Last Stop in Asia: The Philippines

We saved the Philippines for our last stop in Asia on “Leg 3” of the trip, and it was worth the wait. However, actually making it to our destination in El Nido, a small town on the northern tip of the island of Palawan, was another story.  It took us just about 36 long hours from the time we left our hotel in Kyoto to the time we dropped off our backpacks in our 5^th floor (walkup) hotel room in the Philippines. It was by far the longest travel day we’ve had and involved multiple buses, airplanes, “trikes” (a sort-of motorcycle-taxi in the Philippines with a bench and three wheels attached to it), and included our first overnight in an airport. During an 8-hour layover in Korea, we got a chance to meet up with an old friend of Christina’s from elementary school.  Although they hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years, she was a great host and showed us around the Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul which was our 41^st UNESCO World Heritage Site of the trip.

Visiting the palace with Kelly

But back to the Philippines. The way the itinerary worked out, we only had about eight days total to spend in the country.  We have friends who had visited before and raved about the islands.  We had considered going to Boracay or Cebu, but we settled on Palawan after seeing it had recently been voted the #1 island in the world by Conde Nast. It didn’t take long before we both realized that this was one of the top destinations we’ve visited so far.  The natural beauty of the ocean, limestone cliffs jutting out of the water and the clusters of small, uninhabited islands just off the coast made this one of the most picturesque places we have ever seen.

One of our guides hanging out during the boat tour

Our delicious lunch feast

Big Lagoon

Our first day in town, we rented a kayak and spent the afternoon exploring a number of islands on our own.  We paddled our way over to one of the unoccupied islands and spent the afternoon enjoying our first and only private beach on the trip! Another day we took a boat tour which had been recommended to us by some other travelers. We spent a full day checking out various islands, kayaking through some hidden lagoons and snorkeling in crystal clear waters.  The tour included a small feast prepared for us by the staff of the boat. On our last full day, we rented a motorbike and made the 45-minute journey to Nacpan Beach which was simply stunning.  The water, the sand, the palm trees – everything about it was perfect.  Somehow, it was not crowded at all.  It was easily one of the top two best beaches of our trip (tied for first place with the Seychelles).

Nacpan Beach

Views from the boat

The private beach we enjoyed during our day of kayaking

El Nido seems to be unprepared for the influx of tourists that are about to discover it.  For one thing, there was not a working ATM in the town, so we ended up changing some USD we had brought with us. There are frequent power outages, although some of the hotels do have generators. The accommodation where we stayed seemed to be unaware of the guests’ needs, oftentimes knocking on our door at 7:00 AM to ask us what time we wanted breakfast that day. But these are small issues that really didn’t take away from how much we enjoyed our time there.

Incredible blue water

Lagoon selfie

Dinner on the beach in El Nido

Our last day on Palawan, we had the chance to visit the Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park which was our 42^nd World Heritage site, and recently voted one of the “New 7 Wonders of the World.”  Essentially, it’s a river that cuts through a cave inside a mountain.  We took a tour in a boat manned by a guide who paddled us through and pointed out various sites along the way.  Inside there are massive caverns, stalactites, and thousands of bats hanging from the ceiling.  For preservation reasons, there are no lights hung up inside, so it is pitch black all around you except for the headlamp worn by your guide. It truly was a unique site and unlike anything we had seen on the trip so far.

Entrance to the underground river

View coming out of the cave after our tour

Throughout our trip we’ve experienced friendliness and kindness from strangers all around the globe.  The Philippines was no exception to this. The day we decided to rent the motorbike, we had an issue trying to fit the key back into the ignition.  To make a long story short, we asked for help from a local and ended up having a group of four guys working with various tools for almost 30 minutes.  Thanks to their generosity, we were able to get the bike up and running again and make our way back into town.

Amazing Nacpan

We never wanted to leave

Even though we saw only a fraction of it, the Philippines is a country high up on our list of favorites and a place we are already making plans to return to at some point in the future.

-The Morts