The Markets

Day one after arriving in Puerto Princesa City, I was picked up at 8:30 am by George Vasquez from the city Planning Department in a truck with a driver named José. George is apparently the right hand man for the Vice Mayor, Lucilo Bayron, who I was taken to meet first thing at one of two locations of Itoy's Coffee Haus (the only decent cup of coffee I have had since arriving and a regular hangout because they have wi-fi). A couple of Mr. Bayron's daughters run the two locations respectively. After a friendly introduction, and an invitation to his beach house at some point, we were off to see the old city markets.

There are also new city markets but they are not in the center of town, and the old markets are where most people go for groceries. The other central place for groceries is the department store styled NCCC (New City Commercial Center), which has groceries on the ground floor with several levels selling household goods, furniture and other amenities on the above two floors.

The Old City Markets, on the other hand are a labrynth of small stalls and narrow isles. The whole building is built of dingy concrete with sparse rows of flourescent fixtures bolted above. Much of what is on display is a treasure chest of the freshest seafood, and wonderful local products. It is a shame that the venue isn't an outdoor covered space, similar to farmers markets or those you would find in Europe.

There are many small stalls with one or more people standing there to sell products. Surprisingly there is very little active selling that goes on, other than the occassional, "It's very good sir". Everyone calls you sir here, which is nice at first, but gets to be a bit much after a while. Still, you couldn't pay people to be this polite back home. George took me to visit one stall where a woman was selling mostly Kasoy (cashews) in a variety of forms. The cashew were packaged in varying sizes of generic, clear plastic bags. The only description on the product was a small photocopied black and white label with a drawing of a Kasoy fruit. The Kiosk operator had a bag of crayons with which she scribbled inside of the drawing to add colour.

We also looked at a multitude of local fish products. The fresh fish and shellfish, especially the wonderfully coloured lobster would make anyone's mouth water, as it all comes in daily. There is also a wide variety of packaged fish products including Lamayo, a half dried fish, apparently popular with tourists (so I've been told) and the only product to actually be listed under Puerto Princesa on the national OTOP website. Other fully dried fish, fish sauce, and Spicy Dilis (a spicy small sardine type fish) were all available and local. Other than the clear plastic bags, several products used generic plastic containers of the sort you would see tzatziki or hummus in at home. Upon asking about the availability and pricing of these containers, I was told they are purchased in bulk from the NCCC for about 4 or 5 pesos, plus the cost of their labels. This means that a products selling for 30 pesos already have about 8 pesos dedicated to their packaging. This is less than 20 cents Canadian, but when the product is only 70, you can imagine how little they make.

The markets are also home to small stores celling you name it from cell phone accessories to the second hand clothing stores that are common to South East Asia and South America. There are signs, marking stalls and advertising products, but the space is so cramped, I wonder if anyone even notices them. (see more photos)