El Nido

On Friday we took the ferry from Coron to El Nido. El Nido is a town in the North of Palawan, a long Island on the west of Philippines. It is known to be good for diving and island hopping, and to be one of the more beautiful parts of the country.

The journey was meant to take 3 hours, but ended up consuming our entire day because we had to get there one hour before leaving just to sit in a terminal. Then we boarded late, sat on the boat for ages before leaving and the journey itself took 4 hours. So we arrived at El Nido at sunset. We passed many beautiful, uninhibited islands on the way and a couple of impressive local sailing boats, wooden with multiple sailes. Immediately upon arriving we like El Nido, it was cleaner and quieter than Coron with pedestrian streets lined with nice cafes an restaurants. We had a nice dinner on a roof top and then took a trike to Coring Corong, a quiet bay 2km away. With no booking we walked until we found somewhere with rooms and ended up about 20 meter from the beach. Our room is a significant upgrade from Coron-we have air conditioning, space around the bed and en suite and a balcony. And now noise. Previously we had no space, a fan, shared bathroom and were right above a very noisy bar with terrible live music. The Philippinos love their music and singing, but unfortunately have an atrocious taste in music. It often sounds like a cat is being strangled and that somehow the people near the cat feel the need to attempt a harmony for the cat. My personal view is to kill the cat. I can't wait to hear good music again.

Going back to El Nido, yesterday we took a wander and spontaneously joined a fancy boat trip. It was a big local boat, with space for 32 but there were 16 of us so there was lots of space to lounge around. They fed us all day and provided nice drinks. And we visited lots of beautiful locations. Some of which we the only people at, because the boat timed its route to avoid the masses of tourists. We went to a beautiful lagoon, two hidden beachs that you had to swim through tunnels to get to, some caves and some coral garden snorkelling spots. The landscape around here is totally stunning . Island upon island on the horizon and big sheer limestone cliffs towering over the sea.Read more