One week in the Phillipines

Hey guys,

June has started, and with it comes a sad realization: only one month left! Nevertheless, I won't let this get me down, since a lot of exciting travels in Taiwan and Asia still lie ahead.

And, not to forget, I just came back from an amazing one-week vacation to the Philippines, together with Jannes, Nil and Ines (friends from university). Here it goes:

Day 1

Though the island Palawan in the Philippines is only a 3 hour flight from Taipei, it took us a whole night to get there, since we had to wait five hours in Manilla (capital of the Philippines) for our connecting flight. Our first impression of Puerto Princessa, the regional capital of Palawan, was that of a small village: tin huts, rural roads and we could hear chickens crowing in every corner. We were a little surprised by this circumstance and realized that there was nothing much to do in the town. We gladly arranged our departure to El Nido the following day.

Though it was a small town, Puerto Princessa had two interesting sights to offer: one the one hand the many family-owned businesses, usually either convenience stores, hairdressers or any other kind of shop, as you can see in the picture:

And on the other hand its traffic, which was dominated by an abundance of tricycle taxi (motorcycles with a seat extension) which we also used to get around town:

Here you can see the condition some of the tricycles are in....

Day 2

Early in the morning we left for Puerto Princessa's bus terminal, where we took a so-called 'Rorobus' to get to El Nido. It was actually a comfortable journey because the bus was air-conditioned and spacious. We later heard stories from other tourists that took far less comfortable vehicles to get to El Nido, stuffed in tiny vans, or sitting in the normal buses next to dead chickens...

Below: Tired travelers waiting at the terminal in the early morning:

Fortunately this was not our bus:

We arrived in El Nido after six hours and went straight to our hotel. We were positively surprised by the perfect location of the hotel and our room. The hotel itself was outside the small (but busy) village center, in between the forest and the sea. It was always empty and quiet. Our room was right next to the sea and we had an amazing view.

Below: Jannes chilling on our porch:

Planning our trip with Nil and Ines at our hotel:

Enjoying the beautiful sunset:

Day 3

Since we found out the day before that there was no actual beach in El Nido, we planned an island-hopping tour by catamaran to the many karst stone islands that make El Nido a tourist attraction. In the morning we 'set sail' aboard the 'Jasper Jake' with captain Jeffrey.

That day we saw a lot of beautiful beaches, breathtaking karst formations and famous lagoons. While all these sights were without a question amazing, I was a little bit disappointed by the underwater world that we also explored: most corals were dead and the tourism had left its signs.

Nevertheless, all was well above water: we saw many amazing beaches that looked like copies of a travel agency's posters:
 

We visited two of these beaches. Here you can see a happy Jannes, aka Robinson Crusoe, on a more or less deserted beach:

And we had a lunch that the actual Robinson Crusoe would have been jealous of:

One of the highlights of the trip: the big and the small lagoon. Since the small lagoon was just accessible via swimming, I can only share pictures of the big lagoon with you:

Day 4

After the great time we had on our first day in El Nido, we decided to repeat the adventure and arranged another island-hopping tour with captain Jeffrey. This time, we were six people, since Ines had surprisingly met two Spanish friends from her university in Taipei the previous night.

All aboard: our group for island-hopping on the second day:

Again, we saw some beautiful islands and a lot of different fish during our snorkeling sessions. However that day I kept away from some snorkeling tours since I had a bad sunburn on my back from the other day.

Nevertheless, while the others went snorkeling, I was relaxing on the beautiful beach, which definitely wasn't a boring thing to do....

Jannes enjoying the view:

Our boat, the 'Jasper Jake':

We also went to two caves, one of them more spectacular than the other. Especially the visit of the first cave was exiting, since we swam into the cave and did some snorkeling there:

Here we are on our way to the second cave, which was a little hidden away from the beach:

The final highlight of the trip was a stop at 'Snake Island', an island that looked a little bit like a snake due to a thin, long sand arm that was partially underwater and connected two islands together:

Jannes and me standing on Snake Island:

Day 5

This day was a little problematic... Originally, we had planned to leave El Nido early in the morning and take a boat to Coron, an island famous for its diving sites. The evening before we had already arranged a boat ticket. You can imagine our frustration when the travel agent who sold us the ticket informed us only on the day itself that the boat leaving for Coron was overbooked and that we couldn't get a place after all. Since this was the only boat leaving on that day, we were left with no choice and had to stay in El Nido. After doing some calculations, we decided it would also be pointless to take a boat to Coron the following day, since this would only leave us with half a day to spend there. Therefore, we would stay in El Nido for the remaining holiday. Nevertheless, our anger left us quickly, since our past two boat trips had been exciting and we immediately planned another trip for the following day.

Day 6

We made the mistake of planning this trip with another boat, which gave the whole day a more touristic note (we were now traveling with two other couples that we didn't know). Also, the captain was not as experienced, and due to his bad planning we had to leave away two of the original stops. However, we did some nice snorkeling again, and we even saw a couple of big sea turtles!

Again, we saw some cool karst stone-formations:

...and some more:

 Climbing through a little hole to get to a hidden cave:

And at the end of the day we went to helicopter island (aka Joshi island), which you can see me kissing in the picture below:

Next to the funny form, we enjoyed the island's beach, on which we saw a monkey and a big iguana.

Day 7

Our last day in El Nido we spent relaxing and getting a massage/sunburn treatment. In the evening we had a nice dinner at our favorite crepe restaurant:

And then the vacation was already over... Overall, we had a great time in El Nido, despite our failed trip to Coron, doing a lot of adventurous and romantic tours. As I already mentioned, sometimes the islands were a little too crowded with tourists, and the underwater world in El Nido's immediate environment seems to have suffered from this. For an actual diving vacation, El Nido is not a good spot, I think, but for a romantic couple's retreat it was perfect!