02.03.10

Palawan Ho! Part 5

Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Playing the Tourist, food and restaurants, knitting and crocheting at 8:22 am by Administrator

Since everyone officially decided against going to Sabong to see the underground river, we decided to go into town the next day to see what’s there.  We were told that it was about a 15 minute ride in the tricycles.  Daddy decided that his back could handle that, so the lady who coordinated the tours and activities called up three tricycles to take us into town.  Aaron and I shared one tricycle. It’s a little easier going over the bumps in one of these, but it’s also a lot dustier.  No matter,when in Rome. . .  In about 15 minutes we arrived at Narra’s town center. Many things were sold here such as veggies, meats, and fish.  They also had other goods like clothing and house supplies.  There was also rice and breads.  This is part of the fresh meats section . And here are some of the dried fishes. I was also able to find some nice sarongs for a good price (half of what they charged for them in Bohol last year!)  This is a pic of one of them. Then Mommy started her usual “hurry, hurry, let’s go now.”  So off we went back to the resort for our lunch, which I ordered a soup called “binocoy,” a Palawan specialty.  We had tasted it the night before, and wow, was it good!  I’m hoping to try to figure out how to make it once we get back home.  Binocoy (and I’m not sure of the correct spelling) is a chicken soup with cyote, finely chopped ginger and other veggies served in a young coconut.  I’m guessing that there’s also a tad of chili pepper to give it a little zing.  Here’s a pic of what it looked like. After lunch I suggested that my parents go for a nice massage treatment at the resort’s spa.  It didn’t look like much from the outside. . . But when we entered, we found that it was very cute in there!  The atmosphere was very relaxing!  They had little structures for the different treatments.  Here’s a pic of their wet exfoliation room. Actually, off to the right are the showers, the curtain to the left is the sauna, and the room straight ahead is the wet exfoliation room where two people can be treated at once.   This is what the tables looked like. I had to take a pic of this without Mom and Dad there because while they were having their treatment Mommy said if I took a picture of her there she’d break my camera or my head, whichever was easiest, ha ha!  Basically, the way the treatment worked was they ran warm water under the top mat so that you’re lying in warm continually flowing water.  During that they rub pureed cucumber all over you, then ground rice, and then finally shaved coconut.  They let me watch the process, and in so doing I got so tempted that I decided to have a treatment, too (as did Auntie Lits and Uncle Al).  While we lined up for our treatments, Aaron and I waited in one of their waiting areas. Of course, I had to knit. . . From where I sat, this was the view. To the left of the pic is their jacuzzi area, and the structure behind the trees just to the right is their reception area. To the immediate left of where I was sitting was the dry massage area.  It’s elevated and open.  Mommy allowed me to take a pic of her and dad here. I stood below the stairs when I took this picture.  The nice thing about this set up is the weather was so nice that it was especially pleasant and peaceful to have a massage out there.  They also had very calming music piped in.  The massage was done using pure coconut oil.  The girls took their time, and the total time given to each of us for both the exfoliation and massage was two hours!  Oye! That’s Mommy getting pampered, and Daddy’s on the left getting pampered by another masseuse.  When it was my turn I had to hold myself back from groaning out loud in pleasure, ha ha ha!  The weather was perfect, the atmosphere was extremely relaxing, and having a massage at the same time was just heavenly!  The stiff neck I developed on the way into the resort left me after this massage, and I awoke the next morning feeling very refreshed and limber. Okay, so once again, I’m out of room for pics, so I’ll continue on another post later.  However, tomorrow I’m probably not going to be able to post, then the following day we’re headed off to Bangkok where I’ll be offline for four days.  So I’ll try to update in about 5 days with the last part of “Palawan Ho!” when we get back to Manila. Toodles, and take care! Marlakins

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