DDR: Palawan is a tropical paradise island where you can eat great food, snorkel, dive, surf, drive scooters, enjoy beach bars and get massages. We did all of the above, entering full holiday mode. I got sunburnt and Nik got a moustache (read on for pictures).
On arriving in the Philippines we headed straight to El Nido, Palawan. The Philippines is made up of over 7,000 Islands, and as far as we could tell the ones around El Nido at least, are paradise. We arrived in a tiny, incredibly picturesque airport that was open sided and framed by palm trees and quickly picked up our bags. The main form of transport around the smaller islands is motorbike. The motor bikes are either solo, or supporting a sort of harness/ beefed up side car that allows for transporting passengers called a tricycle. We squeezed into a tricycle with our embarrassingly big bags and made our way to our first stay, Elmo's place. Elmo's place was nice, clean and right on the edge of town, allowing us to walk to the center of El Nido in about 10 minutes.
Bright turquoise seas, white sand and dramatic, jungle cliffs are the setting for this small back packers town. Settling very quickly into the holiday part of this ridiculous holiday, we quickly treated our selves to some delicious smoothies and a massage after discovering the hourly rate was about £10. The week ahead was clearly going to be tough. We then got practical and hired a scooter to get us around. Nik gave me a quick lesson and a few false starts later, we were ready to go.
El Nido turns out to have a decent number of vegan restaurants, and we hit our first stop Ver De. Over the course of the week we would return twice more for the bang bang tofu. The food in general was brilliant in El Nido and other honourable mentions also go to the Korean place Oppa where we had Kimchee dumplings and spicy tofu bowls, Tales of the Islands which was run by a lovely man called Ram and where you can build your own salad bowls, Sip a beautiful sunset spot and Bella Vita, a superb pizza place in Corong Corong that wouldn't have been out of place in Italy.
I had booked us what I thought would be a cool studio apartment on air bnb, but turned out to be 3 bed palace, for most of the week. The place was a very modern, minimalist haven and located on Corong Corong beach. Concrete House not only looked beautiful, but after 3 weeks in a caravan, it was pure luxury to have so much (very stylish) space to enjoy to ourselves. Notably for Nik, separate bathrooms for 4 whole days 💪.
There is a lot to do in Palawan, and we filled our week with a series of tropical island greatest hits. First up was a day scuba diving. We set off at 8:30am on a boat trip with a few other groups. Our guide for the day was L5 (El Cinco but asked us to call him El Five). While both of us are Advanced divers, neither of us had been for at least half a decade so dive 1/3 was a refresher. I was thrilled to finally discover a sport that Nik is not a natural at. Unlike his cool, calm and collected demeanor on dry land, he is panicked in the water, and has weirdly little buoyancy; this is likely something to do with him being so dense, comparatively I have an inbuilt life jacket on at all times. As a result he is in a constant state of flapping and breathes ridiculously quickly. On all 3 dives we used twice as much air as me and we had to return early! Perhaps he will consider a pranayama session with me soon? Flapping companion aside, the diving was incredible. The coral is bright and teaming with life, a huge variety of beautiful, tropical fish of every imaginable colour and pattern inhabit the under water cities. Trying to describe them all feels a bit futile, but corals ranged from bright yellow grass to blue trees and pink brains. We saw almost the entire Finding Nemo cast, even our first turtle of the trip, along with a small blue spotted sting ray. If I had to choose, my favourite would be either the tiny blue ones (see image borrowed from National Geographic), a brown and white "Harlequin Sweet Lips fish" or the many puffer fish. Though it was some of the best diving I've done, the locals dismissed this time of year as "poor visibility", I can only imagine what it's like during the even clearer months.
To recover from our day of diving, we spent the following day at Panorama beach club. We perched on our loungers all afternoon, continued the monopoly deal marathon, read books and sipped on cocktails. I spent much of the day lurking in the shade as the sun is super strong, with barely a cloud in the sky. Nik periodically leaving our latest shady spot for walks on the beach, we could remain united only when the sun started to go down. The sunsets in El Nido are stunning and we continued to pinch ourselves at this heavenly spot.
Up next on island bingo was a day of surfing at Duli Beach. It was a 45 minute drive to get there, as we would be exposed to the elements for the whole drive, we set off early to avoid sunburn. The drive was mainly fine, however the final mile alternates between road and unpaved sand/ rocks. As we drove up a particularly steep sandy patch I noted it would be a difficult return but decided to worry about it later. The island saying of "walang problema" seeping into our mentality. As first people to arrive on the beach we discovered a private paradise, and were happy to meet Jun Jun, a surf instructor come tattoo artist come island hopping guide who lives on the beach. The conditions for surfing were incredible. Warm seas, clear water and perfect waves that broke like clockwork every 30 seconds or so. For our first lesson we were split up, and were soon catching waves. The hour flew by and we again were blown away by how perfect the Philippines was. This couldn't have been more different to our Raglan surfing experience in torrential rain! We'd caught the bug, and told we could go for round 2 at 2pm so settled in for some lunch. At this point the moment we'd been waiting for happened, my choice of lunch triggered our first proper vegan argument of the trip. Perhaps Jun Jun heard and didn't want to get involved, or perhaps he just lost track of time, but he didn't show for our second lesson so we just rented boards and went out solo for the next hour at 2:30. It was brilliant and our fight was long forgotten moments in to catching our first waves. As we got back to the beach we started to debate if we could squeeze in another surf between moving places and our upcoming Tao trip, we were truly hooked. Still it was getting late and the rocky road called so we set off, as we reach the tricky hill we arrived to watch 2 German guys attempt their way down the hill. Unfortunately one of them was toppled by a hidden rock in the sand and fell over, however he wasn't too hurt and declined our offer of help so we kept going and made it home, flying high on surf endorphins.
What comes up must come down, and unfortunately as the sun set the incredible sunburn I had earnt on my legs/ bum from our midday surf made its self known. Alas, I am not a natural beach babe and my lobster behind now made me very nervous to be spending the next week on a sailing boat in the Philippino sun. To cheer me up Nik shaved a moustache for the evening. 🤌🤌🤌🤌. As a controversial face accessory I'm sure there will be mixed reviews, but I for one, was a fan.
The next day would be our last in El Nido. We spent the day preparing for our upcoming Island Hopping trip with a sun burn treatment massage (wonderful), and buying essentials such as emergency aloe vera, doubling up on factor 50, dweeby looking reef shoes, rash vest and dry bags. 5pm the night before we set sail we had our briefing and the first chance to meet our companions for the week ahead. This was great fun, as both of us are very aware that first impressions are rarely accurate, and we also haven't had much of a chance to debrief about other people yet on the trip having been pretty isolated in the caravan. We therefore went full steam ahead for a good gossip. In no particular order, our first impressions were:
3 younger German lads were quick to down their Jungle Juice drinks, they seem up for a party. Lots of tats and all black outfits, they seem suitably hip and from the stereotype of Berghain German (if Berhain is cool with Gen Zers from Hamburg). Nik got another drink with them to start early on bro points
Friendly British couple who also seem to be in their 30s, generally live in London but on an extended trip, feels like we will have lots in common. Small debate as to how posh we thought they were (you can guess who thought they seemed normal vs super posh)
Younger British couple who were a bit quieter and departed pretty quickly after the briefing, they seemed a bit more shy and harder to get a read on but also nice. An interesting mix of a bit nerdy but also very good looking.
A solo traveller Georgie from Australia, slightly older than us and lives by the sea, again seemed nice and up for chatting. Always interesting to meet a solo traveller
An older couple from Germany who were very friendly, relaxed and seemed excited. They also seemed quite organised and fell more into stereotype of classic German
Perhaps most mysterious of all was a German guy, again about our age, who rushed in a little late, seemingly solo. He was joined a bit later by a friend, also German, who was a bit bashed up from a motorbike accident. We hadn't put 2 and 2 together yet but that would come later. On the scale of German stereotype from hip to nerdy, we'd reached the other end on nerdy (in a good way)
Jep Jep our expedition leader. A natural leader, very cool, calm, seemingly laid back but clearly in control. Instilled total ease and confidence from the group instantly
Sonny, one of the 2nd in command. Quite shy, very smiley and sweet seeming
James, our other 2nd in command. Very smiley with a very loud and cheeky laugh, clearly a bit naughtier than Sonny
Everyone seemed great. Of the guests, everyone had had the trip recommended by someone they know and it was a nice mix of ages etc. The Lost Boys (the Tao crew) all seemed kind and like they have a lot of fun, the laughter was already infectious. We therefore didn't have much gossip for our first debrief, just more excitement. The mystery remained that we'd had an email saying there would be 2 small children on the trip and no one seemed to have any idea who they were. Perhaps we would have a few new joiners when we set off the next day.
Packed, relaxed and nervous excited for a week of sun, sea, new friends, jungle juice and total digital detox (no access to power or signal for 6 days!) we set our alarms early ready to set sail in the morning.
moustache review: Solid 7.5/10. Room for improvement.