El Nido

22 to 24 May 2016

Arriving at Greenview Resort, Corong Corong ...

I like places that greets you with a beer for a welcome drink :P

Our simple cottage ...

Around El Nido town - Art Cafe and others...

Corong Corong beach to El Nido Town, takes about 5 mins and cost 50 pesos on a tricycle (the only form of transport). El Nido town has usual tourist amenidites expected of all popular tourist spots. The narrow streets are lined with hotels, hostel room for rent, island hopping tour operators, cafes, restaurant ... from italian, french to american burger joints to local lechon grills....etc. It kind of remind me of ubud in Bali.


Art Cafe gives me the similar feeling of walking in FCC (Foreign Correspondent Club) in Cambodia. Transcending from the dusty road to a up-scalish cafe/restaurant, it always give me a sense of "unreal pretentious" when looking out at "reality" on the streets below. Having said that, Art Cafe was a lot more then ambience as we total loved the service and food here. We ate here for 2 meals out of our 2 nights stay in el nido.

Our favourite dish ... Kinilaw, the filippino version of ceviche

No country is complete without a craft beer brewery ...

craft comes at a price, costing P250 compared to the P60 San Miguel (P60 is already a markup in restaurant, not the street price)

Frozen shakes for a hot day ... Mango and Guyabano(probably soursop?)

Dinner at Greenviews

Back to Greenviews Resort for BBQ dinner by the beach

Breakfast with a VIEW at Greenviews Resort

One of our favourite spots is the cafe on the 2nd floor of greenviews resort.
While mango pancakes have always been a winner in philippines, I acquired a liking of the traditional breakfast set of Danggit (Sun-dried rabbitfish) and rice for breakfast.

Around Corong Corong Beach ...

Reading how El-Nido has turned quite commercialised in the last few years, I was looking for a quieter spot and settled on Corong Corong beach. While not exactly remote, we were happy to be staying here compared to town proper.

The quiet morning scene before the beach turns up its island hopping engine.



Every evening as the tide retreats, it leaves a flat beach with small pools filled with juvenile fishes, mantis shrimps, starfishes hiding among the seagrass.

Island Hopping ... Simple as A,B,C or D

In El Nido, the island hopping routes are stipulated by the government.

It is SIMPLE as every operators has Tour A, B, C, D which runs the same destinations.

It is COMPLICATED when you are only going to do 1 tour and trying to find out more info to decide which tour!

Try asking around and you get the standard recommendations which goes like ..ahh ... Tour A good for beaches, Tour B good for snorkelling and Tour C good scenic sights. BUT what are we talking about ? This is El Nido,Palawan, which even from where I am standing is a scenic spot with great beach and snorkelling ... so what exactly is the different in tour A,B,C,D ? In the end we settled for tour C. OK, Let's just go there and see what they meant ...

Ready for Island Hopping Tour C !

First Stop SECRET BEACH ...

Half the fun is getting in ... see the vids to know what i mean

Hidden Beach

Star Island

Satisfying Lunch at Star Island.

While we were snorkelling and looking for hidden beaches ... the crew was setting up a charcoal grill and bbq our lunch on board.

More Island Hopping - Matinloc Island

The shrine sits on a private island. "Mini rock climbing" at Matinloc island to get a 360 bird's eye view of the cove.

Spiderman skills required to get a perfect picture ...

To become a good island hopper guide, you need to be a strong swimmer, good climber, pilot the boat, good bbq skills and most importantly know how to compose selfies ... :P

The Gold beneath the Shrine

In all seriousness, we were told that there is 1 trillion (not sure what currency) corporate bonds left by the anscestors of the island prior to the world wars underneath the Shrine. It is still there.

Hidden Beach

Final Verdict ... as the tour draws to an end

We are usually very skeptical about "CANNED" tour. In fact it took Sock several rounds of "deliberations" before been willing to go on one. At the end of it, we would say that we are willing to endorse that it was really enjoyable and a must-do activity here.

Goodbye El Nido ... it has been fun

2 nights in El Nido has whizzed by again. For the return flight, instead of the usual 6-8 hr van ride from El Nido to Puerto Princesa Airport, I chose to fly out from El Nido Airport via AirSwift. A slightly more expensive option but worth the savings in travel time.

Airport Transfer

The resort van was not available. We had to figure out our own transport to the airport.
Guess what? Jodie our island hopping guide also drive a tricycle and ended up as our airport transfer. While we were very unsure how to fit all the luggages into 1 tricycle, it has now been proven that we could squeeze 2 x 25" luggages, 2 cabin-size bags and ourselves into 1 ride. Having said that I could tell that we were basically overloading the tricycle as you can heard the engine at full rev all the time when going up hill. Good thing Jodie was very experienced and careful driver. Highly recommended

Arriving at the El Nido Airport, check-in with a difference ...

Baggage "scanned and secured" after check-in

Hold on to your boarding passes, I am sure eTickets are not accepted here ... lol

ITI (a.k.a Airswift) airport lounge comes complete with coffee and great tasting tapioca snacks. As usual, the flight was delayed for an hour which gave us more time to tuck-in more snacks.

The Singing Airport Send-off Party ...

Cleared for take-off ...

Palawan from above

A Sense of Density ... Manila from above

The Flight Home ... MNL-SIN

At NAIA, we made the terminal transfer from T4 to T1 without much events. We originally had 4 hours transit but due to the domestic flight delay, we barely had time to grab a quick dinner and storm through the DFS shops in 10 mins to grab last minute shopping before we caught our flight home ...

... END ...