Palawan is an Island in the west of the Philippines. The capitol of this Island is Puerto Princesa.

Puerto Princesa is like most capitols you will find in the Philippines with not much going on for visitors. It is a town to get yourself sorted with essentials before you move around the island. There are a number of ATM’s here and this is the only place on the island where you will find them so if you need cash get it here and make sure you have enough until you get back otherwise there are a very few places that will give you a cash advance usually with a commission of 10%.

From Puerto Princesa there are a couple of trips that you could do. One is to go to the open prison about 40min tricycle drive away where you can walk around the compound and talk with prisoners and if you’re lucky like I was the prison guards allowed me to the fence of the maximum security fence to chat with the inmates. In the compound you will see the prisoners working on making all the lovely wood work that you will see for sale around town. This is how this prison makes it money to pay for staff and feed the prisoners as they are nearly self sufficient as they receive little money from the government.

On the way to the prison there is a wildlife park where they look after rescued animals from the region. (Watch out for the monkeys they are very aggressive!) There are tours about every hour in English and is worth the trip if you want to kill an afternoon.

South of Puerta Princesa you have got Sabang which is around a 3 hour drive away. This is a very small town with electricity running only 3 hours in the early evening. There is one thing to do here but it is worth it. Here you have the world’s longest underground river. This is actually a UNESCO world heritage site and you will see why. You can to get a boat round to the entrance of the river but these run frequently or there are two trails to the entrance of different distances. At the entrance you can usually see monitor lizards wondering around looking for any food that you may of brought with you with are amazing to see.

The river is obviously pitch black so you may well have the responsibility of holding the very powerful flashlight. I would advise to get to the river early in the morning as it can get busy and I think it would ruin the experience. When I went I was the first boat in and enjoyed all the river to myself until on the way back I must of passed at least 5 boats.

From Sabang you can either get a boat or a number of buses to El Nido – be warned of the roads. You get amazing views from both modes of transport but I recommend to get a boat one way and the bus the other. It is a great experience to travel on the bus. If you’re up for it travel on the roof of the bus to get the best views but watch out for low branches and electricity cables!

El Nido is the gateway to Bacuit Bay the main reason for most people coming to Palawan. The town itself is sandwiched between two massive limestone cliffs with a white sand beach in the middle. There are a few restaurants in the town and also a few right on the beach where the table are on the sand with oil torches for light.

From your base in El Nido you can organise your trip around the bay. The bay is a mixture of Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay and Thailand’s Krabi. So image if you were to mix these you would get. Yes you’re right, you get a paradise which only seems to be possible on postcards. You can get a white sand beach with turquoise sea and coral reef just for yourself here. For the day trips everyone offers the same for pretty much the same price. You have tour A, B, C and D choose which one sounds best all do them all if you have the time and money. I would suggest that you do the trip that takes you to the big and little lagoon as they are just beautiful.

You can hire a kayak to try and explore the islands yourself but you do have to be quite fit as the islands may look close but trust me from past experience that they are not.

The diving to be done here is just some of the world’s best and there are a couple of dive shops on the beach. When I was there it was $50 for 2 dives.