The Riverhouse

This was my very first time to be away for almost whole Chinese New Year celebration having some vacation, but Palawan was so attractive for me from every aspect. When talking about beach and sea in Philippines, I guess almost everyone will be talking about Boracay. For me, Boracay should be a entertaining but I seem prefer quiet and natural beach, which is not over commercialize. The last frontier of Philippines, Palawan is a great vacation spot for us!

It was a mistakes for me for not taking much consideration on how well my travel mate, Lion and Briseis able to cope with overnight transit in airport. After all, it was our first trip along together. It was normal travel method for me in order to save time and cost, but I can see how hard and tired they are during that 5-6 hours waiting for our next flight to Manila. Perhaps I can improve my planning and itinerary further by taking these details into consideration to make it a more comfortable trip.

Energetic while waiting for our flight to KL from Penang Airport.

Spending the night in KLIA Starbuck.

Is time for flight to Manila.

Finally in the waiting gate for next flight, pity both of them....

Glad that they seem to rest well on the plane instead during the 4 hours flight to Manila. MAS flight arriving in Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport terminal 1, and in order to catch our next Cebu Pacific flight to Busuanga, we need to hire a taxi over to Terminal 4. Distance of less than 3 KM is being charged 300 peso, for me it is overprice, but due to the rush we have to take that. Additionally, the driver demanding on extra 200 peso as tips when we reach Terminal 4, I politely reject it as that was already a very good deal for him.

Terminal 4 was very small and crowded, we spend some time to find few seats in the waiting area. The flight was slightly delayed and luckily it was no more than 30 minutes. Our plane was a very small and cute plane with two propellers. It might be small, but it looks very new and clean from inside. Finally, another hour and we will be able to reach Coron!

Very small and crowded Terminal 4.

Cute plane with two propellers!

Boarding the 3rd flight of the day~

Very new and clean from inside.

Lion: Only an hour to go~

It was a short flight hence 3 of us did not rest anymore but navigating on the window for surrounding view. Suddenly, everybody looks so busy on the left wing on the plane, as they saw a very beautiful reef formation on the ocean. Lion did take some shots on the reef, and only after doing some study I get to know that the name of the reef that they saw is Apo Reef, the most popular diving spot here in Coron! This really boost the vacation mood for us, feeling that we are closer to the paradise.

Partial sun light ray that hit the ocean.

View from the flight.

The Apo Reef! Photo credited to Magic5.

This boost our vacation mood drastically! Photo credited to Magic5.

Satellite view of Apo Reef thanks to google!

Almost at the same time, the pilot announce that we are about to land in Busuanga Airport, and we start to see a lot of beautiful island and reef all around the area, from both side of the window!

Again, with additional post works being done, I found out that one of the picture that I took while in flight display all the island hopping that we did on the next day. Co-incident huh? :)

Full of beautiful island and reef!

Dibuloc island.

Jatoy island.

This is the unique picture that co-incidentally capture all island that we visit next day!

Great view of mountain range. Photo credited to Magic5.

Landing soon~

Francisco B Reyes Airport is a very small airport, our flight and another Sky Jet plane almost reach at the same time and it seem in a sudden the small space of the airport is filled by lots of tourists. There are a lot of van out of the airport waiting to fetch respective tourist to their accommodation. All of the van are moving towards Coron town, but for 3 of us, we seem to be the only one that are making our way to Decalachao, toward The Riverhouse, to the north. In a split seconds, most of the van and almost all the tourists making their way from the airport, while they are still arranging the transportation for us while confirming the details with The Riverhouse owner.

We manage to board the van and making our way to The Riverhouse in 15 minutes of arrangement.

Landed finally!

Workers unloading the luggage.

Sky Jet plane that landed not long ago.

Very small Francisco B.Reyes airport.

The Riverhouse was located a high ground via Decalachao area, which was only a small village. This make the accommodation to be really totally isolated from crowded area, not even seeing any villagers around. Judith, the owner of The Riverhouse and her crew welcome us with a great mixed fruit welcome drink, and we are so please with the scenery from the cafeteria. I really love the calm view of the river along with the range of green and bald mountain range.

Our welcome drink.

Magnificent river view from the cafeteria.

Another end of the river.

Unknown bird resting on the branch.

Coron do have lots of peak that look like chocolate hill in Bohol.

Exterior of our room.

When you decided to stay via The Riverhouse, you will almost need to settle every meal throughout your stay with the hotel. Breakfast are included with the hotel rate, while we will need to pay separate bill for lunch and dinner. After we done some minor unpack of our luggage in the room, we head back to cafeteria at around 6 PM to have our dinner. We order some local Filipino dishes to be share, the taste was all right but I felt the portion is quite small. The price was some how expensive but looking and the isolation location of the hotel, it was still acceptable. Sunset of Palawan was quite early at around ~6 PM ++, after the sky turn dark, the mosquito was a lot around the cafeteria, i mean a lot! We totally can't enjoy our dinner well, until the crew light the mosquito coil and turn on the fan for us.

The situation get better after a while when the nature wind start to blow over and those mosquito are away from the area. We spend some time hanging around the cafeteria as it was the only place with WIFI coverage, before call it a day.

The mushroom was very salty.

Fried rice.

Traditional sinigang soup with fish. This was nice!

Fried spring rolls.

Chicken breast set.

Sunrise was very early in Philippines, normally at around 6:15 AM. It was kinda surprising for me as the sky is already quite bright at 6:30 AM. Those advantage of staying at a place with natural surrounding, the singing voice of those insects and birds along with fresh air make me feel very peaceful and calm. The sky are quite cloudy hence the sun light is not that strong, but it does give another different view of a great morning. After taking the breakfast from the cafeteria, we are ready for our first private island hopping trip in Coron!