawan, but they are endangered. So you’re going to be really lucky if you see it. And I guess these aren’t natives to the area, but they do have a wildlife refuge area where we went to go see giant saltwater Crocs out there too. So if they get loose and out in the wild, it’s perfect habitat for them. It’s almost like Florida with people releasing those pythons. And now they’re just abundant. I think the Crocs might be getting abundant over there too.

1 (15m 11s):
And both times that we’ve gone to the Philippines, we’ve flown from Manila, which is the capital of the Philippines to Puerto Princesa, which is where we start our vacation each time. And Jamal, why don’t you tell us a little bit about Puerto Princesa?

4 (15m 25s):
Yeah, so again, we’re at though Princessa is the capital of the province and island of Palauan. It is in the center of the island on the Western side, and it’s a really beautiful city with lots of stuff to do. One of our favorite things to do there other than seeing the city itself, they do have a beautiful bay walk area where locals and tourists can see beautiful sunsets and it has jogging pathways. And most people go there at night to actually eat a lot of street vendors are doing pop-up restaurants out there. So you can eat traditional style right along the boardwalk and the beach, eating on banana leaves, sharing communal it’s really, really fun.

4 (16m 7s):
I love the bay walk area

2 (16m 9s):
While the Sharon communal I’m pretty sure it was pre COVID.

1 (16m 12s):
It was pre COVID. But in the Philippines, you know, the meals are very important with family. Like everyone sits down and a lot of the times in the Philippines, they actually eat with their hands. And so the traditional meal on the banana leaves is called a comedian meal. And because come, I means hand. And so you’re grabbing all of these things off of the banana leaves with your hand.

4 (16m 36s):
But when you go as a tourist, obviously they’re going to have forks and stuff like that with you. Yeah. I mean, in the day of COVID, who knows, but realistically, you know, it’s, it is something that’s traditional indefinitely fun to do. And I would highly recommend if you’re going to Puerto Princesa cause that’s a good spot to go to see every day city, life of the natives. But realistically there’s so much to do in Puerto Princesa and the vicinity. One of my favorite things that we did when we were in Puerto Princesa is go to Honda Bay and I loved Honda Bay. It has some of the best snorkeling that you can do. And they have so many little clusters of islands in that bay that you can do tours to, to go.

4 (17m 16s):
And it’s just so, so beautiful. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that, Brittany?

1 (17m 20s):
So if you’ve ever gotten snorkeling, you need to go snorkeling here because you can see so much here. We saw one clam that was about three feet wide and you’re going to see abundant Marine life. They actually have an island called a starfish island. That’s known for all of the starfish and it has a sandbar. So it is a really great place to go snorkeling. And I think you’ll be absolutely amazed with what you see is

3 (17m 47s):
The water very clear.

4 (17m 48s):
The water is clear, super warm. I mean you’re in the pretty much Tropic areas. So warm water, crystal clear blue. And on top of that, in terms of just the general wildlife that’s out there in the water, snorkeling coral reefs, everything’s beautiful. The Philippines is known also for it’s whale, shark population and whale sharks are huge. They’re gentle giants. And in Honda Bay during the months of April to October, that’s their season where you can go out there and actually swim with the whale sharks. Unfortunately, when we’ve gone, it wasn’t during that season. So we didn’t get to do that. But when we go back one of these days, I want to go out there and do the snorkeling swimming with the whale sharks.

4 (18m 30s):
I think that would be so freaking awesome.

3 (18m 32s):
It would be cool. Why are those scary? But cool.

2 (18m 35s):
I know, right? That was my question is why are they gentle giants? Why don’t they eat you?

4 (18m 40s):
Well, just like all life, whether it be terrestrial on land or in the sea, some are carnivores summer herbivores. And so not that the whale sharks eat plants only, but they aren’t giant predators. They’re just not violent. And I don’t think sharks like that. They’re they’re whales, they’re gentle giants.

1 (18m 60s):
Okay. And also in Honda Bay, they have another island that’s popular called Calvary island. And it’s known for the calorie shells and on this island, they also have cabanas and spa that’s right up your alley, Kim. And they offer a buffet lunch. I wonder if they still do with COVID, but they did offer a buffet lunch and you can get it for like 300 pesos. And again, 50 pesos is a dollar. So for like $6, you can do a buffet line.

3 (19m 26s):
What kind of food was in the buffet? Take us through this bread.

4 (19m 29s):
I mean, lots of stuff. They’re going to have tropical fruits, obviously you’re in the tropics, but a lot of Filipino food you’re going to, yeah, that’s what I was going to say. Lots of Filipino food. You’re going to have a lumpia. You’re going to have chicken, chicken, adobo, rice, all sorts of stuff. I mean, really, you’re not going to be disappointed when you walk away from a buffet in the Philippines, especially in one of the tourist spots, they’re always really good, but you can get to Honda Bay from Puerto. Princesa one of two ways you can either take the local tricycles and you’ll see any tricycle out on the street. They’re so popular and you can take one of those out there. Or again, our recommendation would be to do one of the guided tours, any hotel that you stay at, it’s probably going to have a vendor that you can book through.

4 (20m 17s):
But again, we do recommend Viator and there’s so many islands out in Honda Bay, little sandbars. So each tour is going to be different. You can choose which islands you want to go to for the island hopping depending on the tour. So do look at that and do your research, but you’re not going to be disappointed if you go out there.

1 (20m 35s):
So another place that we visited in Puerto Princesa or right outside of it is the Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center. And they really focus on the conservation of crocodiles and their aim is to preserve and conduct further research on the endangered species of Crocs. And they have an eight acre facility that has room for up to 4,000 of these crocodiles.

3 (20m 59s):
How many are actually there?

4 (21m 1s):
You know, I don’t really know. It changes all the time when we were there. I mean, we saw a lot, they had a lot of other wild animals there too. I don’t even know what it was. Do you remember what it was that I was holding that I have one of my famous photos. Yeah. It’s almost like a slot, but it’s not a slot. And then they have peacocks out there if I’m not mistaken and ostriches. So it is a wildlife conservation area. Again, they mainly focus on the Crocs, but I couldn’t tell you definitively how many they have out there. So it is, I don’t want to say a tourist trap cause I definitely enjoyed it, but it is something to do within the city. And I would definitely recommend if you have a little bit of a time to definitely do it,

1 (21m 42s):
They have a room where they keep their newly born baby crocodiles and you, they have them separated by like stages. So like you’re going to see ones that are like less than a week old. Some that are like one month old, a few that are a few months old and you kind of keep going and you see the progression of their lifespan. And then outside of that room, they have the older crocodiles that are like under five feet in length. And then they have some huge ass crocodiles. There was one that was so big. We had to walk over a bridge over the enclosure and you just see the size of its head. And it’s like the size of my torso.

4 (22m 23s):
Yeah. It was like half the size of your body. I said to myself, my God, what if this little bridge collapses, I was like, I’m over this giant crock, this thing’s going to fucking destroy me. I called up to that. But it’s really cool to see them. So many of them so close up, I really did enjoy that for sure.

3 (22m 39s):
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4 (22m 54s):
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1 (23m 8s):
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4 (23m 43s):
Another really cool thing to do in Puerto Princesa is go to Bakers Hill. And this place is on top of a hill top, and there’s a whole bunch of bake shops on the hill. And so you can get a lot of sweet tasty treats, but what I really, really like about it, if you remember to what I was saying earlier, the island is super narrow. So at Bakers Hill, at the top, you can see to the west, the Sulu sea, and then you could look over to the east and see the south China sea. So you can see both sides of it. And it’s really, really cool and sweet tasty treats are up there just as well.

4 (24m 23s):
And they have a lot of caricature statues of like snow white and the seven doors that they have. One of Marilyn Monroe. I took a photo. I know I took a photo, a getting a little too close for comfort with her. I’m sure I wanted

3 (24m 40s):
The bull in New York city

4 (24m 43s):
Just as close, just as close to.

3 (24m 46s):
Okay. I have a serious question though. Can you describe these sweet tasty treats? What is a Filipino sweet tasty treat?

1 (24m 53s):
Well, they’re mostly known for like their baked breads and I don’t know if anyone has had like a pan desal roll, which is just like, imagine just a warm crispy on the outside roll and then stuff with in the center. What’s a, just like a purple sweet yam. And it’s super good. My mom, when we were growing up, she would get the Panda Saul bread and we would take it and make hot chocolate and dip the bread and the chocolate.

3 (25m 20s):
It’s funny. I don’t recall your mom ever making that for me.

1 (25m 24s):
I’ll tell her the next time she’s

3 (25m 25s):
Here. I do recall fried bananas and those were good.

1 (25m 29s):
Oh yeah. God, I love those fried bananas.

4 (25m 32s):
Yeah. So they have a lot of Filipino sweet treats, but again, they will have regular Western eyes bakes goods up there. So it’s definitely, really cool. Again, a whole bunch of individual shops and they make it really like an attraction with those fun statues, cool gardens. And again, the amazing views to see both sides of the island and just see the different seas south China and the Sulu sea.

1 (25m 55s):
The next place that we’re going to talk about in Puerto Princesa is actually on the way to the underground river, but we’re going to get to that in a little bit. There is a place called Ugong Rock Adventures, and I highly recommend doing this little stopover. There’s actually a Viator. So we’re going to give you guys a little widget to take a look at it. And it cost about 60 to $70 on Viator. And what it is is it’s an area where you can repel and Spelunk through a cave.

3 (26m 26s):
Oh, you love your caves. We

1 (26m 28s):
Love RKS. Does anyone know what spelunking is?

2 (26m 31s):
Yeah. It’s where you climb down the wall and repel. Is that correct?

4 (26m 39s):
Yeah. So you’re in the cave and you’re actually doing some cave climbing, whether be like up or down that’s spelunking. So you do that in the cave, but you really Spelunk up because when you get to the top, you have that climactic zip line through the jungle, because we didn’t say this cave is in the middle of the Philippine jungle and Palawan so you get to the top of the cave and then you have that climactic zip line and you could either do it one or two ways. You can Superman it. So lane flat, which I would highly recommend, or you could do the more boring route and sit. So if you’re the more boring person doing the sit, I’m slightly judging you from the side of the microphone, Got a Superman cam, I’m judging you.

4 (27m 20s):
You’re going to sit it really,

7 (27m 21s):
Of course, why I played it

4 (27m 24s):
Safe, got a Superman.

1 (27m 26s):
Say that when I don’t know if you could for each one, but for the Superman, it did allow you to record yourself on your phone and that position. So,

3 (27m 35s):
Okay. Then maybe I would have to go Superman in that case,

1 (27m 39s):
But it was super fun. I was so proud of my mom for doing this too. In fact, my brother was here and he’s afraid of Heights. And he was like, I think I’m just going to hike down. And my mom was like, Ty, don’t you want to zip-line all of the plane if you it blind. And so that’s the only reason my brother’s that blind because my mom did it too.

4 (27m 59s):
I can’t believe Tyler was about to wimp out. I don’t remember that

1 (28m 3s):
Tyler hates Heights.

2 (28m 5s):
Oh gosh. Well, you know what mom, to the rescue. I remember when I was 15 years old and I was at a waterpark with Jamal and we were going to go down to racer waterslides and it goes straight down and it was super high up. And when we got to the top, I chickened out. So I went

3 (28m 21s):
You were in Dubai. This sounds very familiar.

2 (28m 24s):
I’m not alone. You know what? Put me on a roller coaster, the craziest one. I can do a roller coaster all day, every day, but waterslides freak me out. So I did the walk of shame down the water slide. Yeah. And Jamal went down all by himself. So I met him down there, passing everyone as they’re climbing up to the top. It was real. It was really high. Anyways, I went back to my parents because, you know, if this was a family little trip, you know, Jamal and I were 15, 13 respectively. And I told my mom what happened. And she’s like, really? I’ve already done it twice. And I’m like,

4 (29m 0s):
Britney’s, mom’s a trooper. Just like our moms. They know

2 (29m 3s):
Pretty much. I don’t know. Maybe, you know what, when I’m 50, 60 years old, I’ll be able to do the water slide.

4 (29m 8s):
I would really recommend this. This is awesome. This again, gets you into the nature and the jungle and the cave. You do the zip lining through the jungle. It’s such a unique experience. And again, it’s a long, the way to one of the most famous tourist attractions, not only in Palauan, but in the Philippines in general, which is going to be the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River, which is also a national park or for short, the underground river. So lots of different interchangeable names, but the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River,

1 (29m 38s):
This is what Puerto Princesa is known for. And I would highly highly recommend this. If there was only time to do one thing in Puerto Princesa, this would be the thing.

3 (29m 49s):
Well, I’ve never been there and I’ve never seen it. Can you put the visual in my head of what it looks?

4 (29m 54s):
So I’ll put a little bit of a visual in your head. You start at a beach front along the coast and you take a boat from the outside, in the jungle, into the river and the cave itself from the beach into the river. And it’s just such a unique experience. And the cave is a little bit more intense than what we saw in Beirut.

1 (30m 15s):
It is dark. It’s not lit at all, but back up, Jamal, we need a back up a little bit back it up because we have to tell you that you actually have to take a boat to the island to get to the river. And Jamal was hit by a rogue wave.

4 (30m 32s):
Ooh, roadway. I almost forgot about it

2 (30m 35s):
When I said my like at the very beginning, when we started this episode and I’m talking about Jamal carried a ham, Jamal reported Brittany as being kidnapped. I thought immediately after I forgot to mention that Jamal was taken out by a rogue wave. Yeah.

4 (30m 51s):
Yeah. I was here. So thanks for bringing it up, Brittany, I’m going to let everybody know what happened. So yes, you do have to take a boat that takes you from one part of the island to the underground river itself. It’s not on a separate island just to get where you need to go to get into the underground river. There is no road access. So you do have to take the boat. And Brittany and I have done this twice. What both times when we’ve been to Palawan. So this was on the second time. And again, this was a family trip with Brittany’s sister, brother, or niece, everybody Brittany’s mom. And so we were trying to get situated with the boats to go over to the underground river.

4 (31m 35s):
And they said, oh, you have one too many people. Somebody has to go on a separate boat. So I’ve volunteered to be separated from everybody else and go on the boat behind them. That’s

2 (31m 46s):
Such a gentle men thing for you to do.

4 (31m 47s):
I thought so just as well. And it turned out to be a fatal mistake in a sense. And so I’m on the boat behind Brittany and her family. They’re already landed on the beach and these boats, you know, it’s not like they arrive at a dock. You literally have to step down into the boat and ankle to knee high water along the beach front when you get down there. And so

2 (32m 11s):
Sorry, what kind of shoes are you wearing for this? Like, are you wearing tennis shoes or did they tell you to bring football ups?

1 (32m 17s):
Oh, you only wear flip-flops in the Philippines.

2 (32m 19s):
Gotcha. Okay.

4 (32m 20s):
I may have been wearing flip flops or shoes. I really don’t remember. But point being, I got led all around here, so I ended up being gentlemanly and nice again and letting everybody who was strangers on that boat with me get off first. And I was the last person off the boat. I stepped down the water is shin to knee high. And then all of a sudden, a fucking huge ass wave breaks on the beach out of nowhere. And when I say a huge dress wave, it went from shin high water, all the way to my fucking shoulder. A big wave, just come. Yeah. A big wave just comes crashing in. It ruins my phone. That’s in my pocket. I actually have my digital camera with me just as well.

4 (33m 2s):
That gets, so the wave was so powerful. It knocked me over in the water. So I fell over the wave, washed me literally a shore. And I just about how to fucking freak out.

2 (33m 14s):
Oh, there’s no way you

3 (33m 17s):
Didn’t know. He wouldn’t

8 (33m 19s):
Even talk to me.

2 (33m 21s):
You know what, Jamal? I wouldn’t be too. If a fucking wave just took you guys for reference. Jamal is like a little over six feet tall. So imagine a wave

4 (33m 28s):
Just about six feet. I am six feet. I wouldn’t say over six feet.

2 (33m 32s):
Okay. Well, I tried to give you a little extra.

4 (33m 34s):
I don’t want to give myself any extra advantage. I’m six weeks. I

3 (33m 38s):
Think this was right after you just got a new phone after.

4 (33m 41s):
Yeah. That’s why I was. That’s why I was even more pissed. Absolutely. I had just gotten a new phone from the one that was stolen from me when we went to Mexico.

1 (33m 48s):
So whenever Jamal has these moments, I always say, and that’s why we can’t have nice things. And then he gets even

2 (33m 54s):
More.

4 (33m 54s):
So yeah, I had a freak out just cause you had to get smart with me.

3 (33m 58s):
I think I remember another piece of this story was that there was a dry bag involved that didn’t get used that could have been used.

2 (34m 5s):
I was going to bring that up too. And then also the point where Brittany like looks back and Jamal’s getting on the ground and then she looks back again and now Jamal’s going, Brittany,

4 (34m 16s):
I don’t remember yelling, but she asked me a stupid question. Like what’s wrong? I’m like, what do you mean what’s wrong? I’m Like my phone, my phone is ruined and wet. Our digital camera is wet. And then now I’m going to have to sit 30 to 45 minutes on this boat, ride into the cave. That’s cold inside, mind you fucking soaked. And so it was just kind of a little shitty experience. So I was a little perturbed at first, but once I got on the boat, got my life jacket on and my hard hat, which they definitely do give you, you’re gonna look like a construction worker. It’s like hazard orange colors, but I calmed down and I enjoyed my experience in the cave.

2 (34m 55s):
Okay. So I’ve heard this story a million times, but I did not realize that it threw you to the ground. I thought that it just came up behind you and soaked you. So like the idea and the image of you being thrown, watched. Oh my God. I mean like I would pay a lot of money to see that happen with you being,

4 (35m 17s):
You know, in hindsight, it’s funny in the moment it was really fucking irritated.

2 (35m 21s):
I would be so pissed. I would be open,

3 (35m 23s):
Especially with Brittany and her whole family just watching.

4 (35m 26s):
Well, I know, you know, I feel like I make decisions to be nice. And then sometimes it just comes back to bite me in the ass and it was like that. I was like, why did I have to be the volunteer to not go on the boat with the family? Why did I have to let everybody go off the boat when we land it? So, but anyway,

1 (35m 41s):
So when you get to the part where you can take the canoe right in, there’s a few things I want to tell you guys about. So number one, this river is so popular. It was actually voted as one of the new seven wonders of nature.

4 (35m 57s):
And by the way, when we were there, the first time Puerto Princesa underground river was in contention with Zeta, grotto and Lebanon for one of those spots and Puerto Princesa wanted out.

1 (36m 10s):
Yeah. So it’s super beautiful. Like Jamal said, when you get in the canoe, you do have to wear a hardhat and a life vest, and then you also get headphones and they give you the guided tour via the headphones. And it takes about 45 minutes. There is absolutely no lighting in the caves at all. So when they talk about a specific structure, because the stalagmites or the Stalag tights look like

4 (36m 36s):
Formations,

1 (36m 37s):
They will shine a light on it so that you can see it, but there’s no light inside the cave. And you’ll listen to everything via audio because there are bats and they want to help preserve like the natural habitat and not scare the natural wildlife and scare the natural wildlife away from the cave. And so once you’re back on the island from the cave tour, again, you might have the opportunity to see other wildlife on the island. We saw a monitor lizard, which is kind of scary if you guys have never seen one and how

3 (37m 5s):
Big are they?

1 (37m 6s):
They’re like three, four feet long. They’re pretty big.

4 (37m 10s):
They’re super big. So you could see the monitor lizards. They have some peacocks on there, some pheasants. And so you will see some jungle wildlife out there. I mean, you’re really out there in the jungle, like we’re saying island, beautiful waters, which it is, but don’t be fooled. It’s also a jungle.

2 (37m 26s):
I don’t think that I would like to be next to a four foot lizard.

3 (37m 31s):
I don’t want to be next to it necessarily, but I do want to see it.

2 (37m 34s):
Me too. Me too. I just see it grabbing my toe and taking me, like dragging me into the wild.

4 (37m 40s):
It definitely won’t do that. I don’t think it’s not a Komodo dragon. I wouldn’t want to come across the Komodo dragon, but aren’t there monkeys out there too.

1 (37m 47s):
There are monkeys. Yeah. And then although this is called the underground river, the river is coming from the ocean and you’re only going to be able to explore about 1.5 kilometers of this cave, but it goes back like at least six kilometers. So once you’re done with the cave and being on the island, you do have to take that boat right back. Luckily a wave did not take Jamal out on the way back, but he was still wet. And he was pissed because we were going to El Nido, which is the next part of the island we’re going to talk about. And it’s a five to six hour drive. And Jamal was so pissed because his clothes were still a little wet.

4 (38m 22s):
Yeah, well, they were wet, but luckily we had our luggage and I was able to change a little bit, but I was freaking out because I was like, my phone is no longer working and now our digital cameras ruined. So my phone was permanently fucked, but the digital camera started to work after a month. So I got really lucky on that. I don’t know why all of a sudden

3 (38m 42s):
He’s had an iPhone, it would have been waterproof.

4 (38m 45s):
I don’t think they were waterproof at that point. But one thing that I do want to go ahead and just say here, we’re talking about the underground river and it is about 50 miles north of Puerto Princesa. So it’s going to be hard to catch a taxi out there. So realistically there’s three options that you can potentially do. One. It is, you know, book a tour through viadur. That’s going to pick you up through the city and take you out there. It’s going to include your entrance to the cave, the boat ride, et cetera. Or you can also book it through Mingo tours. So again, if you’re going to go there, they arrange the transportation for you, which is what we actually did because we did Mingo tours, which took us there.

4 (39m 30s):
And then it included the drivers to El Nido, which is on the north end of the island of Palawan. So if you’re not going to do the drive, keep in mind, you would have to fly back to Manila, Manila, tele El Nido, if you want to avoid that five to six hour drive, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about El Nido Brittany?

1 (39m 47s):
So El Nido, like Jamal said is in the Northern part of Palawan and they are known for the beaches. They were rated some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

3 (39m 57s):
And why, what do they look like?

1 (39m 58s):
They’re just these gorgeous white sand beaches. And it’s just like a picture. If you open up a picture of the tropics, El Nido is what you imagined.

4 (40m 8s):
So it has the white sand beaches, which is really, really nice, but I can’t think of the name of these island and rock formations. But if you think of the little islands that you would imagine when you’re in Thailand, for example, those rock formations that come out of the water, like right off the beach that have very little vegetation on it.

3 (40m 28s):
Yeah,

4 (40m 28s):
Yeah. Like right out of the ocean and the water. Yes. Yes. So they have lots of those out there and they have, so they have lots of them that are close to the beaches and a little bit further away that you can take day trips out to explore them. Lots of sandbars out in the region. So like we were talking about with Puerto Princesa for Honda Bay, how they have lots of islands and you could do island hopping the same thing in El Nido. Do you do island hopping, snorkeling. That’s what you do when you’re there. So it’s really, really nice, really, really beautiful. But what I like about El Nido is very recently starting to become a very big tourist destination. So until recently it wasn’t very popular for a lot of people to go to.

4 (41m 12s):
So you are still going to find a lot of underdeveloped hotels, if you will, and not very luxury and kind of run down in a sense, but some of them are starting to get nice. They know the tourists are coming in. So when you go do your research on what hotel you’re going to be at, because why don’t you tell them Brittany, about what happened when we booked one hotel one time.

1 (41m 34s):
So my mom, again, she used Mingo tours and they kind of do like a package for you. Like here’s your hotel, this is what you’re going to do. You know, this is how we’re going to transport you whatnot. So the entire itinerary looks really, really good until we looked at the last hotel we were staying at, which was an El Nido. And it truly looked like a shack and there was mosquito netting around the bed. And we looked at the pictures and we’re like, Nope, we’re not staying there. So I contacted mango tours and we’re like, we need a better hotel for this portion of the trip. And luckily they were able to accommodate us. They did charge us like an extra $10 per person, but it was such an upgrade of the hotel.

1 (42m 16s):
I would be scared to stay at the hotel that I saw online originally. Yikes.

4 (42m 21s):
I

1 (42m 22s):
Am a budget traveler. So,

4 (42m 23s):
And what’s funny is I remember one location that we were at in El Nido, we would eat on the beach. I think we did dinner there like three nights in a row. Like on the beach you would get to pick your seafood that was freshly caught or restaurant would pick it up. A restaurant would cook it up. And we did see that hotel along that little beach stretch. And I said, Brittany, that’s the hotel that we were going to stay at. If we didn’t do the upgrade to the nicer one. And let me tell you just even from the outside. So again, when you do go, since it is starting to become a tourist, do you want, you will find the nicer ones, but you will still find a lot of the older hotels that haven’t caught up to, you know, really Western touristy standards. So do your research on that and make sure you’re getting in a good one.

1 (43m 6s):
And El Nido, like we said, they’re known for the beaches, but this area is also known for island hopping by boat and they do tours. So there’s tours, a, B, C, and D, and each tour has a specific island included in the tour. So if you pick tour a, you’re going to see a lagoons and beaches. If you pick two or B, you’re going to see caves and islands. If you pick two or see, it’s great for snorkeling. And there’s like a shrine and tour de is like somewhere in between, it has like island beaches, but every tour’s unique and you can either choose to do one tour or a combination of tours depending on the day.

3 (43m 43s):
And this is through mango tours.

1 (43m 45s):
No, this is just in general in El Nido. Like you can go pretty much anywhere and say like, I want to book this.

3 (43m 51s):
Okay. And then are these each something that will last all day? So you can’t do more than one in a day,

1 (43m 56s):
You can do combination. So if you want to do an all day, you can do like a and C or something like that.

4 (44m 1s):
Just one would be like a half day. So you can book these tours through mango, but if you book them direct, when you’re there, lots of the vendors that do these island, Hoppings like, it’s pretty much standard. Like this is tour a B, right.

1 (44m 12s):
Because they’re kind of like, they’re kind of by region of where you can go. So they already have them like preset. Okay. Like today I want to do a and B

3 (44m 20s):
There’d be like lots of little tourist areas where you can go buy them all around. Okay. That’s pretty common in some of these popular tourist destinations. Okay, cool. Have you guys done any or which one would you

1 (44m 30s):
Recommend we’ve done? Two were B and two are B

3 (44m 34s):
Corps suited with the

1 (44m 35s):
Caves. Yes. The caves. They also have an island known as snake island and it’s really popular because it has a really unique sandbar that slivers through the section. And you can walk across the sandbar to another island. And this is where you definitely need your sunscreen because we walked across that sandbar with absolutely no shade and Jamal got fucking burnt.

4 (45m 1s):
So keep in mind, we were out all day, our boat. I swear to God, we should end of the stick. We got like the only one that didn’t have overhead cover. So I’m seeing all these other boats that have overhead covers protection from the shade while you’re out island hopping, for whatever reason ours did not. So that was also to my detriment. So it didn’t matter how much sunscreen I actually put on. I ended up getting burned and I really felt it at the point when we got to snake island, which by the way, super cool. I mean, it’s a sandbar island. So if you get there, when the tide is low and you can walk across the sandbar, you can get to another island that you wouldn’t be able to. If the tide was a little bit higher.

4 (45m 41s):
So again, really, really cool experience in that. But as we were walking across that sandbar and the no shade, I started to really feel that I was like, man, fuck my shoulders. Like really, really hurt. I was like, I gotta put on some more sunscreen. It didn’t matter. By the time we were going home for the day, I looked at my shoulders and they were fucking toast. And the next day I had second degree burns with fucking liquid Listerine on my shoulders. And Brittany has a, I want to say a cool photo, but it’s really not a cool photo. If you will, of like a big peel of my skin after that blister popped, it just went from all the way from my shoulder. Pretty much to my elbow all is like one piece. Cause it was filled with fluid under there.

4 (46m 22s):
So that’s the worst sunburn I’ve ever gotten. Literally second degree burns with fluid under them. So

1 (46m 30s):
Once it blistered up, Jamal was getting out of a car and bumped his shoulder and it popped. And you could see all of the liquid seep through his shirt. It was so disruptive.

4 (46m 40s):
Yeah. We were getting out of the van and I was coming from the back and just the way I stood up, I hit my shoulder like on the top of the door of like the slider. And so as soon as I hit it, I knew my blister had popped. And then I was wearing a red shirt. So it was red. And then up here it was like black from the liquid, not really black, but you know what I mean? Like darker red, because it was wet from popping it, but

1 (47m 2s):
Truly in the Philippines you do need to bring your sunscreen. Jamal got his burns. My brother actually got heat exhaustion and he was in bed for a few days.

9 (47m 11s):
Why? Oh my gosh, two days. How long were you in El

1 (47m 15s):
Nido? We were there for like two or three days. So he spent the rest of the time in bed. So the next day we were also supposed to do another tour, but the weather was bad and our tour got canceled and it

3 (47m 28s):
Was the weather.

1 (47m 29s):
I think it was too windy and the water was too choppy for them to operate because the boats are really small. Like they only fit like a family size, like maybe up to 10 people.

4 (47m 38s):
Yeah. Don’t think like these are big boats that are taking you from like island to island. These are really like local boats that are made out of wood. They have their little wooden gliders that are on each side. So they have like a little engine. That’s not even part of the boat that they probably took off of a bigger boat and put back and then steer with it. I mean, that’s pretty common. That’s how all the boats look like. So yeah. I mean, you don’t want to be in choppy water and those things. I mean, it’s definitely safe, no doubt, but you know, a little bit of wind, a little bit of chop makes it unsafe to really go that far out because the islands, even though they’re close, they are far from one another. We’re talking like 10 miles from island to island throughout the day on those things

2 (48m 18s):
Question for you real quickly, backing it up to your second degree burn. Did you have Alovera on, you

4 (48m 25s):
Know, Ooh. Were

2 (48m 28s):
You able to get some anywhere?

4 (48m 29s):
I believe so.

2 (48m 30s):
Okay. And then two, I just want to throw out the irony that you were on snake island and snakes shed their skin and you were shedding your skin on snake island

3 (48m 44s):
Adapt to the natural habitat.

4 (48m 45s):
Yeah. You know, I just morphed into the island vibes out there with the name, but let me say this, that equator son doesn’t mess around. Not that we were on the equator, but you’re close enough to it and it don’t mess around. It’s beaming down on you.

2 (48m 59s):
So take your sunscreen, cover up, have your Alovera. Otherwise you too will ironically shed your skin on snake island and

3 (49m 9s):
Then for heat exhaustion, how do you avoid something like that?

1 (49m 12s):
Well, hopefully you wear sunscreen and then a hat, some sun protection. And then when you’re on an island, they had a direct sunlight

4 (49m 20s):
Stay hydrated water. I don’t think Tyler drank enough water throughout the day. And I think that’s what kind of really did it and keep in mind. It wasn’t just, oh, it’s here at El Nido. I mean this entire trip in the Philippines, realistically, we’re not in the big cities. We’re in Beechey island areas. So we’re out in the sun for like already at this point a week, week and a half. So it’s just constantly being in the sun all day. And I think it just got to them at that point. And definitely my burn got to me at that point too.

3 (49m 48s):
Definitely. Was there another freak out

4 (49m 50s):
Involved? No, there wasn’t another freak out. Just, I got a little bit upset realizing that no matter what I do and how often I was in the sun, I just can’t get a base to build upon. I could build a burn, but not a base.

1 (50m 2s):
So definitely check out El Nido. It has lagoons. The lagoon water is crystal clear and the turquoise blue has beautiful beaches, caves. Great snorkeling out there. There’s so much to do. And then when you head back to El Nido itself, definitely go check out Gusto gelato, because it’s the best gelato in El

3 (50m 23s):
Nido. It’s random.

1 (50m 24s):
I know it’s not even run by Filipinos, but some of the best gelato I’ve ever had and they have mango flavors, coconut flavors,

4 (50m 35s):
Tropical stuff out there. I don’t know.

2 (50m 37s):
I feel about Uber, but that coconut, oh my gosh,

1 (50m 41s):
Rubin coconut. Oh my God.

4 (50m 43s):
It was super bombed. We actually went there every day that we were on there. And like Brittany said, it wasn’t even Filipinos who owned it. I believe they were a couple Israelis. Were they not? And they just decided they loved Palawan let alone El Nido. And I’m like, we’re gonna set up shop right here. And we went there every day. It was super, super good.

1 (51m 1s):
And then we stayed right next to El Nido Beach and this beach is super, super beautiful, gorgeous white sand. Again and there’s a ton of vendors lining the beach with seating on the sand. And if you like seafood, they have restaurants where you can pick out the fresh seafood and you can wait for it to be cooked. And then they also have non seafood options, but it’s super popular to go there during sunset, because it has some of the most gorgeous sunsets I’ve ever seen.

4 (51m 29s):
I think that was one of my favorite parts of El Nido as much fun as I had seen the beautiful, clear blue water exploring the islands. I really enjoyed the whole aspect of having dinner on the beach, on the sand and picking out my own food that was freshly caught, and then having a restaurant cook it up that fresh seafood, it just really enhanced the whole experience and then seeing those beautiful sunsets. So El Nido is not to be missed that’s for sure, really awesome place.

1 (51m 56s):
And Jamal is very finicky about getting into the water all the time, but in the Philippines, the water is so warm. Like first thing in the morning, even at midnight, you can get in the water and it’s nice and warm. How

2 (52m 7s):
Did it feel on the second degree burns?

4 (52m 10s):
You know, what’s really funny is this came at the tail end as we were headed into Manila. And there’s not really beaches in Manila to do anything like that. So I didn’t get into the water really after that, to have the salts get in the wound or have it more exposed because we didn’t really do any beachy things after that fact. So I can’t answer that question, but I can tell you it’d probably feel like shit.

2 (52m 32s):
Oh, I thought maybe like you put your feet in the water or something like that.

4 (52m 35s):
Oh, no. I mean, sure. But we didn’t do any more island hopping at that point or anything. Cause again, that tour that we’re supposed to do the next day got canceled due to the inclement weather and things like that. So, but one thing I do also want to mention real quick is a place that Brittany and I have not gone to in Palawan that we really, really want to go to. And I want to share it with you travelers that way, when you plan your trip to the Philippines, you can be sure to include it. It is in Palawan north of El Nido, one of the islands north of El Nido, and it’s called Koran. And if you go to Instagram, see any travel blogs or even hashtag Corona Palawan, you’re just going to see these amazing blue lagoons islands.

4 (53m 23s):
And it has some of the best snorkeling and scuba diving that you can do. Apparently there’s dozens of sunken world war II, Japanese ships, and real shallow water mixed with those beautiful lagoon colors. And it’s so serene. So nice. So I do want to say if you’re out there do add that onto the list. They do have ferries that go from El Nido to Corona and vice-versa so definitely do check it out. Cause I know when we go back, we’re definitely going to do it just as well.

2 (53m 53s):
Oh my gosh, Kim and I are Googling pictures right now and it’s insane,

3 (53m 57s):
Turquoise blue, but clear water. And again, those super towering sea stacks with like greenery all over them and just makes you want to jump on a kayak and Sunday out there.

4 (54m 10s):
So if that’s a 10 Corona, El Nido is like an eight and a half or nine. So Quran’s just like a little bit above, but El Nido is like really, really right there.

3 (54m 19s):
And they have all these like over-water huts we should do.

4 (54m 22s):
Yeah. See, but this one is more secluded. So it has that more like less touristy ambiance to it than El Nido. So just as nice, but definitely do want to go. And so if you have time and are staying there again, they do have a ferry that you can catch from Corona. The reason why we’ve never gone is it just never really fit our schedule when we were there. So I do want to make it a point and Hey, on that squad trip, we’re going to Corona

3 (54m 49s):
Palawan 20, 22.

4 (54m 53s):
Yeah. But pretty, why don’t you just, if anyone is going to be flying into El Nido or out of El Nido, once you tell them a little bit about the airport, because it was such a unique experience.

1 (55m 3s):
So we actually flew out of El Nido back to Manila. It is such a small airport, so small that there are no walls. It’s an open air port like Hawaii. If you’ve ever been to Hawaii, some of them have open air airports and it looks like a hut that looks like, like a large hut. And then because the planes that leave out of this airport are so small, they actually weigh you and your luggage and you have to be under a certain weight due to the propeller plane.

3 (55m 32s):
That’s the way

4 (55m 34s):
I don’t remember what the weight actually is now. I mean, these aren’t like tiny little seaplanes that fit for people. I mean, we’re talking like up to 30 people, but these are propeller planes. They’re not really jet engine style planes. It was funny. You put your luggage and your self on a scale at the same time, just to make sure that like you’re in the way

3 (55m 52s):
Too much of that Filipino food before that flight

4 (55m 54s):
Or that’s a lot of,

1 (55m 56s):
And then you walk onto the runway and go up the stairs to the plane. There’s not like a terminal or any

3 (56m 4s):
Funny,

2 (56m 5s):
Oh, I don’t like the sound of a propeller plane.

4 (56m 7s):
There’s a lot of them in the Philippines. Like if you’re going to go to the Philippines, you need to understand you’re going to be riding in a propeller plane.

3 (56m 15s):
Okay. So I officially want to go book my trip right now. This place sounds amazing.

1 (56m 21s):
Definitely have to

4 (56m 22s):
Philippines is really, really underrated as a whole, but Palawan just so beautiful. And I just want to say real quick, we didn’t touch upon this when we were in Puerto Princesa, but I do want to mention a couple places to stay that we’ve actually stayed that are really, really nice. One of them is called Casa where they bed and breakfast. And what I really, really like about this is you step into the hotel and their courtyard area is their restaurant and bar. So they have a bar, they have the restaurant there, but it’s really a nice open courtyard. And it’s so small. I think there’s maybe about 12 rooms and they all form like a square around that courtyard. And it’s just really nice ambience in there.

4 (57m 5s):
And we stayed there. I really, really loved it. So would highly recommend it’s central to everything. And the most recent one we stayed at was the city state a story as hotel Palawan, which is also really nice breakfast buffet included. And you can’t go wrong with the breakfast buffet. And so I would highly recommend these ones. We’ve stayed there. They’re really nice, good quality, good price.

3 (57m 29s):
If you guys have any questions about a trip to Palawan feel free to reach out to us on Instagram at Travel Squad Podcast, Jamal and Brett have been several times. And so we can answer any questions you may have as they come up as years go on. But I do think we have some questions of the week

4 (57m 48s):
For questions of the week. Yeah.

3 (57m 51s):
Favorite time of the week,

2 (57m 59s):
Coming in hot with questions at a week, ask us now or forever hold your peace. Send in an email, a DM or the Graham crushes of the week coming at you. Like

3 (58m 13s):
I love it. Okay. So our first question is coming from Floyd from Michigan and he is asking what’s the perfect amount of time to spend on Palawan. And I’m wondering this myself,

1 (58m 26s):
I would say probably five to six days on this island to

3 (58m 29s):
See

1 (58m 30s):
Puerto Princesa and El Nido, and be able to do some of the tours leaving from El Nido and do all of the things in between.

3 (58m 36s):
And if you want to do quite on as well,

4 (58m 39s):
I would say maybe seven to eight, if you’re going to go ahead and do that. Cause really important though. Princesa it’s a big city and we mentioned this stuff, but realistically the main highlights, the cave spelunking that we mentioned the underground river That are further away from Puerto Princesa as if you’re along the way. So like when you’re leaving it that you can do that on your route to El Nido, if you’re going to be doing the drive. So within Puerto Princesa, other than Honda Bay, which would probably be a full day, you don’t need too much time. You really going to want to spend your time in El Nido and then again, making it to Corona.

3 (59m 15s):
All right. Perfect.

2 (59m 16s):
And next question is two words. Manny from LA says alcoholic drinks,

3 (59m 23s):
Question mark. So I know like Cuba has pina coladas that they’re, they’re really popular there. So does the Philippines or Palawan specifically have any alcoholic tropical drinks that you would recommend?

1 (59m 36s):
I don’t know any by name in particular, but in the Philippines, they are famous for their beers. And so they have like red horse, which is their most popular beer and they’re sold for like 50 cents to a dollar. So you can get them everywhere.

2 (59m 51s):
And what’s the ABV

4 (59m 53s):
So really good question. That’s what I love about it. So red horse is my personal favorite. So the main beer, the Philippines is San Miguel. You can consider it like the Budweiser of America, right? Largest beer company. However red horse is their premium label. And why I like it. Seven is their alcoholic beverage

3 (1h 0m 13s):
Content.

4 (1h 0m 13s):
Yeah. So I get those over the regular San Miguel’s and let me tell you something, you just need to have those and you’re feeling real prime. Let me tell

3 (1h 0m 23s):
You what that,

4 (1h 0m 24s):
And so that’s what I really have, you know, you would think like tropical, you want some type of peanut coladas or something to that effect. And like Brittany said, really, I can’t think of anything that we came across as like a real specialty, but their beers are really good. They’re easily drinkable. So I really liked them a lot. And that’s really what I would say for the alcoholic beverages.

3 (1h 0m 45s):
Cool. And then I just have a question selfishly off going off of that one, any foods in particular, you mentioned seafood a lot, but anything else that someone should try on the island?

1 (1h 0m 56s):
Oh my gosh. Well, anytime you go to the Philippines, it is such a good place to try food. You can get lumpia, you can get pancit, which are like the glass noodles with vegetables and pork or chicken. I would also recommend getting some Sebastiao or synagogue, which is like a soup. And it’s has like bone broth in it and beef and a whole bunch of vegetables like bok choy and onions and a whole bunch of really good.

3 (1h 1m 22s):
So funny. I wouldn’t like think soup and tropical island.

1 (1h 1m 26s):
Yes. You have to have it with the rice and chicken adobo. And it’s just so good

4 (1h 1m 32s):
Because even though they have the soup and you’re right, you wouldn’t think tropical, it’s something warm. Yeah. I mean, they’ll take it as bites, but even though they have some of those veggies, it’s really mostly the liquid with the bok choy and maybe like the onions, but you take that broth and dump it a little bit on the rise to kind of like soak it with your stuff. So nothing in particular that’s specific to Palawan, but everything that Brittany mentioned you can get as street food. So you do want to try those street food vendors. They even have a lot of crazy stuff, depending on how adventurous you want to be. I don’t think you would want to be, but when we were there, believe it or not, we got chicken intestines on a skewer. They would take their intestines and they would like zigzag it like onto a skewer.

4 (1h 2m 13s):
And they like barbecue with the gizzards. So lots of crazy stuff, but really, really good stuff. But if we want to talk normal food for you, that’s a must try. I hate to say something. That’s not street food. Cause I love street food when we travel. But this goes back to what Zaina was saying earlier. Mang and assault consider it like the KFC of the Philippines, except it is not fried. This is roasted chicken. So fricking good. It comes with rice. It comes with that sabelle soup that Brittany was talking about, but it’s really the broth that you put on so many different vinegars and peppers that you eat on the side of it. The best part is $2 for that.

4 (1h 2m 55s):
You get like a big thigh, a leg, your rise, your soup. I love it. The chicken. So moist, so tender and believe me like pretty much every other day in the Philippines I eat mink and assault. I highly recommend you do to,

1 (1h 3m 10s):
And for like an extra dollar you can add on the option to do unlimited rice if you want. So that’s really

3 (1h 3m 16s):
Limited, right?

2 (1h 3m 18s):
Well, there you go. You get the rice and you put it in a bag. So when you get hit by the road, I tease

3 (1h 3m 25s):
My God. I’m starving. Now after hearing about all this.

4 (1h 3m 28s):
Yeah. The food is definitely another underrated aspect of the Philippines. Whether it be the street food or in the restaurants, you’re not going to be disappointed. I just loved the Philippines a lot. And you know, very few places that I traveled to. I go back again. Not that I don’t go to places and want to repeat them. I definitely do. I guess it’s easier because Brittany’s family is from there and we do take family vacations there that I’m never disappointed, like re going back to the Philippines and I want to go back again. I love it so much specifically. Palauan

3 (1h 3m 58s):
Yeah. I cannot wait to go, especially with you guys.

4 (1h 4m 1s):
Yeah. Squadron.

3 (1h 4m 4s):
All right. That’s all we have for you this week, guys. Thank you so much for listening with us this week. Please keep the adventures going, follow us on Instagram, YouTube Travel Squad Podcast. Send us in your questions of the week that you know, I love so much and tag us in your travel photos too. We’d love to check them out.

2 (1h 4m 20s):
Yes. And if you found the information in this episode to be useful, or if you thought we were just playing funny and please make sure to share it with a friend who will enjoy it too,

4 (1h 4m 27s):
Please subscribe, rate, and review, or a podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes

1 (1h 4m 33s):
Stay tuned for next week’s episode, we have so many more amazing adventures and tips in store for you.