The Road to El Nido on the Island of Palawan

Traversing the Philippines

A long narrow strip of island is a one hour flight to the southwest of Luzon, where Manila sits. We landed at night so we couldn’t witness the emerald mountainous landscape rising to greet us from our assigned economy seats. Our couch surfing host had texted us simple instructions. The text read something like ‘meet me at kweba bar, it’s a short walk from the airport’, and that was all. After waltzing through the entire airport of Palawan in 20 steps, Melody and I looked at the phone then out into the darkness. There were no lights indicating a town, much less a city, even existed here. We looked at the text again for detailed clues like maybe, “take a left out of the airport” or “the street name that the bar is on is called” but no, there wasn’t anything else and we stood there for a few minutes without any answers.

We Meet Our Host

We asked the tricycle driver where in the world town may be. He pointed down a dark street and offered us a ride. We politely and somewhat reluctantly declined because our host had assured us it was within walking distance from where we stood. It didn’t seem reasonable to spend a beer’s worth of pesos on a short taxi. Glad to have passed on the offer, we saw lights indicating civilization in minutes, and only two or three building structures into what seemed like downtown, we were inside a blue and green lit bohemian bar named Kweba where we meet our host. She is the girlfriend of one of the musicians on stage. We stayed for a few drinks to relax and soak in the lively performance of island drumming and decided to head back before we got tipsy and careless with our backpacks.

After a short night in the small village on the outskirts of Puerto Princesa, we decided to not waste any time heading North to El Nido. We heard El Nido is a small square touristy beach town 6-7 hours from the airport by bus (depending on how many stops the driver makes to take a leak, and whether or not you are passing by the rural schools when class gets out because the coach bus becomes a school bus and stops every 20 feet).

We hired an aircon bus (air conditioned bus) for 585 pesos. The bus zooms through impossibly narrow spaces between road signs, bikers, unsuspecting pedestrians and oncoming large cement trucks without thinking about the brakes. Its scary at best, and downright dangerous to everyone involved at it’s worst, careening down the long and winding, barely paved road to paradise.

Bus Drivers In 3rd World Countries Are Fuckin Insane!

We make it to El Nido just as safely as the dozens of school children that we delivered to their respective homes or drop off points along the way. It was a milky overcast on departure, but luckily half way there blue skies prevailed and we watched the untouched tropical scenery scroll by. Water buffalo being led by children in the fields grabbed my attention, and the scope of the landscape became a different time and world all together.

We get to the small backpacking vortex around 9 p.m. with a very small chance of finding a room for the night. Apparently it’s high tide for tourism and we didn’t call ahead. Luckily for me, Melody is a networking machine and she has been texting our couch surfing host back in Puerto Princesa about possible connections. There is a small ray of hope that our friend knows of a home stay with one room available. The catch? It’s a four person room with its own bathroom and that means mucho dinero for just the two of us. Luck finds us, and we are able to talk the guy down from 1,200 pesos to 800 if we promise to switch rooms the following night to a smaller room with a communal bathroom for 600 pesos. Done deal all by text. After exiting the bus, hiring a trike into town and about an hour of walking in the pouring rain, we finally find the place.

Exhausted, we are ready to lay down. The only problem now is that the guy we had just been talking to about the whole deal has no idea what we are talking about! I mean, he’s clueless. He was apparently sleep texting this whole time because we had to knock on his door when we arrived, and he was rubbing the nap (that he miraculously fell into since our last transmission) from his eyes. We could see by the look on his face and lack of words coming from his mouth that he had no idea who we were supposed to be. It was one of many awkward and befuddling interactions with Filipinos. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth to get even the simplest answer or sign that they are aware that we are trying to communicate with them specifically.

Melody said, ” We were just texting back and forth about a room tonight, I didn’t get a name but is this your number?” and shows him the phone. He shakes his head up and down signaling yes, but clearly looking around the room for something or someone to get him out of the conversation that really should have been simple to understand, even with a language barrier.

$20 USD per night

“So this is your number and I was talking to you about the room for 800 pesos?” Utter bewilderment on the mans face. He wasn’t even saying anything in his language and it was exhausting us. After a few more minutes of that struggle we were at the door of our luxury four person room. The keys jingle in the lock, he opens the door and flips the switch illuminating two beds with concrete like pillows, and flooring fashioned out of wall paper. Also illuminated next to a hole in the wall, was a cockroach about the length of my hand. The man chuckles and leaves us to our $20 a night home away from home, and it was glorious. Laying in bed after the road trip and the frustrating encounters of the day, charging our ipods and wondering if the guy downstairs just didn’t like us for some reason, I nodded off.

We had two weeks before our flight back to Manila. We had no set plans for how long we would stay in El Nido. The allure of slowing down to a beach town vibe after a week in the city had us believing we didn’t want to be anywhere else. The town did have a good feel to it, and we spent some afternoons down at the beach restos and bars, situated so close to the water the tables and chairs would get swept away by high tide around happy hour (but not too far as the servers knew the routine, yet somehow managed to barely save the dining furniture each time I was around to see it go down).

Being the tourism hot spot on the island the prices are somewhat steeper than other places we’ve been to. At $20 a night for two small, separate and extremely uncomfortable beds, and a bathroom shared with four other rooms worth of people at the Tay Miloy home stay, we started wondering if we would really enjoy staying for 14 more days. Also if you plan a trip to El Nido be advised, the power goes out from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. Most hostels and home stays have generators for back up but in our case we only experienced them being turned on once in five nights. Without power there is no fan to un-stagnate the air in our room. Also there is no wifi anymore to work on our blogs or look for interesting things to see and do. There is an internet cafe that charges 30 pesos an hour for internet that is shotty at best, and the sign outside boasting “Electricity is Always” is not being very truthful.

Oreo and Ice Smoothies

There is an awesome bakery that seems to always be busy but worth the wait for 5-10 peso treats (less than a quarter). JM has the best shakes in town and there are two locations. $2 isn’t a bad deal for a 16 oz chocolate banana coconut shake. But if you want some true local flavor, find the stand on the side of the street near the basketball court, with a row of blenders on the table. There you can get amazing mango and cookies and cream shake cups for 5-10 pesos served up by charming 7 year olds. They would laugh at Melody and I for double fisting ours and getting back in line for more.

There are multiple dive companies offering the same tours at the same bloated prices. We decided to skip out on what we know could have been great diving. There are also kayaks and motorbike rentals on just about every street corner. You can grab a 2 person kayak for a full day (8am-6pm negotiable) for 500 pesos or $12.50 US. Pretty good deal, but yet again we passed. We did however, go on one of the boat tours with a couple from our home stay. I still have no idea why, but the guy who set it up seemed really adamant about hanging out with us. After a failed attempt to go out for dinner to talk about the details and decide if we wanted to spend the cash, he shows up later and announces that it’s official and we leave at 9 a.m. with no discussion. We decide it’s probably worth the $ for the experience.

Food Poisoning, The Delhi Belly Blues

The tour was incredible. We putted around on a rickety old boat with a lawn mower engine attached to the prop, stopped at different island beaches, and even a natural sand barge bridge that links two islands together. You can barely see the sand below the water, and at times it looks like people are walking on water.

After having lunch there, we were off to sea again, maneuvering about jagged limestone cliffs and rocks that jutted out of the water all around us. We started towards a small unassuming beach that was totally unimpressive after the natural sand bridge. We got out and the guides show us into a massive bat cave and I was in shock at the size and beauty of it. It was the highlight for me. That night I got the dreaded delhi belly. I can’t help but put the blame on the lunch we had out on Snake Island that day but it could have been anything from the past two weeks. After the adventures out on the water with our new friends, and my own all-night saga in the bathroom with no electricity, it was time to say good-bye to the small little town that I enjoyed so much!

Making Friends And Saying Goodbye to the Island
Back In Puerto Princesa. Actually, we were back in the same village we couched surfed in on our first night on Palawan. This time with a Filipino Navy dude named Jonathan. He has, without a doubt, the nicest home in the village. It’s more of a compound than a house, with a detached two story secondary housing, and a room that sleeps six, not including the hammock near the main entrance. It was the couchsurfing mecca of Palawan, and every day saw a new stream of visitors that came and went like there was nothing to it. We met people from Isreal, Spain, U.K., the States, France and I even made a great new friend who calls himself Ricky Alright. He was a DJ in his past life in Lithuania and has more recently, taught English to kindergartners in Thailand. He had a lot of valuable info for us for when we get there, and he was fun to be around. We had a couple good nights of drinking, talking culture and philosophy, and even playing chess. Another friend that we had to say good bye to. Another heart hardening experience, a part of life on the indefinite road. It was time to head back to Manila. From there we left for Singapore, but that story is for another post!