El Nido - back to basics

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Meanwhile, at the Dallas Inn in Puerto Princesa (in my best cartoon narrator voice) I found my way into a van to El Nido, which is a 5-7 hour ride through the same windy, bumby, dusty roads on route to Sabang. Something about travelling through the same road twice didnt appeal to me but as there is only the one road up north I sucked up my outrage and prepared for what I hoped would be a sleepy journey through the philippine countryside. While the landscape was green and beautiful, motion sickness was on my mind and I spent most of the trip doing my best not to vomit on the ornately arranged bobbing head Jesus's and power puff girl dolls that call the vans dashboard home. 7 hours of relative comfort later we arrived in El Nido to the usual throng of touts. A young fella offered his tricycle services, but as the town was literally 200 meters away from the bus terminal I opted to walk and find a place to stay. OGIEs guest house and restaurant sounded familar from the lonely planet so I took a look. The place was on the water, had wifi, a restaurant, near all the bars etc. so it sounded like a good idea. 400 pesos a night was well within the budget, so who cares if there is no air-con! As it turns out, the wifi and potential air-con were just pipe dreams anyway as EL Nido only has a couple of hours of electricty a day. They same its from 4 pm to 6am however, it was much more like 6 pm until 11pm... I didnt use the fan to sleep once, which made for a uniquely Byron smelling room after a couple of nights.
El Nido may have a few limitations, but it is easy to just relax on the beach and forget about the world. The beach itself is fairly ordinary but the views are incredible, with the limestone cliffs and a few scattered islands from my guesthouse balcony. All in all, I was in El Nido for about 6 nights and only left because I ran out of pesos. For reasons beyond my comprehension, there is no ATM (let alone a bank) in El Nido. Its almost as if they dont want the tourists there. Capitalism is merely a word beginning with C in EL Nido. For exmaple, when it became clear that my 4 shirts were beyond their capacity to be worn in cililized socierty (it was laundry day) I went out to find a cheap shirt for the day. Working with a budget of about 200 pesos, I went into the first clothing market I found and asked where the shirts were. The friendly young man directed me to the 20 peso shirt section, which set off a tirade of Tagalog from what appeared to be his mother. 30 seconds of tirade later, I was escorted to the "new arrivals" section where I could browse through a selection of 100 peso shirts. Now that I was equipped with a shirt on my back the idea of exploring El Nido dawned on me, which took a grand total of about 30 minutes. The place really is tiny. There cant be more than a few thousand people living there, with a couple of hundred tourists. I went out on the island hopping tour the next day, complete with a minging hangover from the night before. Snorkelling with a hangover trully sucks (as I have proven before) but you really do have to see these Islands. I didnt get an official number, but there must be 200 or more islands to choose from. The locals have categorised the islands based on location into Tours A, B, C and sometimes D. I did tour B and C while I was there and both were awesome. The second time out, I met up with some randoms from the night before and we turned the tour into a booze cruise. 3 bottles of rum aught to be enough between the 5 of us was the concensus. Why is it that people can no longer enjoy things with being drunk? Let me have a sip of my Tanduay rum while I think about it... One of the stops in the itenary was the Mantiloc Shrine seems like the type of Island Marlon Brando purchased all those years ago. Currently abandoned, all it needs is a good ghost or devil story and it would scare the crap out of people. Orignally built as a convent and place of prayer, it is now uninhabited. There is a 5 story mansion that would be right at home in Miami beach. It would be worth over 50 million in a western market. The idea of hosting weekend parties in the courtyard (formally open air church) did occur to me, but before I could make a down payment it was time to move on. The Cathedral, Snake Island, Hidden Beach, Secret Beach, Cadlao Lagoon... all beautiful, isolated, free of anyone but those on the tours, it makes you want to be on a plane crash and wake up on a deserted Island!
It is possible to hire a kayak or charter a boat to take people to one of these out of the way places and stay there overnight. This would have been an awesome experience, however being by myself (predominately) it may have been a little boring after a while. Some of the couples I met (so many couples here) took the Kayak out and enjoyed each others company on their own private Island for a day or so and adored it. Mabye next time aye.
After a hard day on the water, further refreshment is required and El Nido had no shortage of bars and restaurants to choose from. Ric Sons was particularly good for live music and backpackers. Squidos, owned by an expatriate French fella caled Jean Marc (who has a Great Dane for a pet) had awesome for food as well as live sport on the telly. El Toro seems to be the only place open after mid night, so many an appearance was made. Once again there was no shortage of very friendly local girls looking for a western man to sweep them of their feet (or to pay them accordingly) but not as bad as Boracay, or worse yet Pattaya in Thailand. Still, there was plenty of the western variety in stock so each evening had its own unique charm.
EL Nido summary
Strengths: Island Hopping, Limestone cliff climb, coast walk, insight into isolated Philippino culture, 24 hour friendships and relationships!, friendly locals, pretty good value, cheap beer and food.
Weaknesses: Slowly developing tourist market and facilities (can be seen as a strength), lack of electricity and regular brown outs, no flush toilets, grass cutting local males with unabashed lack of shame!
Watch this space: A number of resorts are currently being constructed to offer higher value accomadation and service. There is an airport just outside of town however it is for sea planes and have capacity for only 6 people. Should Cebu Pacific and Philippines airlines find a way in, the tourist market will explode.
Highlight: Get out on one of the Island hopping tours and everything else in life is forgotten.

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