puerto princesa + el nido

this week charles and i ventured to the island of palawan. it is off the southwest side of the philippines and is an amazing grouping of over 1,000 islands. the plane ride into the capital of puerto princesa was just over an hour flight. our hotel was so cute and had hot water and a/c. we were so happy. we just had one full day so we took advantage by taking an island hopping tour in honda bay for swimming and snorkeling. my fears of fish have continued. i just don't like when they get near to me, i hyperventilate and start to feel claustrophobia or something but it was such a gorgeous setting i still enjoyed the trip.

(honda bay, puerto princesa, palawan)
(bangkas of the coast of el nido town, palawan)(an island off of el nido, palawan)
(big lagoon, el nido, palawan)
(pondering a cloudy el nido sunset)

the next day we decided to skip the public bus and take an air conditioned shuttle to el nido on what was said to be a 6 hour ride. well... the shuttle was so cramped and hot it was pretty miserable. to make it even more lovely, 6'3" charles and 5'8" me (two of the tallest people aboard) were stuffed in the very back row, very back corner of the van. we had no room at all and the a/c we paid extra for didn't even hit us... but in the end the ride that turned into 9 hours was so worth it after arriving in el nido. it was gorgeous and lovely and we (sort of) forgot about the bad van ride.

after we got to town we found a nice room at a guest house, we even had a view of the bay from the balcony. the next day we did an island hopping tour and stopped at 5 different sights off the coast of el nido. it was so pretty. i took many photos although, in my opinion they don't quite capture the magnificence of it all or the scale of the huge limestone islands jutting out of the aqua clear waters. we snorkeled and swam and got plenty of sun. the tour included a fish, rice and veggie bbq lunch on a litle beach which was a bit castaway-ish. i ended up getting super burnt on my face and back but it was still so fun!

the next day we wanted to get a sea kayak but the weather was too windy outside the main cove so we got a half day island hopping tour to get back out on the water, this time with me fully blocked from the sun in a t-shirt and hat.

the town of el nido itself was so cute and quaint. there are tourists but it doesn't feel toursity, yet. with the 9 hour ride and only expensive tiny air connections it is a bit off the beaten trail but i'm sure that will soon change so i am so happy to have seen a plain little beach town before it changes too much. a weird thing about el nido is that the power is shut off from 6am until 2pm, random, huh? a bit annoying as we paid for an a/c room to have it not work for a chunk of the day. overall though el nido was awesome.

our original plan was to take a boat from el nido to coron but we learned it was in a small 20 passenger boat and since this is monsoon season i was worried about the safety of it all so we bit the bullet and took the shuttle back to puerto princesa (only 6 hours for real this time :). we are planning to fly directly into coron from manila in a week or so because i just have to see coron. we're on a real mission now!

i posted ton more pics here:
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