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Kamusta!
And welcome to part II of our Palawan adventure. Our story continues with our trip up to El Nido, which is a more touristy destination. The car journey was an interesting experience. The car we took to El Nido was a van packed with 14 people plus the luggage of 11 people. The journey was also a really bumpy and curvy road; kind of like a rollercoaster. Well, at least the views were nice and in the five hours or so we saw a lot of amazing sights, but also the very poor and undeveloped side of the Philippines. People live in 'houses' that are made up of leaves and bamboo with no windows, and usually the families have a cow, pig or chicken, which they will probably eat on a festival day. Even though the people live in such poor conditions, they are still so happy and friendly.
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| This is the van we took to El Nido from Saband with our luggage on top |
Our hotel (called the Bayview Hotel El Nido) was located on top of a hill and the view was amazing (see picture below). The hotel was really new and a lot of things, like the hot water and breakfast, weren't always working, but the people there were very lovely and did everything they could to give a pleasant stay for the guests.
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| The view from our hotel room window |
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| Sunset from our hotel room window |
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| There were four puppies at the reception of the hotel; my brothers were very excited |
As I already mentioned, El Nido is located in the northern part of Palawan and there are 45 smaller islands in front of El Nido. A very popular thing to do here is 'island-hopping' where you get on a boat at 9 o'clock in the morning and go on different trips to the islands, eat lunch there, and get back to the hotel at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. My family and I went on all four different island-hopping trips that the hotel offered and really enjoyed all of them. I would recommend the island hopping to all families whose children are comfortable in the water. If your children (or you) can't swim, you can still go on the trips but it may be a bit boring since a lot of the time is spent snorkling in the water.
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| The beach next to our hotel |
Our first trip was tour C and the first stop on this trip was at a small lagoon, where you had to swim through a small crack in the wall of the island. The lagoon was stunning and the whole experience was like from a beautifully filmed documentary. This pattern continued on with the next three trips, all of them being really good with amazing things to see.
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| Our lunch waiting |
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| The boat |
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| Some of the views |
Hopefully these two posts gave you and idea of what to expect if you visit Palawan. My family and I saw so many amazing places and animals, that live in this beautiful environment. Hopefully the increasing amount of tourism won't completely ruin the place, because already, the difference between Sabang (with a minimal amount of tourism) and El Nido (with a lot of tourists) is big when looking at pollution and trash. Of course, we have to remember that tourism is the only way for these people to get money.
The seawater there was extremely warm (almost 30 degrees celsius), which meant that there were a lot of jellyfish. The small jellyfish just sting you a little bit and it doesn't really hurt, but it for sure is very annoying. This was basically the only bad thing about the island-hopping trips.
Overall our trip was very good and we all enjoyed it a lot. And as I said before, no words or pictures can fully describe the views and sights we saw; instead, you have to experience it yourself. As always, leave any questions and improvements in the comment section below :)
Thank you so much for reading,
Karoliina
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