A LUI RESTAURANT

is quite inconpicious so that if you are nodding off, you might just miss the small sign on Rizal Avenue,the city's major food lane.ON this weekend night, thre place is packed, mostly with Europian divers transiting to nearby island. The "No Shoe/Slipper Policy" is a delightful idea. The foreigners seem comfortable with the creaky bamboo floor, and I,for one, love it brings back tacltle memories o barefoot summer vacations at my grandparents "bahay kubo" (nipa hut) in Quezon province.

Louie Olivia ,the restaurant's chef-owner,decorates the sawali( matted bamboo) walls with folk art and curios from his Asian and Europian trips. The thing we like most among his original creations, next to the buri hat lamps , is the bamboo poles cut and shaped like giant panpipes strewn across the windows as a curtain; with a light breeze, it also works as a windchime.The cupboards hold rows of Tagbanua and Palawan (two of the province's indigenous tribes) rice basket.

Theres no set manu and diners are treated to a four-course signature meal pof te fresh catch. Our lapu-lapu(grouper) is served as pan-fried fish steaks marinated in soys sauce and palm vinegar,and as chunks with a generous helping of pineapple sauce .Our favorite though is the fried prawns, made extra sweet and creamy by Louie.The desserts of fresh tropical fruits topped with a large banana is served in halved fresh coconut.

After dinner, we drop by Kamarikutan , a cafe and gallery right across the Puerto Princesa airport. At night, with its gallery lights and big geometric and animal and shaped paper lamps all lit up, Kamarikutan ia a cross between an enigmatic kalambanwa, the longg communal house of the Tagbanuas and Ifugao but hut on steriods.Simply put,its bahay kubo half the of a basketball gym and fashioned from coco lumber,bamboo,cogon and rocks. Its owner, artrist -curator dinggot CondePrieto, added a small waterfall, koi pond, a bamboo, garden, a souvenir shop , a coffe machine , a vegetarian menu ,and delicious space for art exhibits.

In April, Kamarikutan (which means wilderness in Cuyunin, a Palawan indiginous dialect) opens up dapay, a Cordillera stone structure for trilbal council meeting,to participants of the much-awited annual Kamarikutan Pagdiwata Arts Festival . The Pagdiwata is a workshop of mixed visual arts and crafts including theater and music that culminates in a grand exhibit or performance.Now on its fifth year Dinggot offers drawing, basic photograhpy, cerative wrting , batik and paper -making, henna tattooing, tie-dyeing, and drumming. As of this writing, the Printmakers Association of the Philippines , the Tambuli Jams O Boracay , and ethic mucic artist Joey Ayala have confirmed thier participation in the event.

As a coffe place, Kamarikutan whips up Starbucks in every grain,offering blends from Arabica to Turkist Spicy at 32 pesos per mug .If the list leaves you undecided, then try Kamarikutan Blend , a wonderful secret mix of five beans.

Our search for the definfitive gastronomical adventure in Palawan ends in Kinabuchs Grill

and Bar, a popular beer and billiards palce amidst palm trees and an poen space.It takes a minute before I finally psyched up myelf to put the seven-inch long tamilok or wormwood in my mouth ,but just a fraction of a second to swallow it. Part owner Caesar Yuipcos story on how the wormwood is harvest - from decaying driftwood o fmangrove trees - really helped

Tamilok is often served alive or immmersed in vinegar, kinilaw -style .It has the fresh clean taste of oyster but feels about five times slimier because of its shape. Its a popular household delicacy here yet is only commercially available in Kinabuchs. A small plateful cost 90 pesos but dont worry , you can share - you will share.

The overlooking Rancho Sta. Monica , the rejuvenating Butterly Garden, the innovative Rurungan as Tubod (the weaving showroom i n Puerto Princesa ), and thrilling Crocodile Farm (otherwise , known as Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center) are interesting but one of the city tours highligths that truly stands out is the Viet Village , home to hundreds of Vietnamese asylum seekers who had fled Commmunist Vietnam. Established in 1989 through the assistance of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and other Vietnam communities around the world , Viet Village is model community that practices waste management and organic farming. The is probably one of the few places in the Philippines where you can find a Catholic chapel, a Buddhist temple , a Christian Evangelical Chapel, and the Vietnamese CaoDai ancestral temple in a 155-house community. Dont leave without trying Pho Bo (beef noodle soup),with unforgettable layers of sweet and spicy taste, and Sinh to Ca Phe , the cappuccino in crushed ice. Take home one of those crunchy dried jackfruit slices , a healthy Vietnamese snack, with you from the nearby grocery .

If you are looking for dining with a terrific seascape view, then include Badjao Seafront Resraurant in your must- sees. Its one of kind because you wont see another restaurant built amidst a mangrove forest anywhere in the country after the Environment Department recently passed an ordinance prohibiting one. On our last day in the city, Iggy Palaez Hotel Fleuris sales manager , snatches u from our souvenir shopping spree , hurriedly herds us to uor van, and drives like mad to make sure we catch the picturesque sunset in Badjao.

His timing is perfect. The sun colored the sky orange fading into blue and is casting dark, Tim Burtonesque shadows on the trees. The bay is dotted with light coming from the boats in nearby port.Looking forward to a tasteful dinner of sushi at the Hotel Fleuris, we only have mango juice , but the spendlid view has made our visit memorable. I guess the cast and crew of the James Bond flick Tommorow Never Dies, who capped a shooting six years ago, would agree.

FOR FEW FLICKERS who have been to Napsan, this small village of 1,000 households facing the South China Sea is "the end of the world" or their world- no Internet,no cable TV, no cellphone signal. Non-government organization, Disadvantaged, Depressed and uUnderserved. The reason lies in its Isolation- the few jeepneys that ply its route are crippled with repair costs each trip, It's no surprise: On the way here, we crossed three to four dried streams come, and the wide ankle-deep Montible River. When yhe rains come, the road turns into streams of muck and the river a monster.

But labels can be decieving; Up close, Napsan, with its flourishing vegetation including mangoes, cashews, bananas, jackfruits and soursoaps that line the road, is a tropical Eden for backpackers and nature-lovers. Its long immaculate beach, with fine sand and big swells, is virtually tourist- free. And the people are warm and friendly. We pass by bunch of kids immersed in a big basin of water and they can't stop waving.

Now, under Hotel Fleuris's management, the Kiao Sea Lodge is hoped to pull local and foreign tourist into Napsan, and consequently catch the local government's attention when it opens this summer with 10 refurbished cogon cottages starting from 450 pesos a night. Iggy plans to offer Napsan as an optional trip for Hotel Fleuris guest who may find the Tubbataha Reef too distant and Dos Palmas too polished.

We arrived in kiao before sundown, and meet Butch Chase, the famous national motocross champion of the late "70s. Butch, who was born from a Russian couple based in the Philippines, speaks fluent Tagalog-whic can be a bit disorienting- and supervises the resort's renovation. He is helped by Rudy, his Tagbanua guide, who can lead you to an uncharted waterfall (about a day's hike), or to Sanke Island (not in the one in Honda Bay), which is, you guessed it, a nesting ground for sea snakes.

This guy Rudy is unflingchingly tough but there is nothing he fears more that a lowly land mammal, the small pig-like Pantot (very near Tagalog word for stinky,"bantot") whose foul odor you can smell even from a hundred meters away. At close range, the smell can knock a dog down or render a man temporarily immobile. One of Rudy's tribe'smen got sprayed, Rudy tells, and he syank for weeks even amid frequent detergent washing.

Rudy, whose Tagbanua name, "Bulundong", means rainbow, can dazzle you with colorful stories, marked with demonstration of how to catch an octupos, party a shark attack, or swim with a giant stingray, among others. If you have bonded with him enough,he may invite you to a pagdiwata, a long and elaborate Tagbanua ritual performed to attract deities led by his babaylan (mediator) father.

We choose to sleep early to catch Napsan under a different light and to give Arlene's aching lower back a rest. The next morning, before breakfast,I stroll with a painfully quiet Arlene along the beach,which I discover to be not only long but also wide,spanning more than three volleyball nets.We try to reach the edge of the beach where Snake Island can be seen but get tired halfway through.

On the ay back to our cottage to pack, I show Arlene what i had discover yesterday: carpets of wild white flowers that seem to spring nowhere. This seems to perk her up as she recalls the pearl necklaces and earrings-very good bargain she missed buying from the Muslim vendor in Hotel Fleuris.

We have been to the rough edge of Puerto Princesa and survived- all three of us. And its enough. There's nothing more to ask for.