Wherever I travel, I'm too late. The orgy has moved elsewhere.
- Mordecai Richler
After almost 11 hours in transit*, I expected more from El Nido. More... or less, actually. With the end-to-end line of beachfront cottages and seaside restaurants, the barrage of signs advertising tours, and the string of Internet cafes every 100m, Nido is a lot more developed than I'd expected. I felt like I was on Any-Island, Thailand; time and that every persistant promise of profit had turned Jacques Cousteau's Last Frontier into just another backpacker haunt. After I had walked one length of town, I was almost ready to hop on the next bus and go right back to Sabang... but the draw of the beach and the islands won out.
There are at least a dozen tour operators in town, the biggest of which is the Art Cafe, which initially, I'm told, held a bit of a monopoly on tours, though business is beginning to fan out through the island. Unfortunately, everyone in town has followed the Art Cafe's lead and adopted the same utterly unimaginative names: Tour A, B, or C. Each tour consists of a group of islands, and while the list varies from operator to operator, there is a lot of overlap. So, travellers are forced into these assanine conversations about their daily activities, like
"What did you do today?"
"I went on Tour A..."
and so forth.
This is the cynical traveller in me, though, because when you get right down to it, northern Palawan is beautiful. The charm of Nido lies outside Nido, amongst the outlying islands that make up the Bacuit Archipelago. On a clear day, it's pure eye candy- turquoise water spotted with towering limestone cliffs jutting up from remote junglified islands... it's where the bush meets the ocean. The beaches and lagoons up here are incredible, and if you paddle far enough away, you can even feel a bit of that lost Brooke Shields magic... So yes, it's a bit of regimented fun, but in the end, it's just fun. So I stuffed my internal cynic under the bed, took a deep breath and just... enjoyed it. Tour A, B, and Ced it. Kayaked out to a deserted beach. Rented a motorbike for a day and outran a storm. Didn't think- just enjoyed.
Almost every morning, I ate breakfast at the small roadside canteen next to the police station, run by a sweet toothless lady named Lucy. Cheap and tasty (the food, not Lucy). My favourite was her eggy eggplant- a long skinny eggplant cut lengthwise and dipped in egg- ingeniously simple and oh so yummy! (Lucy will even shoot whiskey with you at 9 in the morning, if you're into that sort of thing.) You could easily save loads of money eating from these canteens, which are about a third of the price of the restaurants along the beach.
If you are going to splurge, go to The Alternative. The food can be hit and miss (their banana leaf curry and desserts are reeeaally good, though) but the atmosphere rocks. By far the best seats in the house are the pods that jut out over the ocean, cushioned with bean bags and designed for putting your feet up- for a long time.
As I was eating, a mini posse of boys gathered beneath my pod, all armed with fishing lines wrapped around a Pert Plus bottle in one hand, and a handful of bread in the other. First they threw the bread out, and as the fish swarmed around, they flung they fishing lines out, hoping to drag their hook along the water and magically ensnare a fish. There was lots of excitable discussion about this, presumably criticisms on Boy A's throwing technique, or Boy B's angling and what not, but the boys seemed quite jovial and brotherly in their collective confusion. No one caught any damn fish, in any case.
Amidst all this excitement, one boy climbed up the leg of my pod, poked his head through a slat and said "hello." I smiled and 'hello"ed him back. Seemingly satisfied with this response, he climbed back down and rejoined the fishing experiment. After a short while, a waitress came over and shut off my TV by shooing the boys away.
If you are going to Nido and have company, here's what I'd suggest:
Strand yourself on a deserted island, Robinson Crusoe/Tom Hanks style.
It's what I'd hoped to do, only I was rained out on the two days I'd set aside for such an adventure. The boys at Sea Slugs, however, offered me a killer deal- P350 for boat transfer, cooking gear.. and a cook. That's right, they'll stay the night with you, if you want. Or not. Oh, and incidentally, P350 is cheaper than most accommodations in Nido. Except, instead of bad Western food and a crappy room, you get a deserted island, a campfire, a seafood dinner, and a night under the stars. Pretty sweet, no? Yeah.. it would've been.
But... onwards.
I didn't spend much time in Puerto, but here's my two cents anyway:
Puerto seems like a city haphazardly built atop a jungle. Take any gravel or dirt path off of bustling Rizal Street, walk down about 100m or so, and look around. You'll notice something somewhat rare for a capital city. It's green. Really fucking green. Lush ,junglified, and abundantly green.... hell, I couldn't even hear the traffic over the sound of the birds! Just past my guesthouse, there were a few bamboo-thatched huts and a little grove of bananas. My kinda city... Best of all, it had a Vulcanizing Shop, o boy! I've always wanted something vulcanized!
I'll be going back to the Philippines for one last trip in April, this time for the full 21 days of the visa. No time limit, wee! My co-workers here in Taiwan totally don't understand me. They keep saying "Philippines again??" Fact is, the thousands of islands of the Philippines are so spread out, and each island so distinct in culture, that I could easily come back dozens of times and still not get the feel of the country. But I guess I could say that about a lot of countries I've been to...
*Boring transit details- I took the bus from Sabang to Salvacion, where I had to wait another 2.5 hours for the Nido bus. The bus is a real bus and the road is fine- don't listen to the wingy English travelers that tell you otherwise. I chose not to take the boat because 8 hours on the road is much more manageable than 8 hours on a boat, in my opinion. Plus, the bus was 1/4 the price.Other Useful Bits
El NidoRoom: P400 Single (El Nido Plaza Inn- don't stay here unless you can lull yourself to sleep with the sound of cocks crowing from 3am till morning), P300 Shared (Tandikan Cottages)
Food: P50-P250
Island-hopping: P600-P700 (includes massive lunch)
Survivor styles: P350 (tent, cooking gear, boat transport and optional guy; food separate)
Bus to PP: P350
Puerto PrincessaSan Jose Terminal to town: P40-50
Room: P500, single (Amelia Pensione)
Food: a splurageous amount, Ka Lui (pretty damn good... but all the restaurants in that are looked good, so take your pick)
