South East Asia Escapade

We took a van up from Port Barton to El Nido with the intention of spending only a day in El Nido doing island hopping around Bacuit Bay. However,
the ferries and flights out of El Nido were fully booked for four days straight. After leaving our backpacks at our cabins overlooking Cadlao Island we took a walk towards town. Walking around the busy westernised town of El Nido we were lucky enough to come across the opportunity of hitching a ride the next morning out of El Nido on an enticing 3 day / 2 night island hopping adventure through the beatiful paradise Calamian Islands.

And what an adventurous ride it was!!!
It wasn't just one of your regular tourist trips. Being so last minute and improvised we were a small group of 8 people when usually these boats have 15 to 25 guests. Not only that, but we unknowingly happened to fall upon a not very official-looking philippino tour company. We were herded into a suspiciously small looking boat, with a very poor english speaking philippino guide (Alex), in adverse weather out of the village of Sibaltan. 2 hours of waves, wind in our faces was enough for us to become quite close to the rest of our travel companions. Iolanda and Tiago, a portuguese couple, Kati, a german solo traveller, and Joni, Daniel and Yarin, the youthful israeli trio. We all had a certain feeling of unease, the elephant in the room no one spoke about. I quickly concluded that with 3 doctors and 3 guys fresh our of the israeli army, we were bound to find a way of surviving were something to go wrong.

After the initial island crossing we reached Calibang Island, our first of many mind-blowing turquoise starfish-filled, coral-surrounded, paradise island. Beneath the water was a colour-filled spectacle teeming with life. Corals and fish of all shapes and sizes.
Alex and the crew served us a delicious meal of rice, fish, vegetables and fruit. We continued on to another island where without realising we surfaced to a big boat, with 6 crew in total, more seemly of a multi-day tour.
From here, everything looked a lot brighter as we sailed past white sandbeach palm-tree islands.

That night we slept in very basic huts built over a salt water lagoon on Belenben Island, courtesy of Anty Mila, who has spent most of her adult life living on this remote Calamian isle, far away from the only village on the island.Read more