When we left Naonao beach, our last hotel (Sunset Colours) organised a small boat to take us to Port Barton in the afternoon free of charge, this took about 15-20 minutes and it really was a lovely little journey.
Our accomodation in Port Barton was about a 15-20 minute walk from the jetty, it was mid afternoon, the sun was beating down and our backpacks felt very heavy, very quickly. By the time we got to our accommodation we were both pretty much hanging.
We stayed in a place called Parrots Boutique – for my thoughts on the Parrots Boutique as a place to stay please see the ‘Accommodation Review Posts‘ section for the Philippines.
My research into Port Barton indicated that compared to many other places in the Palawan islands it had relatively few tourists and the tours and beaches were less crowded. However, it was starting to grow very quickly with many restaurants, bars and homestays frequently popping up. I was particularly looking forward to vising the Reggae Bar… recommended to me whilst I was in San Vincente and offering live music and a fun time.
Unfortunately, as with Naonao beach, Port Barton was pretty much devastated by the super typhoon. I reckon about 90% of homestays, bars and restaurants were closed – either damaged by the typhoon or were owned by Europeans that had decided not to re-open yet… including, the Reggae bar – shame!
We were both very keen to get out on a boat trip and crack on with some snorkelling but we decided that we would wait until we were in our next port of call El Nido. Mainly because we had heard that the snorkelling was better in El Nido and also El Nido had been pretty much untouched by the typhoon so there were a lot more trips to choose from.
We struggled to find any restaurants that we fancied to eat in so, as our accommodation also offered some excellent cooking facilities with our room, we bought some supplies from the local food stalls and prepared our meals ourselves for the both nights we were there – basically, packet noodles, shrimps, calamansi (lime), eggs, garlic and ginger… the meals turned out pretty good in the end.
We also tried out some barbequed chicken and pork with chilli dip from one of the small food stalls, which were pretty delicious.
The weather was not great so we did not do a great deal for our couple of days in Port Barton. Spent some time relaxing by the pool, wandering the streets, walking the beach and I spent quite a bit of time practicing my drone flying.
Once again, it was heart breaking to see the results of Covid and the typhoon, I would love to have been here pre-Covid, I bet it had a great vibe to the place. I only hope that the tourists start returning, the businesses start re-opening and the locals are able to start re-building this wonderful place.
