One of the highlights of going back home last December, along with my grandmother’s 95th birthday celebration, was the trip Geoff and I took to El Nido.
Aerial view of Manila and woohoo approaching Palawan. So grateful for my sister-in-law Karen who organized the trip. Due to a family emergency, the rest of the family unfortunately couldn’t make it. AirSwift, the airline we took uses NAIA terminal 4. It was about an hour and a half to get to El Nido and we landed at Lio Airport Terminal.
Our first day was walking around the city and stuffing ourselves. We ate at a restaurant called Chef Mark Style and had pizza. You don’t know how much I missed Hawaiian style pizza and that means it has pineapples. Sorry I’m not sorry, Italians. Geoff had a Red Horse beer and look I got a refreshing calamansi juice. Calamansi is basically the Southeast Asian lemon and lime hybrid.
Evening hit and we got happy hour cocktails at a resto bar called Sava. They offered flavoured shisha but we were too cheap to buy that. You get a view of the sea with kids playing on this half-sunken boat. There was a lovely band playing and we were the only supportive ones clapping at every end of the song. The rest were party-poopers engrossed in their state of emergency conversations whom couldn’t be bothered to clap.
December means festive lights everywhere!
This was the view from the top deck of our hostel. Fantastic view of better hotels aside with fancier pools. But you know what? Money saved is money earned, right?
Seatours Pala-wan Travel & Tours was what was booked for us. The Php 1,200 price excluded the mandatory environmental fee, and the optional: kayak fee, snorkel and aqua shoes.
It was a beautiful day to go island hopping. What luck we had to see a rainbow. At some of the islands you would encounter manongs in their small boats turned mini-stores selling coconut juice, sodas and even chips.
A little photo op during a stop to snorkel for half an hour (If I remember correctly) but my oh my were the waves strong and I got dizzy easily so after ten minutes I went back to the boat.
Next island was where we had our lunch care of the island tour company. Do you see Mr. Crow on the tree? Cutie pie.
On to the last island where we stayed the longest. I’m so happy to just lay on the sand on my belly as the waves hit me -pure serenity. Our boat was the first there so for a moment we had it to ourselves.
Geoff was sweet enough to get me a Filipino street food called kwek kwek which is hard-boiled quail eggs or normal egg (this was it in this case) coated in an orange batter and deep-fried to crispiness. It’s typically paired with a vinegar sauce that has spices, garlic, chili and onion. Best street food ever along with another fave of mine: kikiam. Et voila! Island hopping over, commence more eating.
The following day we ate a restaurant called Chika Chika which is close to our hostel. Geoff had one of his favourite Filipino dishes: Sisig which is dish that are chopped pieces of a pig’s face, liver and belly which is fried. Chili, onion and calamansi is added to the mix. Once it’s sizzling, an egg and is added and some mayo. If Geoff was not French, he would not love this but he does!
I’m a simple Filipino, I see tocilog on the menu and I will order it. A silog meal, means sinangag (fried rice) plus itlog (egg). If you think we would be content eating only that, no! There has to be meat so you have a variety of silogs like tapsilog (cured beef + fried rice + egg), longsilog (longganisa + fried + rice + egg and what I ordered here: tocilog (sweet cured pork + fried rice + egg).
One of the last places we had a drink was at this restaurant called Osaka Castle. I had ginger tea because I got sick and Geoff had a Red Horse beer as per usual. I would have wanted to eat their variety of Japanese food (we already ate somewhere else) that looked sooo sooo good but you know what, there’s a next time. There was a singer and his guitarist playing pop music that night and oh my god he was so funny. There was a guy celebrating his birthday and he addressed everyone to say, ‘If you don’t sing along, you will be facing bad luck of looking like me.’ Then everyone present started to sing a long confirming everyone feared the same thing.
What else could we have asked for in a trip? The best of nature, all my favourite things to eat, a generous portion of Filipino positivity and humor, I wish I was there every month!