Our time in Philippines is gone.
It’s sad, especially for me, because it’s my first country away from Europe (can you believe that I’m 26 years old and I never traveled further than Europe??) so I’ll always keep this place in my heart.
Because Philippines it’s a country of thousands of island is difficult to talk about the first impression here. Each place is completely different. In Manila it was very hot, but ugly. I loved Puerto Princessa from the moment when we just landed in the airport but it’s not too much you can really do there, unfortunately.
I felt like we are the only tourist here, what can be nice but also made us feel like a monkey in the zoo, everyone is looking at you just because your skin colour. We only spend less than three weeks here in Philippines (mainly exploring the island of Palawan) so I’m not an expert but I would like to share some of my thoughts with you.
Today I’ll give you a little description of the places we have visited. It will be completely subjective and I know people can have different opinion. I would love to read about your experiences in Philippines, if you visited this country, if not you can ask me any questions under the post and I’ll try to give you the answer, best to my knowledge.
Let start with Manila.
Manila is the capital of Philippines and as you would expect it is a huge city, with lots of different areas. As I already mentioned above, it’s very hot and humid and because of that rains are quite heavy but short so nobody really cares as long as it doesn’t get too serious. City is very dirty in general. You won’t find a waste bin on the streets, everyone is just throwing their rubbish everywhere (they even managed to stop the river with waste, what is disgusting) and you can smell it in the air. The traffic in Manila is horrendous, nobody follows the rules and all you can hear is beep-beep!! But that isn’t the worst of everything. The worse is the poverty you can see almost everywhere. People are sleeping, eating, living on the street begging for money. My opinion: if you don’t have to, don’t stay in Manila too long. We have spend there 5 days and it was just a waste because there is nothing to do at all.
Our next stop was Puerto Princessa (Palawan).
We have stayed in the place called Blessies gardens (https://abnb.me/PMV2D03VdO), nice bamboo huts, surrounded by nature. It was very convenient for us because price included breakfasts and transfer from and to the airport. First day we hired a bike (more about it soon) and we went to the local beach. Beautiful place but we wanted more, so we went back and we found out about Nagtabone beach. Incredible place. It took us about 40 minuets to get there but it was 100% worth it. Beach is just perfect. Blue, warm water with white sand...I already want to go back there. What surprised us was the fact that the beach was almost empty. A few locals and a few tourists. I couldn’t understand how is it possible that people didn’t discovered this place yet. This way we had entire beach almost to ourselves (you will find it quite offten that there isn’t too many tourists in Philippines and locals aren’t too interested in what they have so you can be the only person on the whole beach, which make the experience even better). We felt like we just jump into scenes from new King Kong. Water, beach, palms and hills around...amazing place. Kalayaan beach- next pretty beach, just next to the fishing village. The only things you have to be careful about are bugs. They may not be dangerous, but they bite and leave not pretty looking spots, everywhere. Our place was quite far away from the town centre but that is the place to be every evening (especially if you like party-we don’t like it too much). There are bars and restaurants, where you can eat local food, but you can also find here chains like McDonald and Jolliebee. So don’t worry if, like my Mat you can’t eat spicy, strange food, you will still able to eat out.
One day we decided to do island hopping in Honda Bay. It is a whole story. We went there (paying only 40peso instead of 400 for a tricycle-yeap it is possible) with the exact amount of money we saw on adverts in the web but it wasn’t enough. There are another fees on top of the trip price, what we had no idea about, plus you have to pay separate if you wish to hire the snorkel (more about prices soon). What we have done? We found an offer online and we asked a hotel stuff to help us with phone communication with the company. This way we saved 600 peso on this trip,even including environmental tax, snorkel hiring and entrance fees. It was awesome way to spend a day. They took us to three different islands, where we could snorkel with beautiful fish, swimming and just enjoy ourselves. My favourite was Lulu island where we could jump into the water. The meal which has been in price wasn’t the best quality, but it was nice to have something to put into a mouth after such an active day. I probably got ill after that, but that’s a separate story again.
There are other things you can do and see in Puerto Princessa, which can be built into your city tour pack (you will save some money if you will find yourself a nice tricycle driver who will show you around instead of paying 600peso/person to the company). It can be things like: crocodile sanctuary, bakery hills, swimming pool in the cave etc. I’m sure you have heard about underground river. I have heard about it too, but we decided that it is too commercial, too crowded and we haven’t done it. Let me know if you have been there and you think we missed out.
From Puerto Princessa we took a bus to El Nido.
It cost less than the price you can find on the website and the journey isn’t so unpleasant as you could think, to be honest the Cherry bus was way more comfortable than the van we traveled back in. We heard so much about el Nido, but I would never guess how big this area is. I thought it’s a town, like Puerto Princessa, but this is just a huge part of Palawan and you need at least a few days if you really want to experience it. The main town doesn’t look too attractive. One street, which will take you to the only local beach with restaurants, bars, hotels and hostels. This is the same beach where all island hopping tours starts. You have 4 options to choose, we have done tour A and I can honestly recommend it to everyone. The price here was lower than in Honda Bay, and you have got better value for money. More stops, better food, varieties of activities (snorkel, swimming, kayaking), another perfect day. It was even better for me, because this tour was for a long time on my bucket list because of the places you can visit. We have met monkey’s family playing just above the water, where nobody else could see them. It was a beautiful moment, especially that those monkeys weren’t one of those which know people and expect to be feed.
The accommodation here is adequate higher than in Puerto Princessa, but that’s because you can meet more tourists here (mainly Asian, from Manila but also some backpackers). Booking.com is the best place to looking for somewhere cheap to sleep. Just be prepared, nothing in Philippines will be close to our European standards, so just forget about it. Buy yourself something for bugs and for bits, because you will need shit lot of it.
Talking about accommodation. One day we went all the way up to Nacpan beach (1200peso for one hour, return tricycle ride, or 700 peso for return ticket by van) to spend a night on the beach. We bought the tent, we made a fire and we only slept two hours because it was very loud there (the beach was empty but beach bars not) and then we find out that our tent isn’t waterproof and couldn’t keep us dry during the rain so we had to quickly evacuate somewhere else).
If you will visit El Nido, you have to eat a fruit bowl from Taste El Nido. It’s a great place, with very nice people working there. The price is quite high but one bowl is perfect to share for two. I really think that Philippines needs more places like this one.
Last place we visited in Philippines is beautiful Coron.
Coron island is actually further away from el Nido than I thought and it’s not cheap to get there, but what can stop a girl which is following her dreams and is desperate to visit next place from her bucket list? Nothing! Everything seems to be better in Coron. The island hopping is cheaper, food portions bigger(usually food portion are very small, probably prepared for Asian people which are a bit smaller from us, giant Europeans) and people are more used to tourists so you won’t feel observed all the time. We spend less than 24 hours here but I really liked it.
When we arrived to the island all tours were already away so we hired the boat (as some rich people, which we aren’t) to go to the Kayangan Lake and see this famous, amazing view which I was dreaming about for a long time. The island hopping may be cheaper but the entrance fees are way higher in Coron than anywhere else we have been. We have spent a night in Talusi hostel (http://www.booking.com/Share-z93LNhh) which was quite cheap. Just remember, the breakfasts here is only pancakes you will have to pay extra if you would like to eat anything more).
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