100 days in Southeast Asia | Part 8 | Philippines: El Nido

El Nido

What a cute town. We spent 4 nights there and I believe it is enough so there’s not much rush…

It is super touristy actually, but you can also escape the crowd if you have time! It is also the most expensive place compared to the other islands we had been.

Tandikan - our room/balcony view

We stayed 1 night in town at this place called Marikit Pension ($15aud) which was all right and relatively cheap and the next day we moved to Tandikan Beach Cottages ($25aud) which is beachfront and just great! Loved the view, so we had to move. haha
Both of them had wifi and hot shower. 
Still sometimes the town runs out of power but it doesn’t last very long, at least it didn’t while we were there.
  
During our time there we went 2x to see the sunset at the Republica Sunset Bar, haha I know… it is really beautiful tho. But the second time was actually to meet up with an old teacher of mine that was there at the same time, coincidentally!! 
 The view is amazing , but the prices are not the best… they had no happy hour :(
Oh! and arrive at least 30min before sunset since it gets pretty packed and then you won't get a pole position spot to watch the sunset lol  

We also went to the boat tour A which was lovely, one of the must do while in el Nido I guess, specially if you enjoy swimming, snorkeling and nature. 
Big Lagoon
We had a blast. We were thinking about going to boat tour C as well, but ended up not going since it was adding up $ and we still had Coron to visit and possibly do a boat tour too…

We went to the ArtCafe restaurant one of the nights and had a delicious pizza (not cheap tho) and way too westerny for my like. 

Las Cabanas
Tried many other restaurants on the beach, which were much better, cheaper and some with live music! They make the fish on the bbq and it is so YUM..
Yes, I am a vegetarian but I do eat fish sometimes.
Reggae Bar was a bit disappointing, we went there for dessert and live music and it took them literally 1h to bring out our dessert!!  
   
One afternoon we decided to head to Las Cabanas Beach and enjoy, relax and watch the sunset following a delicious dinner and it was one of the best days! 
The bars/restaurants have these chairs that you can lay down if you purchase something from their place and we ended up spending waaaay too long there haha Too many red horses that we ended up leaving the beach using torches to see the path since it was pitch dark, almost 10pm... 
  
Nacpan
We also rented a motorbike and went to Duli beach and Nacpan beach which was amazing! Duli beach was lovely without tourists, beautiful and peaceful, where you can rent surfboards and have surf classes with this really nice dude that lives and works there!! Total hidden gem!

Nacpan was so difficult to get to, since it had been raining a bit and the 5km dirt road was full of puddles and mud, but we made it at the end full of mud but we did it hahaha But we enjoyed way more Duli than Nacpan beach.

So we took the motorbike in the morning and the plan was to visit Nacpan first and ten Duli and so on, following the road… 
However, the turn to Nacpan is actually quite tricky to find, since it has no signs or anything haha We went passed it 2x and we missed it! 

It is actually how we ended up at Duli beach first! Which worked out very well in the end, since we found it way nicer and quieter than Nacpan. A different vibe I guess.
 

Duli
Funny thing, we met other 4 people in the same situation in Duli beach hahah all lost trying to find Nacpan first lol

We spent most of the day at Duli, had lunch and drinks there and the fact that we were all lost brought us together too haha. 
And when heading back to town we stopped and spent an hour in Nacpan.

Some people rent a motorbike for 1 or 2 days also so they can do the loop and stay in some of the beaches up there near Duli.

We met a Dutch guy that was going to camp in Duli beach and it sounded just perfect! The local guy that has the surf lessons and provides food, was also going to organize the tent for him to sleep there! Pretty awesome.

Unfortunately we had to return the bike at night, otherwise we would've done it. Again missing out on stuff because we didn't research ha!

Then we took the ferry which by the way leaves quite early in the morning.. 6 or so.. It was still dark when we were heading to the pier.
Again, we took the fast ferry, I can’t even remember if there is another option there to be honest. 
But anyway, freezing aircon!! Gosh… but I slept basically all the way there haha… 

It takes about 4-5hours the trip to Coron. 
And it is not cheap this ferry. About $40aud if I remember well. 
But I really wanted to visit Coron since we were already so close.

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