El Nido (Puerto Princesa to El Nido by bus)

From our condo in Manila we ordered a GRAB taxi to the airport which negotiated the heavy traffic and dropped us off at terminal 1 (domestic terminal). It was chaos again outside, and even more so inside as the terminal was old and outdated and was at bursting point with all the passengers waiting to board many a delayed flight. Luckily our Air Asia flight was only 30 minutes late. We arrived in Puerto Princessa late afternoon but had pre booked our hotel in El Nido for that night so tried to get a decent minibus to take us there. It was a six hour journey so we wanted something comfortable. I went and vetted a few options in the car park while Kathy watched the luggage and settled for a plush looking Toyota. We paid our fee after a haggle (after watching other tourists hand over larger amounts as they did not want to haggle) and boarded the bus for immediate departure. After 5 minutes we were told to get out and our luggage was transferred to a more basic minibus with bum numbing seats. We stood our ground and made quite a commotion with the driver and booking agent ending up with the driver getting angry and sarcastic, then disappearing in a huff. Now we were snookered as we had to get to our destination and it was getting late. Reluctantly we took the other minibus which turned out to have no suspension and the seats worn out and painful. The 6 hour journey was torturous as it turned dark, the driver a bona fide maniac who insisted on taking the rough winding roads at maximum velocity throwing us side to side in the van. We arrived after 9pm on the outside of town (as these journeys usually end up) so had to take a tricycle into town to our beds for the night.

Life is a beach.

 The hotel ended up to be less than expected, on the busiest road in town and the room the size of a shoebox. We complained to reception who said they would move us in the morning. The night was awful as the road outside was busy all night with noisy tricycles whizzing up and down it and the room was also sided by 2 large building sites with the beautiful noise of non-stop metal grinding and hammering. In fact the whole of El Nido was one massive building site. Totally charmless, over built in an unsympathetic way, noisy, dirty and unappealing. Add the fact that the place was totally over run by tourists. It's a shame as it was in a stunning location but had been spoilt by the over development. The beach was non existent at high tide as the restaurants had been built so far into the beach that the sea washed over your feet if you were seated outside and the sea was filthy with the waste runoff from town. I could not believe that Lonely Planet voted this a their number one pick in the Philippines to visit. Another thing we could not believe was the great reviews that our hotel had received on Agoda. Next day they showed us another room at the rear of the hotel and it was a damp mouldy prison cell. The whole town was fully booked so we had a tough choice......take the cell or keep our noisy shoebox. Kathy made the decision to keep the shoe box since at least it had a/c and a hot shower where the cell had nought in its favour. We came up with a plan to use earplugs to drown the worse noise out and then drink enough Red Horse beer until we passed out which seemed to work quite well. Also the breakfast was a farce as it was in a tight space which was a lobby and had only one big seat so only one couple could have brekkie at once which was an issue at a fully booked hotel. I think the people who had previously reviewed this hotel must have been on drugs.

Life is a .....errrh......beach.

  Desperate to get out of the room we headed to the beach where we found a nice bar who was having a happy hour so sunk a couple of cheap San Migs hoping to watch the sunset. This was also a waste of time as the islands out in the bay, as beautiful and stark as they were, hid the sun well before sunset so nothing was seen. After cruising town looking for food we stumbled upon a gourmet burger bar which done some really quality food including eggplant burgers and chickpea burgers for a cheap price. Yum, yum.
  Next day the weather was not that great but we hired a motorbike from next door off a couple of what looked like drug addicts and headed to Nacpan beach which was about 20km away. The road was good until we had to turn off and it turned into a mud road , back to cement, then back to mud with big stones jamming out throwing Kathy painfully around on the rear saddle. After paying our 'entry fee' for the development of the area which clearly did not involve the road surface being done we hit the beachfront shack for some lunch which turned out to be chips and a coconut to drink/eat.  The beach was huge with pristine white sand but quite crowded for such a remote location, so we walked a little, found 2 suspect looking coconut trees and slung our hammocks up. Paradise! I had a splash in the sea which was pretty wild with powerful waves and a strong riptide so swimming was impossible. The weather cheered up as well. After we bored of this, another bum numbing ride back to El Nido, some afternoon refreshments and onto Cabanas beach to the south of town to watch the sunset. Again a powdery white sand beach but heavily populated for sunset. We camped outside a beach bar which was pumping out some great disco music from the 70's and 80's which we loved then onto some classic rock tunes before morphing into mindless generic EDM which by this time the sun had set and the bar cleared out of patrons so we left. A dark ride back to town with no back light and we returned the bike to the druggies who had luckily not sold my driving licence kept as deposit to buy some more crystal meth.

Life on a beach.

  The evening was the usual burger munch and a belly full of Red Horse to drown out the noise. Next day I went to hire the motorbike again from the druggies next door but I could not get them to wake up from their hammocks (they sleep in the street) from their drug induced comas. Probably scored an extra rock of meth last night from the money they made from me. I found somewhere else that would hire me a bike who did not have a drug habit but they did have an issue with wearing a shirt and insisted on talking to me with no top on while I studied his peculiar shaped moobs. If it was me, I would buy a shirt as it was very off putting.
  We headed out to Lio beach near the airport which was empty of people and had lovely sand and a smooth sea. After an hour it started to rain so we packed up, sheltered in a restaurant until it stopped and then hit the road again to Duli beach.  The access road to the beach was a right old scramble with steep muddy banks and again another access fee to enter the beach! Saying that the beach was beautiful and unspoilt, with white sand as far as the eye could see with a beautiful jungle and coconut tree backdrop. We had lunch at a hippy beach shack and chilled out on some bean bags on the beach. I went for a swim but the sea was whipping up bad and trying to drag me out so I gave it a miss. There were plenty of surfers though enjoying the challenge. After a couple of hours the very changeable weather turned for the worst and we had a heavy rainstorm. We sheltered in the hippy bar until it stopped then rode back on the very muddy track up the steep hill. It was a bit touch and go trying to get to the top but we made it ....just, without wiping out. There were still tourists showing up, having to dismount and push their bikes down the hill. Good luck to them.

Beach life.

  On the way back to town, the roads were slippery and wet and on one corner we saw a bad motorbike accident where the rider had skidded off the road and into the adjacent paddy field. As we passed we saw locals trying to recover him from the field but he looked in a bad way with his body contorted in unnatural positions which made us grimace. We did wonder what would happen out here in the wilderness in the case of an accident as there are no ambulances or any decent medical facilities. We did pull over in the next village to rest and saw him later in the back of a tricycle, situated prone in the sidecar being whisked off to somewhere but again it did not look good for him. From that moment we drove carefully on the slick road and were glad to be wearing helmets which the guy who crashed did not have. Even so there were tourists flying pass us on the road oblivious to what we had just witnessed. I later returned the bike back to mister wonky moobs and we went to book a boat tour. We were in 2 minds whether to take a tour of the surrounding islands as the weather was so changeable, going from blistering sun to rain very quickly. Also we were concerned at the amount of tourists visiting these sights all at the same time and as we found out before it takes the magic away from the location. There were hundreds leaving every morning on loads of boats and looked over subscribed. Anyway we did not have to make that decision as it was made for us by the pleasure of either a dodgy meal or breakfast which rendered us below par next day so we cancelled.  That night was not a good night's sleep.

Sunset on the beach.

 So glad to leave next day we boarded a minibus which was a lot better than previously and headed back to Puerto Princessa where we blew our budget and had booked into a nice resort with a pool as a treat to rejuvenate us from the unpleasantness that was El Nido.
Update; We also found out on our departure we had been bitten all over from bed bugs and now sported a collection of very itchy and sore welts. Thanks El Nido, wish I could say it was a pleasure but it was not.