Palawan, Philippines, 7 - 13th Jan 2014

We flew into Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan on 7 Jan. Coming into land, it appeared that we were going to ditch into the sea, but luckily we didn't, it's just the weather was that abysmal that we couldn't see the airport on the edge of the island.

Trike - typical method of transport on Palawan

 

We got a trike in the peeing rain to our hostel. Our place was basic, but down a local side street, so very little noise which was good. We went out wandering straight away, and found that there isn't much for tourists to do in the capital of the island. We headed off on a walk to the bus station to sort out things for the next morning. Coming back to town that evening we had some great rotisserie chicken on the street with some locals.
We had every intention of going with locals up to the town of El Nido, but after 2 hours sat at the bus station, we found that the local bus wasn't running until much later, so we got onto an a/c minivan instead... well, three a/c minivans actually, as we kept getting moved, driven 50 yards and changing again. Bloody knew it was too good to be true the amount of leg room we got in the first van.
On the journey there were a few other travellers. A French dude Alex who had been in El Nido for 3 months, popped home for Christmas, and was coming back out. He was very expansive in his conversation, so we're sure he's fallen for a Philippino. We also met a Canadian couple, Pam and Alex. Alex, a guy of similar stamp to myself had just as much fun crammed into that van flying over dirt roads for almost 5 hours.

Hidden Beach

Arrived in El Nido, and were a bit blown away by the place. It is a town nestled between huge cliffs, which we were expecting to be sleepy and chilled. It was a bit more manic than that, and in our state, we were a it overwhelmed by the noise of all the trikes and bikes. We had some beers on the beach and went for a walk, bumped into Pam and Alex and ended up having dinner plus a few more beers, organising to meet early the next morning for kayaking.

Early next morning, we moved guesthouse to somewhere a bit more secure, and met Pam and Alex for a familiar event; sitting waiting for Philippino guys to do their jobs. After over 2 hours we had our kayaks and were paddling happily towards an island in the bay. Alex, forever the Canadian prepared for anything, pulled out his rod (and no, that's not a euphamism) and caught a fish on the way over to the island. Later in the day he even started a fire and cooked the bloody thing!

The beach we landed on was deserted and had brilliant coral right off the beach. Pam, who had never been snorkelling before, was amazed by it all and loved it. To be honest, it was pretty incredible, saw plenty of wrasse, humbugs etc, plus some trumpetfish, and even a turtle I managed to follow around for a while. I went off for a paddle round the island by myself and somehow managed to come back with a blonde Norwegian girl. She had been out with two Aussie guys, when one of them flipped their kayak halfway across the open straight, and proceeded to all but sink it. In a bid to help out his mate, Aussie 1 had taken the girl to some rocks closest to where they were, and gone back to help his mate. I gave them a hand to get it out and empty the water out of it, and then give the girl a lift round to the beach. The look on Jo's face wasn't quite of the shock and annoyance I was hoping, but never mind.
Spent all day relaxing on the beach, then paddled back at last light. We then booked up for a boat tour around lots of islands for the next day.

Muscle Chicken with Muscle Jo

Next morning and our boat trip was on a quick boat, with half the people of most other tours, and was seeing twice as much as the other tours. I won't list them as a) it's pointless unless you know the places, and b) I can't remember them. Long and short of it, we did loads of snorkelling and saw loads of beaches and bays. Was a great yet long day, and I was bloody ecstatic to have taken my new camera and not buggered it up. Alex didn't do quite so well, and gave himself mild sun-stroke, and didn't make it out to dinner that night.

Locals at Las Cabanas beach

The following morning we played the tight-arse-travellers role to a T and refused to pay the £1 trike fare as we heard it should only be 50p, and so walked the 3km to Las Cabanas beach. Beach was good, a few resorts surrounding it, but unlike El Nido, they hadn't let the bars push right onto the beach so there is nowhere to sit/lay without getting your feet wet. Whilst wandering back, I eagle-eyed some wild monkeys playing on the cliff above us, so we watched them for a while. Now Jo and Pam believe that I spotted them because I'm hyper-observant. This isn't true. I was just looking everywhere but at them because they were talking shoes and I had not a scooby-do what they were on about.

Pho Bo for dinner in Vietnamese

Las Cabanas beach

Rather boringly went back to same place for dinner for third time running, and exchanged photos with Pam, as they had taken lots of underwater shots, and I had some good shots in RAW she could play with.

Next morning, we got up, said our farewells, and headed off to take the local bus back to Puerto Princesa which had a little more legroom than the minibus, but took a bit longer. We got back, went wandering, discovered that we hadn't really missed anything on our last search, and had dinner in a little Vietnamese place full of locals. Next morning we found brekkie, then dossed about playing cards and drinking coffee until our flight to Cebu.

Manila, Philippines, 3 Jan - 7 Jan 2014

Oh dear, not a great start. Been here 2 weeks now and I haven't updated this at all yet!

St Agustin Church

Well,as best as my memory will serve, after a mammoth 12 hour stopover in Riyadh, and somewhere in the region of 36 hours awake, we got on the sleepy flight to Manila. Arrival was a rude awakening. We were accosted by cab drivers as expected, and flew through the streets at high speed amongst the thousands of other vehicles in the garish light of the capital. The cabbie didn't quite know where our hostel was, and asked helpful questions such as "is it on the left or right?". We managed to hold back sarky responses such as "you're the bloody driver".
The hostel; Our Melting Pot, was a nice place. Small, but good setup, and a really good free breakfast. The girls on reception were really helpful too, but the guys really struggled.
First night we went out for a wander, stumbled into the red-light district full of old white men with young Philippino girls, so walked straight back. Found a small outside bar serving buckets (different kind to what you got in Laos and Thailand) of San Miguel for £2.70.

Jeepneys are fun

Second day in Manila we went for a wander, then on a walking tour of the only touristy bits of Manila, Intramanos and San Agustin Church, plus a park where Rizal was held hostage and executed (Rizal is the guy who incited the Philippinos to kick out the Spanish). Exciting as it wasn't a proper tour, just two of the girls from the hostel taking a few of us out, so they bundled us onto a Jeepney and took us through the fringes of the rougest part of Manila to get there! Jo and I got chatting with a few people, and that night we went out for drinks at a cheap Mexican bar. Got on really well with a Canadian couple Kim and Ryan who were sadly leaving the next morning.

 

 

A church at the entrance to Estramanos

Day three and we hit a bit of a lull. So far, jet-lag had only meant we struggled to get to sleep a bit, and I woke up wide awake at 6am, but it beat the shit out of us on day three, and we stayed in the hostel trying to sort out flights and a rough itinerary to get as many of these islands as possible. Eventually left at 4.30pm, and walked to a mall. This sounds uncultured, and it sort of is, but sadly it's because Philippino cuisine is fast food or fertilised chicken eggs. If you want good food in Manila, you need to go to one of the millions of malls.

Unmarked grave at American War Cemetary

Day four we navigated ourselves via jeepney to the American War Cemetery. There were over 17,000 graves, many unnamed as they simply didn't know and so are unmarked. Every single one was buried with full honours of a funeral however, hence why it took over a decade to complete. There was also a cenotaph in the centre of this huge place with a load of murials of battles with stories giving loads of information. I was happy there for ages, but Jo gets bored quickly in these sort of places, so after she had respectfully seen as much as she could bare, I left her sunning herself.

A small collection of the 17,000

We wandered onto the huge Mall of Asia after lunch, which we expected to be hideous, but wasn't too bad at all. I tried to take us for a nice walk afterwards, but we seemed to be unable to escape half-built condos, so we gave up and got a taxi home.
Stopped off for a coffee on the way back as it was only 7ish, and we were both falling asleep already.

Day five, and we were done with Manila. I'd read that it is a similar city to Bangkok, and you can have enough of it quickly, but it's not. Bangkok has a lot more to do, see, and stay at than Manila. We got up early and walked down to hail one of millions of cabs that had been hooting us for days, but didn't take into consideration that seemingly the entire population of Manila either a) drive a cab, or b) take a cab to work in the morning. We waited for ages, waving at everything. Luckily in the end we caught one down a sidestreet dropping someone off, and got to the airport in time to fly to Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan.