Discovering El Nido

Ok, so we finally made the trip. I am talking about our best vacation destination yet to date.

..the 7th Commando Beach, last island stop for Tour A..

Labelled as “The Last Frontier,” El Nido serves as the gateway to Bacuit Bay’s immaculately pristine white sand beaches, crystal clear blue waters, and majestic limestone cliffs. It is that breathtaking, that National Geographic Traveler’s magazine has named El Nido as one of the top tourist destinations in the world. Now that we think about it, it was because of foreigners knowing more about the  beautiful spots of our country which prompted us to take active steps to rectify this.

Now too much has been written of El Nido and its beauty, and as such, we will try and make this post as informative as possible, from the vantage point of the traveler who has learned the lessons the hard way.

Boracay vs El Nido

Equally famous for its long stretch of white sand beach, Boracay is a destination I would choose for someone out to enjoy the nightlife and party scene. Don’t get me wrong, El Nido also has its share of night life, albeit with a more relaxed and laid back tempo to it.

Arriving during our first night in El Nido, even after the long 6 hour van trip, we still had enough energy to check out the night scene along the beach front. Nothing like the feeling of ice-cold beer on your hands, lounging about in the beachfront on giant bean bags, while marvelling at the clear blue sky.

Having also gone on island hopping trips when we were in Boracay, the island destinations in El Nido are just a different class in themselves. The beaches are more pristine, the corals more preserved, and you just get an overwhelming overdose of nature, if that is your trip.

Not taking away from Boracay, as it has its own allure, but you have to see El Nido for yourself to be able to appreciate it better. Just saying that if I were travelling on a tight budget and were to choose between the two destinations, between Boracay and El Nido, it will be the latter, hands down. But hey, that’s just me. If you have the funds and the time, go check those two destinations out, and I’d be pretty confident that you’d agree with me.

Travel and Accommodation

Our El Nido journey started off with a plane trip via Cebu Pacific from Cebu to Puerto Princesa, Palawan. At the moment, theres is only one trip on the said airline serving that route. I do know that Philippine Airlines (PAL) also serves the same route, but as to how many trips they have, I don’t know.

After having lunch in Puerto, we then headed for El Nido on a van. Airport tricycles can take you to the van terminals for PhP40. We paid PhP700 for the van trip, which later we learned from students, is the tourist rate, as the common vans only charge PhP500 for the same trip. Therefore, Lesson Learned #1, ask the tricycle driver to take you to the “regular” van terminals, and not to the “tourist” terminals, and save yourself the 200 bucks.

For accommodations, there are a lot of affordable accommodations to choose from. However, I suggest that you book your accommodations beforehand prior to making the trip. We booked ours through Agoda.com, and got an airconditioned room at Lolo Oyong’s Pension House, a 5-minute walk away from the beach, for around PhP1400. The room was worth the price, and came with free breakfast, which was actually quite good. However, we made a tour around the place, and discovered that airconditioned rooms are available on inns right along the main Rizal Street, for as low as PhP1000 per day, and non-airconditioned rooms (electric fan) for PhP700. Those inn rooms are just as bare as they come, with basic amenities of a queen sized bed, private toilet and bath, and not much else. But hey, you did not come all the way out here for the room, right?

Activities in El Nido

Now this I consider to be really good insider information: electricity in El Nido only runs from 2PM to 6AM. This shouldn’t matter too much if you spent your days on island hopping tours. However, for those planning to take things a bit easy and take time off in between tours, be prepared to deal with the daytime heat. You can choose from 4 island hopping tours, with tours A and C being recommended as those not to be missed. As for us, we were only able to go on tours A, B, and C, all of which assaulted our senses and made us literally go “WoW.” We actually felt really proud to have been able to experience this unique Philippine vacation destination.

..map of El Nido island tours..

Another observation we made, was the detail with which the tour guide and boat captain on the tours to prepare our lunch. For our combined A and C tour on Day 1, we had lunch on the amazing Matinloc Island, where the Matinloc Shrine was built in 1982, in honor of Our Lady of Matinloc.

 

Lesson Learned #2: In retrospect, now that we have been already all the wiser from our escapade, if we were to do it all over again, we would skip island hopping in Puerto Princesa, and only go for the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park tour, or better known as the Underground River. The reason being, there won’t be anything you will be missing if you skip the island hopping tour in Puerto Princesa, that you won’t be experiencing in El Nido, raised to the nth level. So for those of you planning to just go to Puerto Princesa, heck you are already there, might as well go to El Nido, it only takes an additional 10 hours land travel back and forth with not much difference in accommodation prices (if you do your assignment and book ahead), but the rewards will be so worth it. Trust us!

Lesson Learned #3: If you are into snorkelling and intend to maximize your El Nido experience getting acquainted with the marine scenery (which we strongly recommend), we suggest you bring along your own mask/snorkel set and fins as those cost PhP100 each, and therefore save yourself the PhP200/day for each day you go on tour. And bring lots, and I mean lots, of sunscreen.

Lesson Learned #4: If you intend to get a diving license when you go on your El Nido trip, if you can spare the time, we suggest you make a short sidetrip somewhere else like Dumaguete City in Negros Island and nearby APO Island, where the cost of the same license is cheaper by half, and your diving experience won’t be shortchanged with the reduced price. Open Water diving license in El Nido costs around PhP25k for the whole 3-4 day package, while the same can be had in Dumaguete/APO Island for as low as PhP10-12k per pax for a minimum of 4 persons per course. If any of you are interested, get in touch with us through comments and we will hook you up. That being said, we are seriously planning on getting our own open water license before the year ends (fingers crossed).

Below are some of the photos we took of our El Nido experience.

..the big lagoon, one of the destinations of Tour A..

..a view of the Bacuit bay..

..perfect spot for snorkelling afficionados at the small lagoon..

..wait, did I already say snorkelling fun? :)

..a view of Snake Island, one of the island destinations on Tour B..

..a view of the Cathedral Cave, another one of the destinations of Tour B..

..a closer look at Cathedral Cave..

..our lunch spot for our Tour B island hopping experience, at Pinagbuyutan Island..

..the magnificent Pinagbuyutan Island..

..another snapshot while in Pinagbuyutan Island, while waiting for lunch to be prepared..

..our last island stop for Tour B, Lagen Island..

..now wouldn’t this be a fitting reward for yourself for all the pressures and hassles you put up with at the workplace? :)

Don’t take our word for it, go out and experience it for yourself. We know we will definitily be coming back here, hopefully already with our diving license and get to know El Nido on a deeper level. :-)

We hope this has been informative and entertaining for you. For anything else, feel free to get in touch by dropping us a comment.

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Warning: Handler in Training

Behind every good dog is a responsible owner

- Anonymous -

Starting last week, Borski and I enrolled in a local dog obedience class here. So far it has been an enjoyable experience, and we are looking forward to having our very own Furbo certified in BH, which is short for Begleithund, a requisite obedience and temperament test before the dog may move on to a Schutzhund title. I know it sounds too lofty of a goal at the moment, but hey, that’s a good way to start right? And I know Borski, Furbo and I can do it.

Exciting times ahead. Indeed. :)

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Halloween Costume Galore

How fast time flies indeed. We are now in the middle of November, and before you know it, 2012 will have passed and made way for 2013. With the more pressing issue of Hurricane Sandy hitting hitting the New York area, most in that part of the USA were no longer able to enjoy the holiday tradition that is Halloween. I did have a couple of new friends from Hawaii, of whom I know who went to their Halloween party dressed as wolves. Keeping up with the Twilight theme I guess? This isn’t so common for us here in this part of the world.

Meanwhile, having exchanged a couple of emails from a cousin of mine in Texas, she told me she went as an equestrienne, in a tailored sportsman costume. I wonder what she’s gonna do with the outfit now that Halloween is over, and she doesn’t even have a horse. Hahaha.

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The Dawn is Breaking

Just 2 more days, and we’ll finally conclude the movie adaptation of the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series of novels. My brother Andrew has gone on the whole week about us watching the movie when it opens.

I did challenge him to read the novels first before watching the last installment movie, as he would have a better appreciation of the movie. But I guess he isn’t one to read such. I am thinking of reading up again before watching the movie.

I have to finish up on my well control course first though. :)

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Workout for our GSD

Ok, so now that things have normalized a bit for our schedule after our Shih Tzu Hershey had given birth to 4 puppies (2 males and 2 females), we had gotten back to our regular weekend training schedule in our local park. We were amazed that our group had now grown a lot bigger since the last time we attended, and our dog’s littermate Finn (but now renamed to Lion by the new owner) was now part of the group.

What was more amazing was that he had already progressed so much with him, and he was already fetching a ball on the park grounds. The ball he had wasn’t a tennis ball, which is not also recommended since the connecting material holding the ball pieces together is harmful to the tooth enamel of the dog. What he had was like a rather large jackstone solid rubber ball, about 3 inches in diameter. When we asked him where he bought it, he had forgotten, but had promised that if ever he finds one again, he will buy one for us too.

Immediately that afternoon, we headed to the local mall to find custom beach balls and were hoping we would also get lucky to find the same ball, but alas we were not lucky enough to find one, even as we went through all the toy stores.

I guess we’ll have to find it online again. :)

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Our Music Idol

For anyone who has tried the smorgasbord dining experience at Dad’s Restaurant at SM Megamall, I am sure you couldn’t have missed the local rondalya band going around serenading people as they partake of the sumptuous feast.

Just last year, a couple of us guys from work decided to celebrate our passing of our Well Control course with just that, food tripping at Dad’s. And when the time came for the band to go to our table, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have our officemate Jun (who incidentally is on the large side) belt out one of his trademark Martin Nievera songs, with my mobile phone serving as a great little recorder.

How did he do? Well, suffice to say, the band asked him if he wanted to go around with them serenading the other patrons. I’m pretty sure they were thinking they were gonna get better tips with him around – the singing teddy bear. LoL.

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First Online Shopping Experience

Our first online shopping experience, which gave me fits of anxiousness after having paid for the merchandise, has been a success! Just 2 weeks ago, Borski and I headed to the local post office, and claimed our parcel, which arrived straight from Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Prior to completing the sale, I had been lurking at the merchant’s website for a couple of months, similar to window shopping in a conventional setting. Honestly, the final decision to complete the sale was more on impulse rather than a logical, thought out process. And only after having received the confirmation of the transaction was I able to step back and ask myself, “Did that just really happen?” LoL. This coupled with the anxiousness and uncertainty, asking myself what if I had just been scammed? The internet is full of low-life scammers after all.

When we got the notice from the post office, therefore, you can only imagine the relief! Perhaps, my cousin did have a point when she warned me that I shouldn’t be worried of that first transaction, rather on being addicted to online shopping.

Now I need to blog more. Haha.

Here is a picture of our first online shopping merchandise.

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Being technosavvy

Earlier this week, a work colleague of mine approached me asking help on his laptop as he was complaining that after it froze up on him, and when he rebooted it, it would stay on the start up screen with the “busy” working bar, saying that it was checking the startup files and would repair any problems that it would find. Well, sad to say, he waited for it to complete the supposed “diagnostic tool”  for 1 whole day, with no positive results. I thing it froze once more trying to rectify the error.

And how useful was I? Well, I told him what I always did with my antique laptop. I saved my files on an external HD, and on the first sign of OS trouble, I would immediately reformat my laptop, and viola! Fresh install once more, with bundled 3 months of free online virus scanner.

For his technological skills, I’d say, easier said than done. But hey, we can always learn, right? I got well versed at it, from repeatedly doing it. So far, my trusted laptop hasn’t let me down yet. LoL! *fingers crossed*

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