the diary of the travelling mommy: Honda Bay

Puerto Princesa -- The City of the Living God

27-29 April 2014

On to our Day 2 here in PPS. Our little Erinn was just 18 months during this time. So we decided to pass up the Underground River tour and just go with the Honda Bay tour. Beach Baby! We just booked the tour in our hotel. And paid Php 2,400 for me and Dada. Erinn was free! Yay! We woke up very early, like 5am because the van will pick us up at 630am. We prepared, ate our breakfast and boarded the van. Yahoo! The van picked up 4 more groups of tourists before heading to Honda Bay. We also stopped by at the swimming gear shop where we can rent footwear, swimwear, and snorkeling gear for our sun, sea, and sand adventure!

With my little sweety.

Booties!

Upon arriving at Honda bay, Kuya Nelson, our tour guide, asked us for Php 40 each. It's a fee for something related to Honda bay. He'll be the one to pay in the cashier and after that we'll wait for our boat or bangka. We stayed in the lobby as what they call it. There are also lots of groups of tourists in there waiting for their tour guide and turn on the boats.While waiting for him, Erinn changed to her rash guard outfit. So cute indeed! After like 10 minutes, Kuya Nelson arrived and he led us near the dock. We boarded out bangka. We were also asked to wear life vests. They even have life vest for little Erinn. It was their protocol, I think, that all should wear life vests or else when caught not wearing it, the agency for the tour has to pay. So, life vest it is!

Excited to swim baby?

Let's do this! :)

Erinn and Dada talking about fishes. Lol!

We are off to the first island -- Luli Island. The trip from Honda bay to Luli island is around 20 minutes. The view going there is exhilarating! Superb water!

WOW!

Luli Island is short for Lulubog-Lilitaw Island. You'll see this place only when it's low tide and it will disappear during high tide. Wicked! Luli island has white sands and very very pretty view. Since the island depends on high tide or low tide, the seashore isn't definite but they have swimming area and they have diving area as well. Dada did dive but I wasn't able to take a photo of him 'cause I was looking after my little mermaid. :p The island, well all 3 islands, has huts for people to eat or if they just want to lounge around. Rest rooms and shower area for boys and girls are also available. They use salt water in there. So all you can do is just a little wash up. :) We did enjoy here in Luli island, even though all I did was take pictures and look after Erinn, Ha ha. Can't help it! The view was really amazing. And I want to freeze Erinn's time here. We stayed here for about an hour and we were herded back to our bangka to go see the Starfish Island and have lunch there.

Family Picture! :)

Yahoo!!!

Of course! I should have a selfie! :P

Erinn is enjoying this water adventure in the rest room more that swimming in the beach. Ho ho.

Welcome!

My turn...

Dada, your face??? Ha ha. Erinn helping Dada blow up her floater. Aaaaw!

Starfish Dada doing some snorkeling.

" What happened to your face Dada?" -- Erinn

My Little Mermaid can swim on her own. :p

O.O

Starfish Island. They say starfishes are abundant here. Hence, the name. But whether or not that's true, I am still about to find out because we didn't swim here. The sun was scorchingly hot. Even the sand can burn you and that's an understatement. We were scheduled to have lunch here. The lunch was included in the tour so yay! for my tummy! We had inihaw na liempo (grilled pork belly), inihaw na isda (grilled fish), inihaw na pusit (grilled squid). There's eggplant and mangga with yummy bagoong and banana. It's like a buffet. So Dada and I were in for a long munching. Ha ha. We ate a lot, I mean A LOT! The mangga with bagoong was so yummy! Two thumbs up for the food! Again, no time to take pictures of the foods -- tummy was angry! :) As for Erinn, she's happy with her milk. :p During lunch we got to talk with our table mates. One couple was Filipina with her Japanese boyfriend and the other was a Filipina, as well, with white African husband. Both couples were nice. They seem fond of Erinn because she was singing Hi5 songs all throughout lunch. Bravo baby girl! After lunch, we just lounged around. Dada and I tried to make Erinn fall sleep because she was throwing fits of tantrums from waking up so early. But no luck. She just had her small nap when we were in our bangka and on our way to Cowrie Island.

Dada's poging pogi look.

Pretty baby.

One of the tour guides took this shot. Thank you!

Go to sleep my sweet little baby.


:)

Last stop -- Cowrie Island. I know nothing about this Island and why they call it that. Wasn't able to ask Kuya Nelson. But hey, there's the beach! :) Erinn was still getting some Z's when we got off the bangka. Good thing we found a cottage right away. When Erinn woke up, Dada bought us halo-halo. A heat reliever! Then we're off to our swimming escapade. Again, I didn't swim a lot. Just happy taking shots my life. :) This island is a bit crowded maybe because it's quite big. Lots of foreign tourists too. We went back to Honda bay at maybe around 3 or 4pm. Then we were brought back to our hotel.