Paradise ... Palawan

Magandang hapon (good afternoon).  Another simple webpage, again to illustrate one of the most beautiful places on Earth.  The place I am referring to is called the Bacuit Archipelago, on the northen tip of Palawan.  Palawan is said to be the "last wilderness" of the Philippines, and compared to the rest of the country is quite wild and undeveloped.  Rachel and I stayed for five nights in a town named El Nido, which has many barking dogs, many fighting chickens, many pork BBQ (and the yummy bannana-Q), but only has power part of the day.

More importantly, though, El Nido is the gateway to what has been called the "most beautiful seascape in the world."  For these five days we toured all around the islands on pumpboats (click for video), snorkelling (I wasn't healthy enough to dive), swimming, and sunning.  That is about it.  A very pleasurable mode of travel, though not overly cerebral.  Our lodging in El Nido, was a family guesthouse which charged eight dollars a night, and was nice because we could use the kitchen.

For about twelve dollars a day (per person including fins and lunch) we would go out on boats all day, visiting different islands and beaches, and various hidden lagoons and caves.
Self portrait.
click to enlarge

The snorkeling was good and we saw tons of fish, squid, and one seasnake that, for some reason, wanted to go straight at me till I freaked out and took off at full speed till I was at a safe distance.  I still don't know what he was thinking?  It was yellow and black striped and the boat driver said it is poisionous - again, I didn't want to end up like the crocodile guy.  Unfortunately the down side of the snorkeling was that quite alot of the coral was dead, due to both human (dynamite and cyanide fishing) as well as natural (a strong "El Nino" event in 1997 bleached lots of coral) reasons.

Before going to Palawan several people warned us about the dangers.  There have been two very high profile kidnappings there in recent years, particulary a giant one in 2001 where twenty people were kidnapped at Honda Bay and an American guy was beheaded.  Luckily we had much better luck, and the only problems were sunburn, loud fighting chickens, and some bedbugs in our mattress.

Click on photos to enlarge, then "back" to return

By definition, an archipelago is a cluster of islands.  The Bacuit Archipelago has dozens of limestone islands, with beautiful, white sand beaches.  In my opinion, this place blows away Ao Nang in Thailind, and Ha Long Bay in Vietnam (similar seascapes).
The water is crystal clear and the visibility seemingly infinite.  Here one of the boat boys is pushing us to get closer into a tight lagoon.
The gorgeous Commando Beach.  On the last day we tried to reach this beach again,  overland this time - we hiked, mostly bushwacking, for a solid hour, and twice I came across snakes.  When we came out to the water we were at the wrong place, a private beach.
This place is called Snake Island supposedly due to the snakelike shape of the sand bar that our boat is parked on.


Sun, a beautiful beach, and a sexy woman... what more could anyone need.  Perhaps a bannana-Q?
This is the beach on Snake Island.  You can see this boat in the fourth photo above.  This is what is called a "pumpboat" in the Philippines, but I never figured out why it has that name.
Water cannot get any clearer than this.
This photo doesn't really show it, but I have a really nice tan right now (click for video of me on boat).  At this beach the snorkeling was really spectacular, with a nice wall dropping off and huge schools of fish.

So, sorry if these photos are poorly timed.  It probably stings looking at these photos when you are in the gripps of February winter in the USA or Europe.  Sorry.  Just imagine it is you here if that helps.
love
Ed.