Winter Vaca to The Land of Mangoes
March 13, 2013 Nicole
FINALLY! It was vacation time for this girl, after a long long long winter! I dont’ even know where to begin on this post!
I guess from the beginning.. Manila! Is a very very busy, dirty, and not nice city where we were anyways. The hotel we booked was near the airport and was supposed to pick us up and they weren’t there.. soo we took a taxi and Chinese New Year was just ringing in so there were fireworks and all kinds of stuff. The taxi driver spoke decent English but wasn’t really that friendly. The hotel, was prettty sketchy.. haha. The room looked clean but just dingy.. but it was late so we went to sleep right away. Next morning, we picked a new hotel, and then went to explore “Intramuros” the original settlement of Manila, and a few parks surrounding the area. It was very eye opening, but nothing really was very interesting. We decided instead of taking a taxi to the MRT to take a Jeepney home, which took us a long time but was kinda cool to sit back and see Manila through a different window. A jeepney is sort of like a bus, you get on pay the driver, and then hop off where you wan. But it’s a monster jeep essentially with tons of seats in the back, with room for lots and lots of people to squeeze anywhere in between. After we finally made it back, we got some food and kinda hung out, and slept a lot again! Since there were still some Chinese New Years celebrations going on, there was a dragon dance going through the mall, lots of drumming, and what not. Pretty cool.
The next day we met up with a guy from couch surfing to head to Tagatay for a daytrip to Taal Volcano. I had done a lot of research on the best way to get there and was staying very close to where you would catch the bus to get to the city which was only 60km away from Manila.. but with Manila traffic and other exciting things ended up taking us about 4 hours one way! Not to mention the fact that we walked from “bus terminal” to ” bus terminal,” with a ton of people saying there were no buses going to that city… We didnt’ understand, it was really frustrating, seeing as we set out at 8am, and didn’t get on the actual correct bus until about 1030.. This trying to get on the right bus was the thing that made me think that people of Manila had no idea what they were talking about in their own city.. and many in their own industry.
There was definitely lots of visible poverty in Manila.. Many people begging for money, sleeping on the sidewalk, and barely clothed, very skinny, etc. It was pretty sad. Cost of things in Manila were as follows (pretty similar to those in Palawan)
Mall Food Court Meal: 90 P ($2.20)
Jeepney Ride 10P (.25c)
Hotel Room: 1600P (40$)
MRT (light rail) 15P (.30c)
Tuesday night, I met up with my friend who taught in Korea, Pauline, and Willy.. who knows all the Pohangers and are wonderful hosts when us waygooks come to the Philippines. Pauline had a car and picked me up from my hotel and took me to a nice area of Manila where we had some drinks and some Filipino food. I ate goat intestine.. which was rather similar to chicken liver. They wouldn’t tell me what I was eating, but eventually I guessed it. It was breaded and fried and dipped in vinegar and really not too bad at all. They had all kinds of tips for the trip for me and got to chat about some fun times in Korea!
Next morning we headed back to the airport for our flight to Puerto Princesa,
Palawan. Once we arrived our hotel was there waiting for us and off we
went to pick up our permits for the underground river. Tickets were booked out
almost a week in advanced! So glad we did that first. So a bit of mix up of
plans but after that we were so ready to see the beach and the ocean! Ooo and
some delicious crocodile for lunch! 
That night we went out with some of the people we met on the beach.. we won’t go into more detail because, it was just a strange one.. let’s say there were some gender confused ladies there.
The next day we got picked up in a 16 passenger van for our 6 hour journey to El Nido.. This van ran on Filipino time, we were late getting picked up, only to pick up about 10 more people to completely pack the entire van with all our luggage on the suitcase. When we got there, we did a little search to find a place and finally found a place with a larger room, off the beach.. Just minutes later two other guys came looking for a room, so we agreed to split it with them. Phew, we might have been beach bums otherwise and I’m pretty sure we all know how Bronson would feel about that! Once we put our stuff down, we got all settled and then headed out to check out the beach, find some food, and find other accommodation for the rest of the time in El Nido. We had no problem finding places for future nights. The next day we brought our stuff to our new Bungalow and headed to start our first Island Hopping Tour, El_Nido_Tour_C. On the boat, was Bronson and I and two girls who had just finished Physical Therapist jobs in Singapore but were from Ireland. They were cuties and totally fun to chat with.
The next day Bronson and I decided to try out some Kayaking. We had seen lots of places rented them and wanted to just do our own thing without being on a tour.. Wellll we picked an island that was a littttle far away and took way longer to get there then we thought. We stopped at one beach after about 30 minutes which was really beautiful and no one was there. Then we headed to the island that was far off, but didn’t look so far off… When we got there, we both fell asleep immediately. The waves and the current got really big and our arms were absolutely dead tired. After doing more research, from the people who had also stopped on the island with boats, turned out we had made it to the Small Lagoon! OMG, the guy that rented the kayak said people never really go there. A scuba diving boat asked us if we kayaked from El nido, and we said yeah, they just looked at us like are you insane?! Then offered us a ride back to Helicopter island, which was about half way back and past the big ocean currents coming in. Phew!! That could have been a long trip back otherwise. We stopped at one more private island on the way back that was really really beautiful and there was a family of monkeys hanging out!
The next day, Bronson was sunburned out of his mind, so we decided to hit up the beach and just chill for the day. Pack some snacks, some mangos, and beach it up. It was really pretty! We stayed the whole day and decided to watch the sunset, as I had read signs that said there was a sunset dinner so I figured since we were normally blocked in by the huge rocks for sunset, we should stay and check it out. What a wonderful choice. I’m spoiled with AZ sunsets, but this was something else! Absolutely perfect and so colorful.
The following day we hit up island hopping tour A, which had some of the lagoons, and great snorkeling, and this time even more company. I met a very interesting man, Nuno from Puerto Rico who is a travel photographer! He had lots of interesting life stories, could speak many languages, and in general a very cool guy. We also had a Chilean guy traveling alone, and a group of Russians.. Which one of them spoke decent English, the rest we just laughed together and had no idea what the other was saying. The lunches they would cook for us on these Island hopping tours were insane! So delicious, fresh fish, cucumber salad, mangos, pineapples, plantanes. Absolutely amazing, probably my favorite two meals of the whole trip.
After that we headed to Sabang the next day, we booked just a public bus
which wellll was interesting but so cool to see the island even more in depth
then the van ride up. The Bus stopped all the time, and had no air conditioning,
and part of the road is unpaved so very very dusty, cramped, and men crawling on
the roof to ride if there was no room in the bus. People would haul rice, and
all kinds of other huge boxes of stuff, the conductor would stand basically
outside of the bus the whole time, towns of people would watch and stare out the
window as we went through. The palm trees and just general sights of Palawan
were stunning.. Never seen landscaping quite like that before. And the skies
were SOO BLUE! Once we got off the bus, we headed to a jeepney, we had no idea
how long the ride would be.. But it turns out to be over an hour in a crowded
sweaty packed jeepney. Again, people were riding on the roof rice, and people
with their groceries.. It was so long, but we finallly made it! 
The next day we headed to the underground river! Soo so neat! Basically like the Gosu Caves which we have in Korea with all kinds of designs, and different formations, and colors, but a 80km river I believe going through it. So the boat man rowed us through and with a flash light guided us to see all the cool formations and there were sooo many bats, and we had to wear helmets to save us from the bat poo! Outside of the underground river ( ohhh which flows right in from the ocean) there were some cool reptiles and a few monkeys chillin. After that I went on a little hike and then it was raining so Bronson and I had a buffet lunch on the beach then chilled until we took the van back to Puerto Princesa later that afternoon to catch our flight the next day.
That night in PPS, we checked out a sweet reggae bar which had a live singer
who rocked it and had some really good food as always! Ohhh and mango drinks!
The following day was just a travel day, had to fly back to Manila, then to Kailbo, then take a bus from Kalibo to the boat dock, then take a ferry to Boracay. We got into Boracay around 10pm, got some food and then found our hotel and crashed early.
The first day in Boracay it was raining pretty bad, but eventually I just decided to tough it out and head to the store to stock up on snacks and then I went to the beach to lay out in the rain. I brought my frisbee along to see if I could find anyone to play with and tons of people wanted to play! So pretty much I played frisbee on the beach all day, with some naps in between. I got soo super sun burnt! That night we did the infamous Boracay PubCrawl. That was super fun, and we ended up meeting the people that stayed next to us in our bungalow from Canada and a lot of other fun people. There were so many Europeans in Boracay, many on long Holidays from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc, etc! They were beautiful beautiful people and spoke such good English. I was so impressed. Anyways that was a really good time!
The next day was pretty much the same thing! This time, at night we did unlimited drinks and unlimited ribs at a restaurant on the beach with our new pubcrawl friends. YUMMMERS. So good and so fun. After we ate we hit up the “Club”. The next day Bronson & I did another tour. This time was to Ariels Point, where we could snorkel, kayak, chill on the beach, and cliff dive! We met some fun Aussies, and Bronson & i both jumped off all of the cliffs. There was 5 meters, 8 meters, and 15 meters. Ooo and we met a Cirque de Solei acrobat. This girl had the most ridiculous body! She was absolutely ripped, and when she cliff dived she was soo incredibly graceful! It was awesome. She was in between tours and about to start a year long tour in South America. Again, this had an amazing lunch and drinks included. SO delicious, there was noodles, rice, fish, chicken, tons of fresh fruit, and snacks all day. I ate soo much but it was so worth it!
After that we got back and played some frisbee… which is where one of the Aussies broke my nose… with the frisbee. It did hurt when it happened but not terribly. We kept playing, I made a sandcastle with the cutest little half Filipino, half Canadian girl, then the sunset and we headed back to our place. As we were walking.. I bumped into Thai, my friend from Korea. Thai lives only an hour away from me in Korea, but I hardly ever see him.. I saw him in Las Vegas this summer, and Halloween. I knew he was going to the Philippines but didn’t realize it was the same time, and the same island.. Cannot believe we bumped into him! He was waiting on friends to get in so joined Bronson and I for some dinner and then we decided to PubcRawl again! The next day, I went back to the beach to just chill and enjoy the last little bit of beach time before the journey back.
Our flight was delayed in Kalibo and the whole trip i had wanted to try “Baluit”. Which is like half boiled duck embryo with a soup. Filipinos eat it as a normal day to day snack with salt and vinegar. I left the airport as the security was very easy to go in and out of and was asking around the airport if anyone was selling it.. and had no luck. I was just hanging out in one of the restaurants when all of a sudden a man came running up to me telling me a man on a bike was selling baluit.. I bought one but had no idea what I was doing and was trying to get the vendor to help me.. but he wasn’t really explaining it well. Another group of Filipinos came over to help me and took a bunch of pictures with me trying it. They thought I was very brave. The actual baluit wasn’t terrible.. The “soup” or like placenta fluids I guess were not very tasty.. you could kinda tell there was a living thing inside, but it kind of just looked like dirt.. but the rest tasted like a normal hard boiled egg. I’m very curious how they make that, how could it be soup at the top and hard boiled at the bottom, and how do they know when to make it.
MANGOS! Oh my goodness. I have never tasted a mango like them before! They were sooo so sweet, juicy and delicious. After the first part of the trip, I got smart and just started buying them on my own, the mango shakes and mangos with meals were not enough! I would buy about 2 pounds every four days! Peel the skin, and go at them! I was obsessed to say the least. I bought a good number of dried mangos, but that supply has somehow already diminished!
I flew out of Manila that same night, and was soo sad to go home. My flight landed at 5am and then hopped on the subway to take the bus. I didn’t really sleep super well on the flight, but for the most part was asleep. On the bus to Pohang, this guy wanted to talk to me in English and had switched seats to do so, but I just kinda told him I was really tired.
I feel like I say this on every trip i’ve been on… but Philippines was seriously one of a kind.. So unique and different to everywhere else I had been. There are so many beautiful, kind, and helpful people. People went way out of their way to help you. Manila was pretty dang dirty, and had lots of poverty. I wouldn’t have felt very comfortable there by myself. All the other islands I felt completely safe.
Boracay was about double the price of everywhere else, but still that didn’t make things very expensive at all. It just made the rest of the trip sooo so cheap, and I could have done things on an even smaller budget! Such a cool experience and I definitely want to go back and see even more of the islands and parts of the islands. I would highly recommend a trip there if you have the chance!
So sorry for the slow slow update! It’s been busy and I had my bestest friend
living with me for a week on my computer all the time and keeping me occupied!
I’ll try and post again soon with an update of things happening in Korea!
<3
Nicole
El Nido Sunset <3
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