Saturday, September 14th, 2013 // 8:40pm
After a morning of working and an afternoon of packing our bags, we began our adventure with public transit to the Gimhae International Airport in Busan to catch our 8:40pm flight to Manila. We had no problems with customs, actually it seemed a lot easier than flying in America. We didn't need to take off our shoes and we didn't need to take out our electronics or our liquids out of our bags. Furthermore, we noticed the airport 7-11 sold beer for the same price as any other 7-11 in Busan. Don't get the wrong idea... We did not buy any beer at the airport that night. Between Bobby's hombebrewing and the amount we were bound to consume, we took the high road.
Sunday September 15th, 2013 // 12:05am-8:10am
Once we arrived at the Manilla airport, we walked our tired butts through customs to find out it was too early in the morning to check in for our next flight to Puerto Princesa International Airport. We found an empty spot on the floor next to dozens of sleeping people, tried to log onto the slow wifi, and then wondered around the empty airport. We eventually checked into our flight at 2am and went to our gate. We decided to try to finally get some sleep there. We used our backpacks as our pillow and put in our headphones. At 3am I woke up to the intercom making incessant announcements for upcoming flights. There was no way I could go back to sleep once they started making those announcements every 5-10 minutes. On the other hand, Bobby stubbornly snoozed away.
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In the picture below you can see a young man walking by holding up a small box. There was about a dozen of these ruffians walking the beach trying to sell pearls. They asked us our names and then came back everyday and called us by name trying to get us to buy something from them. We asked a local if the pearls were from the area or if they were real. Turns out they aren't from the area and they might be half real.
The first few days of vacation were packed with grueling traveling, the relief of meeting up with old friends, and the excitement of traversing El Nido.
Up next // Boat tours to the numerous islands surrounding El Nido, mouth watering food, and never-ending fun.
At about 7am our friends from Taiwan, Charley and Sabrina, arrived at the Manila airport. It was so nice to see them and I think it gave us some adrenaline that helped keep us awake since we were so tired. We all boarded the plane and landed in Puerto Princesa a little over an hour later.
Once out of the airport we all loaded into this tricycle, which are seen everywhere in the Philippines.
We had the tricycle take us to the bus terminal where we met two other friends, Matt and Nicky, who just finished their teaching contract in Korea and are now traveling SE Asia for 3 months.
We went to the local market and got some of the best bananas, oranges, and key limes I had ever tasted- and for an extremely good price!
We all loaded into a large bus at about 2pm and started our 7 and a half hour journey to El Nido. The bus made many stops in small villages, picking up people to drop them off at much smaller destinations. Although I didn't take many pictures, the journey was very eye opening. I had never seen people living in such poor conditions with my own eyes. All of the houses were made from bamboo and leaves. I feel like if the big bad wolf came he would have no problems blowing down these houses.
We saw children in little to no clothing playing in the mud with their pet pigs, dogs, chickens, and oxen.
The six of us made it to our hotel, Tandikan Beach Cottages, at about 9pm. This would be our home for the next 5 days. It was the perfect size for us, clean and comfortable. There is no electricity in El Nido from 6am-2pm and only cold water. It was fun getting use to that, and the fact we didn't have internet made us actually socialize with each other... besides when we went to a local internet cafe at night, and had "wifi parties" where we caught up on real life.
When we got into town we were all voraciously hungry and excited to start our vacation after the long journey. Across the street from our cottages was a Mexican/Filipino restaurant that had a great happy hour: buy one drink get one for free! So we all ordered a random Filipino dish and a few drinks.
Next, we made our way to the deck of our cottages to play some card games and watch the tide.
After an hour or so of games we couldn't wait any longer. We had to go feel the water. Before we knew it, we were all swimming and playing in the luke warm, extremely salty water.
Monday, September 16th, 2013 // ALL DAY
We woke up early to roosters telling us the sun was coming up. We had some room service coffee while overlooking the ocean. We watched people walking up the down beach, the boats loading up people for boat tours and rain showers coming and going.
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Since we got in so late, we wanted our first full day to be all about exploring the town of El Nido. We walked around, people watched, and looked at the local shops. While exploring, we saw this rooster on a leash. While I was taking a picture of him (maybe his name is Alex?) the older girl in the picture below grabbed her sisters hand and pulled her over to me to pose for a picture. Adorable huh?
Today while we were eating breakfast, we met a guy, Willo from Australia, who currently is a tour guide in Thailand. He was a very interesting character who seemed very intelligent and enjoyed talking and helping people. He had been in El Nido for about a week and he told us many good spots to go to in town, as well as in Thailand. We will for sure contact him when we are in Thailand in April.
He recommended we check out this restaurant, Blue Azul, for lunch. He told us the cook lived in Dubai for a few years and did a pretty good job. It was difficult to choose what to order, because like most places in the Philippines, the menu was HUGE!! He actually had three different menus. Although the food seemed a bit heavy, we enjoyed the flavors and the excellent service.
In the picture below from left to right: Charley (he played baseball at LCSC), Sabrina (Charley's girlfriend from Taiwan), Jestine, Bobby, Nicky and Matt (both former teachers in Busan).
After lunch we needed to walk some more. So we found the very popular Art Cafe in El Nido. They have a small souvenir shop on the bottom floor and the cafe/bar upstairs. Every night they have live music.
We went back to Art Cafe that night to enjoy the live music, drinks and dessert! We noticed all of the stores in El Nido and the tricycles all played 90s music and a lot of Bob Marley. It was awesome to hear these songs played live. Here are a few silly pictures from that night.
Up next // Boat tours to the numerous islands surrounding El Nido, mouth watering food, and never-ending fun.
"Travel is about the gorgeous
feeling of teetering in the unknown"
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