The Philippines... island paradise!

As promised, here is an account of our wonderful vacation in the Philippines during the 2-week Tet holiday...

Boracay

After a late night flight from HCMC to Manila (around 2 hours long), John, Alex, and I arrived.  The Manila airport was chaotic at 4:30 in the morning.  People were everywhere and it was so disorganized and crowded.  There were huge lines to check in for flights, and not enough check-in windows open for the amount of flights.  We didn't see our flight listed, so we just were standing in line at a random Cebu Pacific counter before realizing we needed to get our connecting flight pretty soon or we would miss it.  A woman was walking up and down the huge lines holding a sign with our flight number on it.  We saw it, and told her we were on the flight and she ran us up to the front of another line so we could get our tickets and check in.  After dealing with more lines at security and having to pay annoying airport terminal fees, we finally made it onto our connecting flight to Caticlan (airport near Boracay).  Upon arrival, we headed to the island of Boracay by boat, for a quick 10 minute cruise.

Boracay's White Beach was gorgeous!  It is over 3km long with soft white sand and is the most impressive beach I've ever seen.  There is no wonder that it is rated one of the top beaches in the world by many travel magazines!  We stayed in a small, cheap guesthouse that was kind of a hole in the wall, but it was close to the beach which was the important thing.

John doing the high dive at Ariel's Point!

In Boracay we spent our days lounging, reading, eating, and swimming.  We decided to do something called "fly fish" which is like banana boats but it is this large rectangular raft pulled by a speed boat.  You have to sit on it and hang on, and when the boat speeds up, the raft goes vertical and you have to hang on for dear life!  I managed to stay on with my death grip, and so did Alex, but John flew off at one point.  It was only 15 minutes and I screamed every time the raft went up, but it was really fun!

We also did a day trip to Ariel's Point, which was half an hour from Boracay.  At Ariel's Point you can chill out, jump in the water from platforms as high as 15 metres, go kayaking, and snorkel.  The price of the trip also included all you can drink (water, pop, beer, rum) and BBQ lunch and snacks.  It was great!  I jumped off the 3 metre plank (second lowest, scary enough!) but John and Alex did the high dive.  We also went kayaking across the bay which was nice.

Boracay is very popular with tourists, so the main path set back from the beach is always busy with people.  There are tons of restaurants and shops to choose from.  From Boracay, we flew to the island of Palawan which is much bigger and more quiet.  We immediately took a bus to the small beach town of Sabang...

Sabang

Sabang is basically a row of small guesthouses (and 2 resorts) on a secluded beach lined with palm trees.  It is famous for being the home of one of the new 7 wonders of nature - the Underground River.  The River is something like 7 or 8 km long inside a cave, but only part of it is accessible to tourists.  You enter the river by boat, and everyone is required to wear a hard hat for safety reasons.  There were many rock formations hanging low in the caves, and thousands of bats sleeping on the ceiling!  It was pretty interesting, but not exactly a thrilling event.  The boat moved pretty slowly and the only light we had was from a high power flash light.  We spent half an hour inside the cave.  It was very quiet and a bit eerie!

Entrance to the Underground River

Beautiful beach in Sabang

The hike to the Underground River was about 2 hours through a forest.  We saw wild monkeys and monitor lizards there.  It was challenging in the heat, so we took the boat back to the main beach after the cave.

In Sabang, we also decided to do a zipline.  It was 800 metres over water, with excellent views of the beautiful beach.  In total it was 1 minute and 30 seconds long, but it was a bit expensive.  I'm glad we did it though!

Honda Bay

After Sabang, we made our way to Honda Bay.  We stayed at a place called Kim's Hot Spring Guesthouse, run by a Korean man who moved to Palawan.  We had accommodations that looked like Shrek's house, with a private hot spring inside! 

Island hopping in Honda Bay

We chartered a boat with a family from Taiwan to do some island hopping in Honda Bay.  The water was so blue and calm in the morning, and we got to see lots of starfish while snorkelling.

El Nido

After Honda Bay, we said goodbye to our friend Alex who was leaving to go to Indonesia for the rest of the vacation.  John and I headed up to northern Palawan, to the town of El Nido.  El Nido has a small beach with dramatic views of limestone karsts.  The power is shut off in the town every day from about 6am to 2:30pm.  This means no lights, no internet!  No problem, however... the beach is always open!

Most people in El Nido end up booking boat tours, so it seemed like the beach was empty every day until the boats came back around 4pm.  We ended up doing 2 island hopping tours from El Nido.  On the first tour, we visited some different islands in the Bacuit Archipelago.  The best place we saw on this tour was the Small Lagoon, with turquoise water that was so clear.  Since the first tour was so great, we ended up booking a second island hopping tour for another day.  This tour took us to a place called "Secret Beach."  It is only accessible through a small hole in a rock wall.  You have to swim through the hole, while timing your entry with the waves.  When you get through, there is a small beach on the other side.  This beach is rumoured to be the true inspiration for Alex Garland's novel "The Beach."  Even though the book is set in Thailand, and the movie with Leo DiCaprio was filmed in Thailand (we visited the filming location 2 years ago!), this beach is supposed to be the one he wrote about.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get photos of the Secret Beach since it was not safe to bring my camera there.  The image will just remain in my mind, or you can google "secret beach palawan" and find out what it looks like.

The view from the beach in El Nido!

We were supposed to stay in El Nido for 3 or 4 days, and then head to another town, but we got so comfortable in El Nido that we stayed the whole week.  Besides island hopping, we spent our time reading books on the beach on comfy cushions under umbrellas at the Banana Hostel, with gorgeous views of the water and limestone cliffs.  Not a bad way to spend a vacation!

I felt very relaxed on this trip, compared to India where it was always go, go, go.  I loved India, but it was nice to have a vacation where I didn't need a vacation from my vacation when I came back!

We are now back at work, and trying to get into report card mode.  Reports are due in a few weeks, and interviews are at the end of the month.  There are no more 2 week vacations this school year, but we do have a long weekend in March, and 1 week off in May.

What should the next destination be?