El Nido - Days 236-242
El Nido
Day 236
After our second go at Siem Reap and Angkor, we were excited to check out somewhere new. After a lot of checking into transit and safety among other things, we’d chosen the Philippines for our next country! Fortunately, we flew right from Siem Reap, but we arrived at Manila at 3 AM and we didn’t leave till 8 AM, so we found some benches and slept in the middle of the crazy Manila airport for a few hours – this was only slightly better than it sounded.
We flew out early in the morning to the main airport on the island of Palawan, in Puerto Princesa. Problematically, Puerto Princesa is 6-8 hours from El Nido, on the north tip of Palawan and where all the good diving is. Soooo we hopped on a bus after a tuk-tuk ride from the airport to bus station and then got on a reasonable decent bus for the journey. Unsurprisingly (but still disappointingly) the bus did stop for pretty much everyone on the side of the road including a lady who brought in a crate of chickens for a few hours. It was fun to hear a nice cock-a-doodle-doo from the seat behind us every once in a while. Very fun.
We made it to El Nido after 7 hours on the bus, burnt out from a day sitting on our butts, and had to take one last tuk-tuk into town from the bus stop. The hostel we were staying at turned out to be phenomenal and we quickly discovered that they had the comfiest mattress we had experienced while traveling. We wanted to fall asleep for the night but still had a couple things to do on the day, so we headed over to our dive shop to meet with them and get our gear picked out for tomorrow, then we grabbed some street food before heading back to crash.
Day 237
It’s always exciting to wake up on a SCUBA day! Our hostel provided breakfast that was pretty good for being free, then we headed to the dive shop. Since we got after dark last night, we weren’t able to see our surroundings, but this morning we had a great view of the towering cliffs around the tiny El Nido town. After a little meet and greet at the shop, we swam out to our boat in the warm Pacific waters.
The boat took us to our dive site about 45 minutes out, and we were treated to the amazing islands in the region – very reminiscent of Ko Phi Phi and Krabi of Thailand, but with way fewer people and boats, and even more exaggerated scenery.
The diving here was absolutely fantastic with schools of fish as well as cuttlefish and stonefish, a seahorse, and some really good coral – it was just Meg and I for our dive as Becca was off doing her dives for her certification. Our lunch on the boat was a chicken curry made by one of our dive instructor’s wife and it was fantastic. After our dives we laid out on the front of the boat for the ride back to El Nido and met Jonny, an awesome dude from the UK who we’d see more of on El Nido.
That evening we checked out an Israeli restaurant on the main drag that Jonny recommended, and it was amazing! It’s crazy how you can find a random authentic and amazing Israeli joint on the tip of some Filipino island run by an actual Israeli, but that kind of stuff happens all the time and makes the world seem a lot smaller.
After our hummus and falafel and pita and all that good stuff We moseyed down the beach some more and got some mojitos at what I think was someones house, they just had a makeshift menu and some bottles of liquor and some plastic chairs on the sand, but it was neat to sit and drink with the waves intermittently crashing over our ankles.
We stayed out for a while and enjoyed the nightlife with the rickety bars built right up next to ocean before heading back.
Day 238
We started today off by grabbing breakfast at the Art Cafe, a pretty popular little spot in town with a balcony overlooking the bay. They had real, REAL coffee here which was a treat.
We saw Jonny across the cafe and chatted with him and decided to go check out some of the nearby beaches that were supposed to be super rad for the day. We grabbed a tuk-tuk out to the beach and grabbed some bean bag loungers and drinks on the sand.
Most of our day passed by while we read on the beach, stopping to eat at the Beach Shack- their pork adobo was really good, then Meg started to feel like death left to go rest and Becca, Jonny and I watched the sunset at the beach before heading back to town. Meg was out for the night with some fever, so after getting her something like pedialyte and some fruit, the other three of us went to a sushi restaurant then we checked out the upstairs of a dive shop where one of our instructors told us is a “divers bar”. It was a super chill open rooftop so we grabbed some beers and played darts and noticed that everyone was indeed a dive instructor and also French. Huh. After a raucous night we crashed so we could be up to dive the next morning.
Day 239
Meg still wasn’t feeling good in the morning so she sadly had to forgo diving. Since Meg was sick and Bec was still finishing her certification, I dove with some randoms but the diving was still really good. We got to see some sea turtles and barracudas for the more notable fish.
Back on dry land Becca and I got a tuk-tuk and caught a ride to our new hostel, Outpost. Built out of town right on the beach, it was fantastic. They had fantastic food we’d heard so we got dinner and drinks on the second floor as the sun set right in front of us.
Day 240
Unsure if Jonny had received my message, we were glad to see him in the morning.
We had breakfast at HOSTEL but it wasn’t as good as a Ben Breakfast. As we waited around for the tour to start, we were able to watch the Vikings-Eagles playoffs game live on the TV there! It was a pleasure to watch the vikings get smoked from the Philippines. Eventually the boats were ready and we headed out for the tour. Our tour took us to the highlights of tours A and B, which are offered in town by various operators.
The first place we stopped off at was an awesome islands with a small inland leading to a lagoon inside, so we rented two kayaks, one for the sisters and one for the Jonny and I, and we paddled in. The lagoon was actually really, really cool. It was a small lake with clear water surrounded by tall cliffs which were covered with all sorts of greenery, making it a gorgeous setting. We jumped out of the kayaks and swam around the lagoon for a while before we heard our boat’s horn and paddled back.
On the boat ride to the second lagoon we enjoyed the view and got to know some of the other people a bit more which was a good time! The second lagoon seemed pretty similar, with a bunch of boats hanging around at the entrance. We decided to swim into this lagoon versus renting another kayak, so we all grabbed our snorkels and a life jacket to float on and make the swimming easier and swam on in. The swim wasn’t super fun, and the kayak might have been a bit more enjoyable for the couple dollars they cost. The lagoon was super cool though! It had loads of little hidden nooks we could swim into, and a good amount of fish in the water to look at.
After lagoon number two we stopped off at a little secluded beach and tossed some frisbee around and had lunch – the boat crew brought a bunch of fish, shrimp and fruit which was all excellent. We stopped off at a couple more gorgeous beaches before catching sunset back at the beach at the hostel.
Day 241
Today was our last day in the Philippines unfortunately – I’d come to really love the island and country despite have pretty measured expectations coming into it. The people, food and view were all phenomenal, and it still felt fairly underdeveloped and not overrun by westerners. Our plan today was to find some kayaks and paddle to a remote beach somewhere with few people. There were some pretty big storm clouds in the area so we hung out at the hostel in the morning and once it cleared up, we eventually found a couple ‘yaks to rent.
We stupidly put our daypack on the back of our kayak and paddled to a beach with no access over land – it was very picturesque! We then realized our backpack with phones and kindles in them was full of water. No bueno.
We decided to paddle back and head to the hostel to try to salvage our electronics. The kitchen gave us a huge bowl of rice to soak our stuff in, but we weren’t optimistic given how long they were soaking in water. The hostel had a communal BBQ that evening which was really tasty, and we enjoyed some drinks and yet another great sunset on the beach – a great end to our wonderful time at El Nido.
Day 242
We enjoyed one last great breakfast at the hostel (and sadly realized the coffee we had been enjoying here was in fact instant coffee), and packed our bags. My phone slightly booted up which was good! Kindle and Becca’s phone were both losses.
We grabbed a tuk-tuk into town and grabbed some smoothies at an upstairs restaurant with a view while we just kind of chilled and waited. Turns out we waited a bit too long because when we got to the airport (still a good 90 minutes early mind you), we were told they had to switch planes, and the new plane only held 30 instead of 35, so we couldn’t fly. What.
After some very irritated conversation we determined not to wait and try to fly the next day because there was a volcano nearby that recently erupted, and there was a good chance the flight tomorrow would be cancelled,sooooo we had to drive back to Puerto Princesa to the island’s big airport to take a flight on a larger plane that would go above the volcanic plume, or something to that effect.
We begrudgingly got a tuk-tuk back to town where the airline’s “office” was – one lady with a laptop. She was able to figure out how to get us a van back to Puerto Princesa the same night – just what we were trying to avoid by flying out of El Nido. Ugh. We grabbed some dinner in town and piled into the van with another unfortunate couple and managed to survive the 6 hours with a crazy driver. The hotel we stayed at was alright but we only slept a few hours before the morning, got a ride to the airport and made it to Manila, and then on to Bangkok! See ya later Philippines, hope to see you again!