El Nido - Palawan & Busuanga Island - Philippines

Tuesday 20th May

Erik & Tom cooked an excellent breakfast with egg, bacon and vegetables. We all really liked the possibility to cook our own food. Although it was the same kitchen as the family used, it was dark, dirty and probably filled with all kinds of bacteries, but I think we're used to the bacteries by now. Normal tourists would most likely have been sick for days, after eating anything from there. 

After almost 9 months of dining out everyday we're fed up with it, it does sound like a luxury problem indeed, but imagine you need to look for a new place to eat 3 times a day, you never know whether the food you get is good or bad, or worth the money ot not. It's just awesome to make our own food. 

We checked out the little town, and to our big surprise it wasn't as touristed as we had heard and feared. We felt really comfortable, the beach in town was quite lovely, and the bay was surrounded by immense limestone cliffs - a stunning scenery! We decided to spend some time on the beach. The sunlight was dazzling and extremely hot. It quickly got unbearable for us. The next step we took was close to the best decision ever made: Getting some groceries done for our dinner and buying a bottle of Tanduay rum! 

The rest of the day was enjoyed on our porch with spaghetti carbonara, rum & coke... And a lot of it. 

Showing the flag on El Nido beach

All the cute puppies at the grocery store

Outdoor kitchen

Our delightful bathroom

Wednesday 21st May

Eventhough El Nido is a touristed town compared to Philippine standards, the electricity cuts off everyday from 6 am to 2 pm, and that's the reason why we got up early. As soon as the fan stopped at 6, our room got extremely hot, and we fleed outside. 

We rented kayaks in the morning and ventured out and into the blue sea. We paddled to Cadlao island, about 35 min away. We had a closer look at the limestone cliffs and inspected various small caves and openings. On our way around the cliffs we stopped at a beach to enjoy our homemade lunch and have a rest. After lunch we all fell asleep to a clear blue sky, and woke up a bit later to grey skies coming towards us, the kind of skies that threatened rain in volume, at any moment. 

We left the beach straight away with course against El Nido. Wishing and hoping that we could avoid the rain, if we paddled back fast enough. As soon as we got out on the open water the rain started pissing down, the waves got choppy and the wind was picking up. We were soaked after a few seconds, water kept splashing into the kayak and we didn't feel like we got anywhere with our hard paddling. It was the most naiv and stupid decision we had made. 

We should have waited for the rain to pass by, while we were still on the island. After quite a while of struggle and yelling at each other to paddle harder, steer the boat in the right direction, stop complaining and so on, we eventually got in protection from the wind and rain underneath the cliffs on the mainland. 

It had been really hard work getting to the other side, and we had become hungry again, so we enjoyed the rest of our lunch in shelter of a cliff. The shower was soon over and we headed back to El Nido bay again. 

There was a good excuse to celebrate the day with some rum & coke. For some reason we all felt like these few weeks in each others company is a holiday from our travels, so we allowed usselves to drink a little more than usual. We enjoyed dinner out, at BlueAzul, which served an excellent combo dish with falafel, chicken and roti (Asian pancake). We sorted out our dives for the next day, 2 dives per person was 2200 pesos (280kr).  Then we went home to bed.

Relaxing on the beach of Cadlao island

Then the rain came

Kayaking in El Nido

Thursday 22nd May

When we showed up in the diveshop (Seadog divers) in the morning they had already arranged our diving equipment, everything was on the boat and ready to go. We found that a bit odd, concidering all the other places we have dived, we have always tried our equipment on before leaving the diveshop. 

The owner was new in the business and asked us some weird question about how to run a diveshop... Not that we know anything about that, but we could tell him how it's normally done. We got annoyed of him and his excitement about everything, already before we left the shop. Unfortunately he was going on the boat with us - he was American! 

Tom & V only had 4 dives, so we knew they would run out of air faster than us. We had prepared the divemaster for our wish to continue our dive until we were low on air. We got a safety diver with us, who would take T & V up when they ran out of air. For some reason there was 4 divers/helpers from the diveshop going diving with us. We never found out the crack about that, and they were useless "helpers". Instead of helping us into our gear all of them jumped into the water before us, and we had to take care of everything by ourselves. Everything about this company was just different and left us with a lot of unanswered questions. At least they had told us to follow one specific guy, otherwise it would have been more confusing than it already was! 

Anyway, our first dive at North rock was much better than expected. We saw our first black tipped reef shark. Yeah one more shark to cross off the list. We also saw a blue-spotted stingray and I discovered a octopus, which one of the "helpers" scared away before everyone had seen it. It went underneath a rock to hide. One of the guys started teasing and poking the octopus with his metalstick. I got really angry at them for teasing this poor octopus. 

The owner had pointed out that we shouldn't touch the corals nor the marine life.. Obviously of course not. The fish can die if we touch them, everyone knows that. And that's why it pissed us off to see these guys touching everything underneath the surface. They're ruining the beautiful marinelife, but they can't think longer than to their next bowl of rice. Aaarrgh! 

We spend our surface interval in a gorgeous lagoon, with a small stalactite cave and razor sharp limestones. It was a nice way to spend the waiting time. 

Second dive at South Entalula was also better than we expected..

I regret that I didn't gave the guys a verbal earfull for touching the corals and tease the octopus, but I must have forgotten about it. Back in El Nido we went out for a big and filling burger. Met an american couple that we invited to our place for a round of rum & coke - after two empty bottles we all got really tired - I'll blame the humid weather, others would blame the alcohol...! Tom and V arranged dinner for us, and then we were all ready for bed.

Not the worst way to spend the day

Okay

Diving in El Nido

Friday 23rd May

We went on an arranged island hopping tour. It started in the morning and it was just the four of us, a guide and a captain. Tom and Erik had bargained the price down for us, and on top of that arranged that the tour included a bottle of Tanduay rum. They were really starting to enjoy themselves. I'm surprised they didn't start the morning with a R&C. 

We stopped at a secret beach, which didn't seem to be kept as a secret anymore. It was packed with tourists. After seeing countless beaches during our time in S.E.A. we're hard to impress, so off course this wasn't special to us. It was good to know that Tom & V was on the same page as us. We have become to spoiled and it takes more and more to impress us - that's one of the bad things about travelling for so long. As a normal tourist we would appreciate every new place much more, but it has become our way of living now, so sometimes we forget how lucky we are, and that we're actually living out a big dream. 

So hands on the heart, we DID visit some amazing beaches this day, and if we don't compare the snorkelling with anything else we have seen underwater, then yes it was some pretty good snorkeling spots as well. Just after lunch it was pissing down rain... Our sweet escape was jumping into the blue and go for some more snorkeling. It had been a great but also tiring day. 

In the afternoon we met up with our american friends, who mixed some bloody strong  R & C for us, and several times clamied to be alcoholics... Weird! I'm not judging anyone, but we got a bit annoyed of these drunk yankies. The two kind british people we were together with, invited the yankies to dinner -eventhough we all had enough of them. 

All right we met up at BlueAzul, the yankies were late and not surprisingly off their faces when they arrived. The falafel combo was just as good as last time, and the drunk company turned out to be a good laugh.. Not laughing with them but at them. Mean but true. After dinner we found an acceptable excuse to go home early. 

Helicopter island

Enjoyed lunch at this breathtaking beach

Creative lunch in the middle of Barcuit Archipelago

The bangka (boat)

Visiting a small cave

Hiding from the "cold" rain

Who can resist those eyes...?

El Nido island hopping

Saturday 24th May

In the morning we went to pick up our laundry, apparently it wasn't ready yet. We told them that we were leaving in a few hours time, and the lady yesterday said it would be done by now. We got frustrated over their missing communication, and told them to bring the clothes to our guesthouse by 11 am. 

It was still wet when it came, and concidering that we were going on a 6 hours busride and a 13 hour boatride, the clothes would start smelling and we would need to wash it again when we arrived in Coron. 

I didn't pay for this laundry "service", but agreed to pay for the detergent, 50 pesos. 

After hearing horror stories about the bangkas from El Nido to Coron we had decided to travel back down to Puerto Princesa, and take the 2GO ferry to Coron. It did cause us some longer traveltime, but it would be safer to do it this way. Better be safe than sorry. 

We left El Nido at 1 pm, with a bus, 760 pesos (= 95kr) for two, and even with wifi onboard. We were lucky that the bus wasn't full, so we hang our wet clothes on the seats, and actually managed to dry most of it before we reached PP. We loaded a trike with all our luggage and us.. We barely fitted, but it wasn't the first time, so we knew it would be fine. There was still 4-5 hours until boarding to the ferry started.. We killed time in Banwa guesthouse.

Loading a local bus

Drying our clothes in front of our luxury aircon bus

Sunday 25th May

We got on the ferry around 1 am - the time where we were suppose to departure from the pier. We booked all our 4 tickets online and together (1 person = 1750 pesos) a week earlier, and had then hoped to be in the same cabin. Apparently we didn't so they had put us into to separate rooms, next to each other. We really wanted to avoid having to sleep with some snoring Asians. 

In one of the rooms there was a single mom, and a unknown guy/girl who wasn't there, but his luggage took more than half of the space on the floor, which by the way wasn't big to begin with. Luggage in terms of cardboard boxes, plastic baskets, several different suitcases, plasticbags and more boxes. It was insane what this human being was bringing along. We were pretty sure that it was luggage from his whole family, who probably should sleep in the huge budget dormitry, where there was no space for personal belongings, unless they kept it in their bed - so smart as they are, they just booked one bed in a cabin and left all their shit there. 

We ask in the other room if they mind that we swapped, so we could be in the same cabin, the single mom's realized her daughter was in the cabin that we offered her to switch to.. They booked the tickets together as well, but didn't get in the same cabin. Very clever system with 2GO ferries! The boatcrew member helped us out with all this luggage in our cabin and told us, that the guy knew he was being moved. Problem was solved - after a little european organisation. 

We didn't venture out to see anything on board on the ferry, we went straight to bed, and had a great sleep. I didn't even bother getting up for breakfast.. Knew it was gonna be bad and the three others convinced me it had been quite poor, with cold sausage and cold scrambled eggs. 

It had been 13 hours and 20 minutes before we arrived at the pier in Coron town. It took us a while to find a decent place to stay, the place we already booked was really crap.. Well it looked cosy and all that, but the location was in the middle of a local dump, so the smell was horrible. 

Eventually we found two rooms at another place, Seadive resort, and the attacted bar, Helldivers showed Formula 1 at night, so someone was happy..;) That someone and Tom got really drunk that night. Verity & I kept usselves sober and responisible for our own doings.

The budget dormitry on the 2GO ferry

Our awesome cabin

Seadive resort

Monday 26th May

I got up really early, went for a jog, visited the market and wrote some blog, When no one was awake around 9.30, I decided to take a nap. Woke up half an hour later when the others were waking up from their beauty sleep. 

Luckily the rum here isn't the kind of cheap stuff that gives you massive hangovers, so despite feeling a little tired the guys were doing alright. We took our time to get ready and then we went out to find two motorbikes to hire. 

Since most of the morning already passed we didn't have a lot of time, but we arranged to drive to the Concepcion falls, which the locals said should be nice. We all concluded that is wasn't anything special - and not because we're spoiled but there was honestly nothing to see there.. It didn't even look inviting for a swim, mosquitoes was everywhere and seeing a snake on one of the rocks didn't make it more appealing to us. 

We stopped at a remote resort on the way back, had a cold drink and enjoyed the view from their pool area. It was actually the best part of the day.. For us poor backpackers it's gold when small luxury things happens to us. 

Back in Coron town Erik & I had a look around all the diveshops - trying to find the best and cheapest way to dive at some of the 16 Japanese wrecks from IIWW, and the Barracuda lake. Some of the wrecks is only for advanced open water divers, and some is for open water. Erik wanted to penetrate some of the more difficult ones, but since I wasn't sure how much penetrating I wanted to do and Tom & V was only open waters, we decided to dive at some of the easy ones, but Erik & I would be able to penetrate more than the open waters.... So in the end and after a lot of talking back and forth we manage to find a sollution so everyone was happy. 

We found a guesthouse where we could cook our own food, so we booked a room there for the next day.

The resort we "sneaked" into..

Tuesday 27th May

We changed guesthouse in the morning. Marley guesthouse was much nicer and suitable for our needs. When we packed our stuff we realized that a rat or mouse had showed interest in the oatmeal Erik had in his bag, it had bitten it's way through both his bag and the plastic bag around the oatmeal... Little bastard... It was definitely time to move!! 

We started the day with a dive in Barracuda lake, where the water temperature was 30 degrees on the surface and even warmer underneath, around 40 degrees - needless to say we didn't need a wetsuit to keep us warm. 

The heat felt a little unbearable to begin with, it was like diving in a hot tub.. It was that hot! 

The special thing about this dive was off course the heat but also the  water is a mix between fresh and salt water, so as we descended we could see the different layers of water, and different temperatures in the water - the so-called thermocline. 

It was like clouds in the water, and our visibility was very blurry. There's basically nothing to see there, it was all about the experience with the water, and we enjoyed it a lot - nice to try something different. 

The two wrecks we dived at later was Tangat and Olympia Maru. They were both awesome, exciting and challenging. 

At one point we had to swim with head down first through a small hole. Erik went first and hit the wreck with his tank but then manage to get through afterwards. I was too clumsy and first banged my tank on the wreck and then my head.. Awaaah! I went up again and didn't want to give it a second go. Instead I went down in a bigger hole with feet first, just next to the other. 

When I got down I realized there was a wall between the two holes, so I didn't meet any of the others down there. I was waiting for the safety diver to join me, since I was the only one who didn't make it through the small hole.. But guess what - he never came - what kind of a safety diver is that..? He just followed the group as if nothing happend. So I was by myself in the wreck somewhere.. I tried to keep calm, and just stayed in the same place - the divemaster had said he would always find us, so if we got lost we should stay where he left us. But still it was a bit scary, and it was a moment where millions of thoughts were running through my head, I checked my air consumption, tried to control my breathing, thought about how long I should wait around, about how I would do my single ascend and tons of other stuff. 

It felt like ages before the divemaster and the rest of the group came and picked me up, I was totally calm as soon as I saw them. 

Looking back it was quite a terrifying experience.. And in my opinion that safety diver should look into his job description one more time.. No actually he should be unemployed by now!! 

The rest of the dive went smooth and we both loved the wreck dives. Erik had been begging me to make burning love (danish dish), so eventhough it was extremely hot and burning love is an extremely heavy meal in the summertime, we still made it for dinner. 

Climbing with full equipment on, to get to Barracuda lake

Awfull wetsuits..!!

Barracuda lake

Diving in Coron

Wednesday 28th May

Just a relaxing day where there was nothing on the schedule except for blog making and homemade food. Made salads as we do at home, but only for one fifth of the price. 

1 kg (5 pieces) of mango = 70 pesos (9kr), 1 kg tomatoes = 40 pesos (5kr), 1 kg onions = 30 pesos (4kr), 1 kg potatoes = 45 pesos (6kr) 2 big tuna steaks = 70 pesos (9kr). We're so used to these cheap prices, that it's gonna be a massive culture shock for our bank accounts to get to Australia. Our money is gonna go away so fast, but we're both very excited to get there, and we actually just want the rest of our time here in Asia to pass by fast now. 

Off course we will enjoy the last few weeks, but we're also really looking forward to get our own transportation unit and to get to a civilized world, where we think we will be even more comfortable, than we have been in Asia.  

A serious working day

Just as at home, I cook the food and Erik cleans up..

Sunset from the balcony

Thursday 29th May

We flew out of Coron to Manila, still together with T & V. In Manila we almost didn't catch our further flight to Kalibo on Panay island. 

The big mistake was that we decided to get something to eat before we took the transfer bus to the other terminal - stupidest decision ever made (Erik actually mentioned that we might get problems if we didn't go straight to the shuttle bus - he was right). The next 30-40 min. was stressful, frustrating and annoying. 

No one knew exactly when the transfer bus was coming, it could be 5 min. or 50 min. No one could help us with contacting the company to tell them we would be late, taking a cab was expensive and would take too long time. Manila's airport is exactly as bad as we thought, had heard and experienced before. 

When the bus finally came, both Erik & Tom had left to search for help somewhere else.We were affraid that the bus would leave before the guys came back and then we would all miss the flight. Time was ticking, adrenaline was pumping... The guys came back just in time to catch the bus. 

We went through security check when they started boarding, and walked straight on board, just in time. I said it before and I will say it again, Manilas airport is so undeveloped, you won't believe it. It's impressing how a busy and big airport can be so slow and old fashioned!! 

The flight to Kalibo went smooth and only took half of the expected flight time. In Kalibo we booked a bus and boat further on to Boracay. The travel here was much easier than we thought and we were ahead of our scheldule - it's not offen that happens anywhere in the third world... So yeah we were a bit surprised to actually reach Boracay 1 hour before planned. 

The first night we spend together all 4 of us, in a really crappy but also very cheap bamboo hut. The night went by with looking for a decent place to stay for the next couple of days. 

We all wanted to spend our time on Boracay at a nice guesthouse or hotel, also if it meant that we would have to splash out and ruin our budget even more. The places we looked at was a bit more expensive compared to what we usually pay, but it's also our last time in the Philippines, and if we should stay at a nice place, it was about time. We were thinking between 1000-1500 pesos (120-180kr), double or triple the price we usually pay for accommodations. We couldn't decide anything this night, it was getting late and we were tired, so we agreed to look for something in the morning again.

This was in the airport.. And yes people are that stupid..!!