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Has anyone traveled to palawan?

Discussion in 'General Chit Chat' started by Davids, Apr 7, 2018.

  1. Sanders
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    Sanders Banned

    Bantayan, seems to have a hospital or two. I have to admit I do not know how good they are. But I know a man who does. I believe he will be there again soon.

    Back on thread, I suppose it might be fair to say that hospitals and medical facilities are indeed in place but may not be easily accessible from more remote parts. And health insurance would be essential?
  2. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I paid for Ana's mum to have an operation about 5 years ago, it was an elderly ladies problem and she really needed it done, I went to the hospital to see her and yeah it wasn't great, I mean the wards were crowded and did not compare to anything you would get in the UK, but she was treated well, recovered well and got out and back home with us quite quickly, she is a lovely old lady and still going strong and I hope for many years to come.

    When Janna was born we were booked for a hospital in Mandaluyong it was a nightmare getting across the city to get up there and I was afraid my daughter was going to be born in the taxi, Ana had wanted to go to the cinema that night, so we were going from MOA to Mandaluyong contract taxi as an Ambulance was out of the question :D She was indeed born within 25 minutes of arriving at the hospital :D

    That hospital was as modern as anything we have here and the care was expert and efficient, the nurses were great and we had a private room, total bill was about £800 I think and of course the armed guards won't let you leave until it is paid :D

    None of the family have ever had health insurance except for a short time when I got medical insurance for Ana.

    We have a public hospital about 500 metres from where we live, we have umpteen private hospitals within a couple of kilometres, I would prefer it if she used the public one as a first recourse for most things but she always wants the private hospital even for the most trivial ailments.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  3. Markham
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    Markham Guest

    I believe I may know one: I recommended this place to a Brit and his Filipina wife a day or so before they left Gozo to do a Surinder Singh. He told me he would join once he had settled-in to their new place. In Sheffield.
  4. Sanders
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    Sanders Banned

    Janna is my daughter’s first name though we call her by her second name.
  5. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    • Informative Informative x 1
  6. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Wow :)

    They wouldn't let me give my Janna more than one name, even the doctor looked at me as if I were mad, they have to write all their names including the maternal middle name on every paper they ever fill in for school be it a test or formal exam, apparently the rule is keep it short :D

    I was suggesting Janna Elizabeth Irene Oxxxxx Lxxxxxxxx (not publishing family names :)) I got shot down in flames :D

    edit: thread drift again :) I too am often guilty of it :)
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  7. Sanders
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    Sanders Banned

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  8. OTT
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    OTT Active Member

    There are many nice beaches on the island hopping trips from El Nido . The trips are A B C and D . We did A and C , you can read the itinerary of each before you decide which ones appeal to you . There are secret beaches and a secret lagoon to see .

    As before , I would definitely visit Nacpan beach , if you like long uncrowded beaches .
    I saw a video before about a beautiful sandbar that can be visited from El Nido also , but sorry I don't have details to share .

    If you like seeing videos of the Philippines , and like to get ideas for places to go, I recommend looking on You Tube at a travel vlogger named Finnsnow . He travels to many less known areas and has beautiful photos and videos .
  9. Maley
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    Maley Well-Known Member

    Was there 3 yrs ago. Went to PP and then el nido. As someone who is very ‘choosy’ with beaches (being from davao, white sand beach is just a 10 mins accross the davao gulf so im spoiled by choices), i would say el nido is one of the best! Its difficult to get to (6 hrs drive from pp) and electricity is not reliable at best. But the people were amazing- its one of the places where i felt at home. The tours (boat trip) costs us 1200php for the whole day including lunch and we had the boat to ourselves.

    Then we went back to PP for the underwater cave and the firefly visit.

    Didnt go to any hidden beaches. During the day boat trip in el nido, you can spend the entire day in one island or various one. We rarely encounter anyone (went on july so off peak season in ph) so it felt like we own the place.
  10. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    I think responsibility has to be with the locals (as in those businesses that benefit directly from tourism). A collective responsibility is the only way. Not ensuring the beauty of these places is like cutting off your nose to spite your face really. It shouldn't really take the president to intervene in such matters but sadly he has had to.
    • Agree Agree x 2
  11. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    Further to my last comments. I remember being up early one morning when I was on Camotes. I was in accommodation which was right on the beach, it was quite frankly very beautiful. Anyhow I awoke early, there was an elderly well dressed man directing approximately seven or eight guys with rakes and bags. Even early on it was hot and those guys were sweating but listening to the instruction from the gent, raking residual seaweed, grasses and a bit of litter then bagging it up. The gent obviously acknowledged the importance of keeping the place in a respectable manner.
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  12. Stellar
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    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    of course it is not going to be a problem in tourist areas where people's language skills are part of their jobs, but there definitely can be language 'barriers' in the Philippines.

    I wonder how many Luzon Tagalog-speaking people have you met in the Visayas, who have moved there to work. I've met a lot of them and at first the language issue/barrier can be a real problem for them.

    It's much more of a problem for them than when Visayan people, who can speak Tagalog, move to Manila. It's not the same way in reverse at all.

    Tagalog and other Luzon language speakers basically have to learn Bisaya almost scratch, and even though Filipinos as a whole are a multilingual people who can usually learn new languages quickly, it's not a straightforward task for them - the languages are not all that close.

    Of course nearly everybody in the Visayas can speak Tagalog if they want to, although on a daily basis, almost nobody speaks Tagalog from one day to the next. So they're out of practice. And Visayan people, just don't want to speak it. In social situations, they'll always want to speak Bisaya. It's not often deliberate, but Tagalog speakers can get, and feel, excluded in Cebu. It's not fair for them to expect everyone in a group to speak in Tagalog just for their benefit all the time, and most of them don't expect that. So Tagalog and Ilocano, etc migrants to Cebu/CDO etc do tend to learn Bisaya quite quickly. But for a time, until they do, there is definitely a bit of a language barrier. I've met a few of them in that early stage. It's an awkward time for them.

    Like 95% of white foreigners, there is even a few Tagalogs that live in Cebu or some other Visayan region for years and years but who never learn Bisaya much at all. I've met a couple of those too. For sure, they can get by in Tagalog and maybe sometimes English, but it's not ideal for them. They are missing out.

    some 'other' language speakers who have migrated to Cebu, like Ilongos and Warays, or even Chavacanos, don't have anything like so much of a problem in Cebu as Tagalogs do. That's because they come from parts of the Philippines where their 'mother tongue' languages integrate much more closely on a daily basis with Bisaya than Tagalog speakers up in Luzon do. Somebody from northeast Leyte, who speaks Waray, and somebody from southwest Panay, who speaks Ilongo, or somebody from Zamboanga, who speaks Chavacano, is going to know loads of people, relatives, schoolmates, neighbours etc who speak Bisaya. They may not speak it at home. But they''ve half-grown up with the language. They may not have learned Bisaya much formally in school, like they have learned Tagalog formally in school, and they may not hear it much on television, but they've heard Bisaya everywhere around them on a daily basis from Day One. They adapt to Cebu and speaking Bisaya language really quickly - it is a language they are familiar with already. Much quicker than Tagalogs do. So not so much of a a 'language barrier' for them that there is for Tagalog people.
    I'm familiar with the hospitals on all four of those islands, and have been treated myself in two of them. They are all absolutely awful. To be fair, the Siquijor hospital was not too bad (it helped that I had only very minor superficial injuries) although it was clearly very undeveloped, but my experience in Bantayan was especially horrific.

    In fact there is a lively debate as to which of the 'hospitals' - except they are not hospitals as we know them - on the Visayan islands are the worst. I'd be inclined to say, probably the Camotes, being partly influenced by a well travelled and experienced Italian NGO, a medical professional who had seen them all, and told me that she thought the medical facilities there on the Camotes were the worst of the lot of them too.

    The best advice for anybody that gets sick on any of those islands, or indeed in any province, is not bother with a provincial hospital at all. Don't even think about it. Avoid. Go to a big city hospital.


    again, complete poppycock. It's not as if you see all that many Asian families with children in the Philippines either, although you do see more of them than European and American ones, there's still very few of them. They give it a wide berth too.

    as for European families, the Thais get masses, hundreds and hundreds, and thousands of families with young children all the time. There is big hotels and resorts that cater almost exclusively to them with play areas, entertainments, etc aimed specifically at foreign, not Thai, children.

    They get Norwegian and Swedish young families coming back year after year after year every northern hemisphere winter. It's because the Thais are smart. They know that families with children is the very best tourist market segment to have. The best likelihood of getting lucrative repeat business when they come back every year. The chance that when the children grow up, they will come back to Thailand as tourists too. The Thais want to get a lot of families with children action, and they do. The Philippines gets almost none.

    And part of the reason is that they make sure that the medical facilities are up to scratch. Unlike the Philippines where no effort is made at all. Even in highly touristed areas like Moalboal, there is no clinic except a very straightforward facility that is there to treat any diving incidents/accidents that may arise. For general medical cases, there is nothing and there isn't even a proper doctor. Nobody with 2 kids under 8 is going to go to a place like that. With the Thais, in a tourist place like that, they'd set up a proper clinic, with a doctor, a nurse or two, equipment, everything. They know they'd have no hope of appealing to families with children tourists otherwise.
  13. Sanders
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    Sanders Banned

    Deleted. Wrong thread. Sorry.
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2018
  14. Ken100464
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    Ken100464 Member

    @Davids
    The secret beach/lagoon was interesting in a 30 minute sort of way.

    The boat pulls up to a steep cliff and anchors. They get you to jump into the sea with no discernible beach and get you to swim to a hole in the rock

    On the other side is a beach and lagoon but not so big as to be somewhere dinosaurs hide out.

    Only needs 2 or 3 tourist boats to arrive and it becomes crowded.

    On the way back to the boat there was a bit of a swell running and one tourist got their head smacked on the rock and they lost another in the current.

    The shame of being the tourist manhandled in your life jacket after floating off to sea.

    It was just part of the tour where the boats whizz round various island for the day. Pretty cool though. Defo worth doing.
  15. Davids
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    Davids Active Member

    near Angeles city then going to fly to Puerto prinsesa
  16. Mattecube
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    Mattecube face the sunshine so shadows fall behind you Trusted Member

    Have you been upto Bolinao?
  17. Markham
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    Markham Guest

    More misinformation and anti-Philippine pro-Thai propaganda delivered in your trademark patronising and antagonist manner. I really do wonder whether you have ever visited any of the resorts on Cebu and Mactan, Siargo, La Union, Samal and elsewhere which are teeming with Asian families - Filipinos are Asian too, in case you need reminding.

    Messages you posted in early February promoted your employer and since you chose to post in your employer's name, one might be forgiven for assuming that you are representing their views and are therefore a spokesman for the company. I wonder how they would react were they to discover this and read posts where you insult and patronise Filipinos and berate their country whilst being a self-professed sex tourist who preys upon and sexually abuses innocent young Filipinos. Such posts bring your employer's name into disrepute and that could have unfortunate consequences with the authorities. I suggest you do not return to the Philippines ever again and confine your sexual exploits to Thailand a country you much prefer.
  18. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    I know it is not about Palawan but travelling north from Cebu City was very challenging with young children!
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2018
  19. Stellar
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    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    just read these pinoy blogs about the continued lack of any medical facilities on Malapascua. It's quite heart-wrenching stuff :

    Still no Hospital and NO DOCTOR on MALAPASCUA
    http://malapascua-stardiver.blogspot.co.uk/

    the blog might be old (2009) but nearly a decade later there is STILL no doctor on the island and no clinic. What responsible parent with small children is going to risk going anywhere like that.
  20. Davids
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    Davids Active Member

    Where is bolinao matt?

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