Woke up early to try and catch the 9:20 ferry to Cebu, shared a minivan to the port with some others from the hostel. Arrived at the port and there were so many huge and slow queues that we missed that ferry and the next one was 11:40 so we napped in the waiting room.

Got the ferry, then walked an hour to the bus terminal, got some odd local food and then a bus up to Maya port (bus took almost 5 hours!) then got the night ferry (local style boat that gets punted through the shallows), because of the bad weather it took about half an hour to get out of the bay.

Then it was really rough and wet getting to the island, it was around 11pm when we moored up, all the men on the boat tried to pull us in further, but the boat was really quite large so wasn’t going to get any closer, so in thigh high waters we waded with our backpacks on to the shore. Then someone asked where we were trying to get to, we said “Villa Sandra”, a place that was recommended to me. He was the cousin of the guy that owned it so lead us there. The island is beautiful and tiny, it takes a couple of hours to walk the entire circumference of beautiful beaches and a couple of cliffs.

This Villa Sandra place is an amazingly chilled rasta hostel. Sooooo chilled! The owner is an amazingly nice little local chap with dreads and a chin bearded that spent most of his time playing a wooden flute and lived in a treehouse in the garden, surrounded by hammocks and a few tents, in case the rooms fill up. All the people that worked there are good mates and everyone was so nice, thoughtful and chilled. Thankfully they had space for the two of us for the night because of two no shows. I slept so well!

We woke up at around 4:30 in Coco farm to get our 6am tour start.

We managed to catch a bike in and get there just in time. We got a boat out to see the dolphins jumping about not long after sunrise, our boat was intensely loud! The dolphins were cool though, I’ve never seen dolphins before. There were quite a lot of them! We didn’t manage to get very close to them, but they were fun to watch nonetheless.

Then we sailed on to an island that contained a fish sanctuary. When we arrived we had to wait for about an hour to get a smaller boat from our boat to the shore, then when we did land we had to wait quite a while for another boat out to the sanctuary, but we didn’t really know what was going on, so we were just enjoying ourselves and chatting to the other people from our boat.

We then got out to the sanctuary and got snorkelling about there were sooooooo many fish, of all sorts of amazing colours, shapes and sizes, you often found yourselves swimming through a school of fish. Unfortunately a lot of the corals were destroyed by people walking on them, but the cliff edges were amazing!! And so beautiful to swim down to closer check out particularly interesting fish. I heard a local calling out something that I couldn’t quite understand to start off with until I worked out he was called out “Turtle!” To which I located Amy to inform her and we along with about 10 other paddlers swam out into the open water in that direction. And there it was! A beautiful turtle serenely gliding through the water! We all swam towards it staying at the surface, I saw one girl swim in closer to get a better look, but she couldn’t get very close, so I thought I’d have a go and I got down right next to it and swam right alongside it for a bit, oh my it was so lovely! I was so close that I could have stroked it. I chose not to and I popped back up before I started to run out of breath, but it really was such a special moment. Definitely a highlight of my entire trip. After some more snorkeling I noticed in the distance that everyone else was back on the boat, so I swam back and when I got on, everyone was quite shocked at the blood pouring down my face: i’d dived so deep and hadn’t released the pressure in my mask that the blood vessels in my nose had burst, so I had my first ever nose bleed! 😀

After snorkeling we went off to a serene little island and enjoyed the intense sun, followed by intense rain… followed by intense sun again.

We spent the rest of the daylight hours lazing on the beach, freshening up, and then I put up my hammock in a palm tree that was almost horizontal, napped for about an hour as Amy explored and did her updates.

In the evening we met back up with the couples we did the tour, we watched a great fire show, in which Amy was used as an assistant and had some chap doing fire poi tricks just inches from her face! Exciting! We then went off to dinner and I enjoyed an amazing sizzling seafood platter, while a musician was playing acoustic covers of great classic rock, punk and grunge tunes, just to my taste.

We then started to walk back to Coco farm, and about an hour into our walk we realised that it was actually far too far away! And persuaded by a large number of very loud dogs, we turned back to try and find someone who’d give us a lift to our hostel.

When I got back to my dorm I fell asleep as soon as I touched the bed, still fully clothed 😛

A great day!

We woke up early moved our luggage to our new hostel “Coco farm”, which was much much nicer, we each stayed in dorms, it had atomosphere and character. It was in a small wood and the buildings where all raised, thatched huts with wooden floors and weaved bamboo walls.

We then went straight from there back into town to on the back of a bike to catch our day tour of Bohol which included many different things:

1. The Coco hills: really unusual hill formations caused by coral formations eroding away.
2. Tarsier sanctuary: tiny little nocturnal monkeys with the largest eyes, but entirely around the size of my fist. They were really cute, but very very tired. Apparently if you touch them, they get so traumatised that they kill themselves O.o
3. We held a huuuuuuge white and orange Python, it had some record for being the biggest Python. It was really interesting to feel: it’s skill and bones were really quite separate and it was very strong as it moved about.
4. We went on a huuuuuge and amazing zip wire!! It was sooooo cool! I really enjoyed that! The views on it were amazing! It was also two zip wires, the first one was two together so I raced Amy down, although she had a very large headstart, I managed to overtake her by the end, and when you got to the end, it very much looked as if you were going to hit the wall as it decelerated very very suddenly and very last moment, but that part was rather exhilarating both times. That was fun 🙂
5. We had a really lovely river cruise buffet where we sat around, lazed down a really beautiful river eating loads of really nice local foods listening to the onboard band play some songs. After eating we went and stood on the bow of the boat and enjoyed the scenery going past. The river looked so nice to kayak down, unfortunately we later found out that there was nowhere to hire kayaks from and just explore, but oh well.
6. Saw some local monuments.
7. Walked across one of the beautiful rivers on a very suspect bamboo bridge and drank a fresh coconut on the other side.
8. We went to a butterfly reserve and saw and played with lots of really beautiful butterfly.

When we arrived back in Panglao we shared a lovely pizza on the beach as we listened to a local band play and the waves splashing in.

We then tried some of the local rum Tandau (it’s literally everywhere and it’s often the only liquor you can buy, it’s P50 for a 0.5L botal, it’s less than a class of a soft drink at a lot of places.

We then went and swam in the sea, partially overcoming a phobia of mine (swimming in the sea at night). It turns out that Amy severely overestimates her swimming and mushroom floating ability 😛

We woke up very early to catch the 8:20 plane to Bohol. We almost missed it as I popped off to go to the loo as everyone was queuing and the que wasn’t going anywhere, Amy was napping, I came back and the que was gone and Amy thought that we were the next flight, I went and checked and we were that flight, we then ran to catch the plane. When we got on we found out some of the joys of flying with Cebu Pacific Airways: the only flight company I have flown with that the cabin crew play games with the guests! They did some rounds of guess the song from the lyrics, where the first person to put their hand up and answer correctly won a Cebu Pecific Airways bag! You don’t get that sort of in flight entertainment with British Airways!

When we landed and got off we took a tricycle to Panglao. We paused and had some unusual fruit drinks (of which I can’t remember the names of the fruits, but they were most enjoyable) and decided what to do next (it was soooo hot!), we wondered to the beach to find somewhere to sta, the one I was recommended was full for the night, so we booked it for the next night and after much searching the only affordable option was a room in an interesting hostel: I had my camping mat so I slept on the floor and all was gravy; the place was pretty much falling apart, had no atmosphere or personality and we would have much preferred dorms, it wasn’t ideal, but it would suffice for one night.

We then went back to the tourist district and booked a couple of tour:

1. A night tour along a river to see some firefly.
2. A full day tour of lots of the main attractions of Bohol.

We then had a quick street food dinner of chicken on a stick and rice and then went on the firefly tour:

The firefly tour was actually really cool! We got a minivan out to the river on Bohol, then got into these big boats and sat around tables around the edge of this boat looking out at the lake and stars. When we got goingthe boats were really rather noisy, but the fireflys were amazing! There were a handful of hives of them in the trees dotted around the river, they pulsed with light and you could see the individual flys them all flying around as they pulsed, it was almost hypnotic, a few fireflys ventured into our boat and the stars were very clear and bright, it was a nice experience.

We then got back on the minivan, drove back to Bohol and walked along the beach back to our hostel, stopping for a brief moment to enjoy the stars and look out at the sea. The Philippines is a very beautiful place.

After the late night of Chinese New Year, we had a solid lie in until around 11am. Then we had some little rolls and peanut butter that counts as a “continental breakfast” here in the Philippines. Then we went out onto the balcony and organised the main structure for the time we shall share in the Philippines and bought some flight tickets.

Our plan:

1. Fly very early to Bohol
2. Stay in Pangloa for a few days, exploring the stuff that goes on there and around there and Bohol.
3. Take the ferry, coach and second ferry to Malapasqua in one day
4. Do our open water scuba diving qualification for 4-5 days
5. Fly back to Manila from Cebu
6. Take the night coach to northern Lazon
7. Do two days of tracking round the rice fields
8. Taking a night coach back to Manila
9. Fly our separate ways

We bought flight tickets and the like and then went off for a nice little meal at a recommended local Spanish place to kick off our travels, it was so lovely: we had shrimp, clamps, muscles and frogs legs, they were all delicious! It was the first time I’ve ever had clams or frogs legs, both I would definitely pick to have again. There was also a little mariachi band that played as we ate, it was a most enjoyable and relaxing meal.

We then went back to our dorms for an early night before the early flight tomorrow.

I spent most of the morning really quite drained as I got up and found some food to eat: I went to the market and got some fruit, to a backery and got some cakes and to a stall and got a burger (quite wanted some nuts, but the burger was cheaper, quite wanted a bacon sandwich but they were out of bacon).

List of foods consumed this morning:

• 4 bananas
• 1 mango
• 7 cookies
• 3 slices of cake
• 2 cupcakes
• 2 large donuts
• 1 burger

Total cost: about 1.75 pounds

I then had lunch with Nathan (chap from my dorm) on the beach in a restaurant:

• Noodle vegetable soup with an egg
• 1 drink

Total cost: about 1.75 pounds.

I felt pretty rubbish from eating quite so much delicious food, and not having eaten the day before, so I napped for an hour and had a shower. Then I felt much better. So much better that after the huge downpour I walked the trek to the airport (just over 1 hour up hill in 30 degrees, with my 13kg pack on my back), which saved me almost as much as the cost of all my day’s food so far 😛 I’m sure I looked pretty stupid walking all the way into the private airport dripping with sweat in my scruffy trekking gear as everyone else came in in their air conditioned vans all dressed up in their fassionable holiday clothes. I did get a number of questions and looks of humour from the security as I explained that yes I had walked from town.

Plane was 2.5 hours late, but in the end after landing I got out and walked around to terminal 3 arrivals where I met one Ms Amy Darters! 😀 We then travelled to the hostel I had booked, we tried to get to the railway station, taking a P7 jeepney, then walking through some very busy and rubbish littered markets to find that the station was closed. We then just grabbed an uber to the hostel.

After briefly sorting all of our things out, we decided to go to china town to see what new year activities were happening. We watched some dragon costume dancing stuff, ate lots of interesting foods that we’d never had before (some interesting dumpling noodle soup stuff, some omelet oniony ball things in different sauces (really rather tasty), come duck stuff and a pie type thing that was entirely made from really hard jelly stuff with very little to no flavour… We then watched the firework display, unfortunately because we were right underneath between high rise buildings, we couldn’t see all that much. But it was fun non the less. An enjoyable night.

My phone then ran out of battery, so we didn’t know how to get back and couldn’t remember where our hostel was, so we tried to buy a new cable to charge it up from Amy’s reserve battery thing, but the reserve battery thing had died. We also tried to find anywhere that had WiFi so we could use Amy’s phone, but nowhere was available. We did manage to get a taxi and after much umming and arrring we did arrive back at our hostel mainly by the fact that we recognised a few places. Then we went off to our dorms and to sleep.

El Nido, what can I say? It’s the coolest place I’ve been so far. It’s apparently the second most expensive place in the Philippines after Manlia, but if you have a keen eye you can find some pretty cheap accommodation (admittedly only a couple of places, and they aren’t the most pleasant of places) and cheap food (tip, look for where the locals eat).

But the whole town is in on the same 4 island hopping tours (A,B,C and D) all for the same price wherever you go. There are loads of diving shops too, but I’m saving my scuba for later in my stay in the Philippines. The locals are all really friendly, no one is pushy, it’s quite the boho town for people wanting to escape from Manila for somewhere more relaxed and beautiful.

It’s developing at quite a rate, and I expect that in 10 years that it’ll be almost all concrete tourist buildings for a couple of rows from the beach and the locals will be pushed even further out of time, the other beaches in the area will also get the same treatment. I’m sure even Napcan Beach will soon be populated with tourists at this peak time of year when the road to it is completely converted to concrete. But the beauty of nature that engulfs this is really breathtaking and if you stop and take a look around almost anywhere you will be quite taken back. The tours that go round really make the most of the incredible landscape.

Today is a practical day. With the flight back to Manila tomorrow and a pretty packed schedule from then on I took this morning to do all my washing and plan the rest of the stay in the Philippines. Creating my couchsurfing profile and that sort of thing. Then spent the afternoon and early evening in prayer, reading the Bible and spending time in God’s presence, love it, such a great way to spend a day. I’m also doing something I’ve never done before (holidays, perfect time for trying new things) I fasted for the day, eating nothing and only drinking water, never done that before, but I’ve actually found it really helpful for focusing on God as even when I was doing planning and doing my washing whenever I feel hungry it draws me straight back into prayer.

After hanging my clothes up to dry I went out to a secluded spot on the beach further down the coast from El Nido town (about a 45 min walk) and found a spot to put up my hammock. I read a solid portion of Numbers and prayed, covering myself with my towel and the edges of my hammock when as it rained and before I could get out my ukulele to sing some worship the tide started to come back in enough to almost maroon me on my patch of rocks, so I had to down hammock and head back to town.

Then I did more organising and went to sleep.

I found fasting although quite draining, I found it helpful to keep bringing me back to prayer throughout the day, because every time I felt hungry (which was often, especially when walking through town where everywhere sells delicious smelling food) I would be drawn back to prayer.

I did my second day of island hopping today! 😀

When we got to the tout, it turned out that there were only the 2 of us that had booked with him, so Nathan and I had accidentally managed to book ourselves a private tour, which is usually a lot more pesos, so that was good for us. But it turned out that it was costing him money but it was too late to move us to another boat. So many ways that the island hopping businesses could be run better to stop this from happening, but hey, they were making money on the other tour that they were doing and their bike hiring, so all is gravy 🙂

There were 5 island stops to this tour: 

Helicopter Island: so called because it looks a bit like the body of a helicopter, which is odd as apparently the locals haven’t seen a helicopter, as I found out when on the other tour: one of the guides got very excited when he saw two low flying propeller planes, the ones that land in water, and was calling them helicopters. Anyway, it has a lovely beach with loads of great coral reefs where we saw some clown fish as I tried out a little bit of free diving, only like 5 meters. Clown fish are very well represented in Finding Nemo, it must be said, they stay in one sort of blobily corral and they are very timid, they’ll very quickly swim back to cover, but they are tiny and adorable, especially the tiny tiny ones.

Secret Beach: so called because one side you have to go through a cave to get to it and the other side you have to go through weaving cliffs to find it. It was a nice beach, lots of spaces of good shade for me, but quick busy at that time. But it was very quiet as soon as you got to the beach.

Starfish island: so called because it is home to loads of starfish… I managed to see no starfish at all on that island though. But there were loads of different beaches, so maybe they were more prevalent on other islands. It’s on that island that we had our lunch, that was quite a lot of food for just the two of us, but I managed to consume every last scrap 🙂 

Secret Cove: A cove that you have to swim through a tunnel to get to, it’s a sweat little cove someone had written I *heart* El Nido in rocks and shells which was nice. It was surrounded by steep sheer cliffs of black limestone (as is most of El Nido and Buiscuit Bay), which is eroded by the weather into sharp points. 

I forget the other stop.

Unfortunately I have little to know photographs and footage because my phone and video camera arean’t waterproof.

The trip to Starfish Island was particularly rough as we went out towards the sea and the waves were 3 times that size of our little boat!

Despite my best efforts I managed to burn the backs of my knees, it must have been when snorkelling.

After the long boat ride back we went and had some chicken curry at a street stall. If you want any cheap food, look to see where the locals go, and street food will likely be cheaper than inside. On almost any street you can get chicken skewers for P10 (15p), always a good call. You can always spot the locals munching on these things.

One thing I have noticed is that the locals litter a lot, even on the remote islands. Whereas the tourists seem to be very good at not doing so.