The Parody™

The Beach Monger: Palawan 13 April 2006

Beaches are my haven.

I can say that it’s a source of relaxation for me. I didn’t use to love the beach because it would mean my skin’s going to grow darker but when I reached my late teens, I found myself falling and falling and falling… Ack. This is becoming too tacky for my taste. Bleh.

Anyway, I just wanted to re-hash all my beach adventures. I wrote something about Boracay, a popular resort island in the Visayas Region of my country, Philippines, a few months back when I went there during the holidays.

Last year alone, I had travelled to a lot of beaches in the Philippines and in Australia. It’s been a fabulous experience. Now, like I said, I’m going to trace my steps back to most, if not all, of the beaches I’ve been to.

First up… Palawan, Philippines.

If I try to count all the islands I’ve seen so far out of the 1700 islands that my country has, I reckon I’ve only covered like around 8% of it. Heh. But that’s not bad considering the number, right? Hehehe.

February 2005.

I went with my family, which consisted of my mom, my younger brother, Arnold, my older brother, Aaron and his wife, Sally. And how can I forget my baby, Mr. Angelo? I miss my teddy. Sniff. Anyway, it was actually a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing because what happened was my older brother was just telling my mom about their plans to celebrate his wife’s birthday on the beach and he was sort of asking me about the beaches I’ve been to [I think..] when I chided my mom that we should come with them. Surprisingly, the couple agreed and said we should all go to Boracay. My mom said yes so, I went to my brother’s house to do some research and made some phone calls to make the arrangements. But I found out that it was way too last minute to go to Boracay but I did find a pretty decent deal for Palawan. I told them about the option and we decided to give it a go. It’s exciting because neither one of us has ever been to Palawan.

I then called my dear friend, Kanch, who lives in Palawan, to let her know that we’re coming over the next day. Boy, was she surprised. She helped me find a good place where we can stay and basically helped us make further arrangements about our trip, like where we can go and see and stuff, which was really wonderful of her. We paid for the plane tickets that night and left early next day.

It was island hopping [Luli Island –the disappearing island, Snake Island, and a few more others], the city tour of the capital, Puerto Princesa [flea markets, Vietnamese Village, and some other place which I simply can’t remember], Dos Palmas Resort [where I just lounged under the sun while they went snorkling and kayaking. Hehehe], Sabang Beach [the best beach ever! The two-hour landtrip over rough terrain was well-worth it!] and yes — the famous Underground River, the longest in the world.

You can see more photos of this trip here.

June 2005.

I went back to Palawan to attend my friend Kanch’s wedding and spend some time with my girlfriends, Raissa, Victoria, and Happy.

It’s our very first time to go on an out-of-town trip together after a number of tries. Hahaha. It was a fantastic time being with them. The wedding was gorgeous. I can’t forget the cake! All my friends were part of the entourage. Well — I would’ve been too but the Aussie plans got in the way and Kanch didn’t want to risk having a no-show for a bridesmaid. But since I was still around, I decided to go anyway. I really didn’t want to miss it in the first place! She was the first in the group to get married.

It was only after the wedding did we start our real vacation. We initially planned to go to El Nido but some uncontrollable circumstance hindered that from materialising. Pffft. We instead went on the same island-hopping adventure that I did the first time I went to Palawan. We decided that we were going to spend the night on one of the islands.. Starfish Island. I did see a beautiful blue starfish. It was awesome! Loved the sun, sand and sea with a dash of Vodka. Hahaha. It was the trip that launched me as an amateur photographer. I fell in love with the camera and photography. We’re still together and going strong. Teeheehee.

You can see more photos of the wedding here.

And of course, the rest of the photos, here.

By far, Palawan is ranked number one on my list.