There is a reason Filipino cuisine never conquered the world. All major global cities and most minor have its assortment of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Vietnamese restaurants, maybe even a few Malaysian and Cambodian. You rarely hear of a Filipino restaurant – in fact, in all of New York City, only a single one springs to mind. Thus, in a period of six days spent in Manila, I ended up consuming more McDonalds than in 4 years in NYC. All of a sudden, biting into a Big Mac brought out happy memories of a childhood long before taste buds and stomach had evolved to steer me away from the Golden Arches.
Manila is not your typical tourist destination, but we enjoyed our time relaxing with Icelandic friends in preparation for the two weeks of island hopping adventures awaiting in Palawan in Western Philippines. At first we flew to Coron in the Northern region of Palawan. We met up with my Swedish friend Wictor, who was quick to make fun of our Western style dinner selections, while he proceeded to order local, authentic grilled chicken. Nine days later, after 24 hours of unintterruped vomiting and a night spent hugging our hostel toilet, Wictor was a defeated man and unable to even look at a grilled squid. His final Filippino meal was a pizza.
Luckily, in the days prior to his day of misfortune, Palawan had proven to be quite the place that made me this happy:
I won’t bore you with too much detail and instead let the pictures do the talking, but basically we flew into Coron, think Mordor meats Neverland, where we spent three or four days renting small bangkas (boats) and driving around stunning lagoons and snorkeling areas. Besides a minor mishap when somehow the misconstructed Filipino boat I was paddling together with Oskar Fulvio decided to take in water and sink, and Oskar Fulvio had to be paddled to safety by the local park guard, things were pretty great.
Next we were heading to El Nido, the tourist hub of the region, but instead of jumping on the 8 hour straight boat ride, we booked an island hopping tour that stopped at beaches and snorkeling areas in between and halted for 3 nights at a tented paradise resort on the island of Ginto, which we used as base for further island exploration. This area between the more popular Coron and El Nido was fantastic and completely void of other tourists. It is also known to have some of the clearest water in the world and we experienced some fantastic snorkeling.
Finally, we reached El Nido…the place that 5 years ago was what Thailand was 25 years ago. Surrounded by an archipelago of breathtaking islands with dramatic cliffs and (not so) hidden lagoons. So more island hopping on the agenda obviously. No longer a secret from the tourist masses, we had to be a little clever and I think we did quite well in avoiding the packs of orange life vests carrying lagoon clogging Asian tourists.
After almost a whole month in the Philippines, we had to say goodbye to Southeast Asia and the third world as we were moving onwards to Australia. No more island hopping adventures, no more meals under $5 and no more locals with random t-shirts carrying important messages such as “Voted most likely to wear this shirt” or “I´m the loud one.” Palawan was an absolute highlight and a worthy end to the first half of our six month trip. But we were also looking forward to the comforts of the western world, and to eating lots of meatpies. So far I think I have had 17.
I won’t bore you with too much detail and instead let the pictures do the talking, but basically we flew into Coron, think Mordor meats Neverland, where we spent three or four days renting small bangkas (boats) and driving around stunning lagoons and snorkeling areas. Besides a minor mishap when somehow the misconstructed Filipino boat I was paddling together with Oskar Fulvio decided to take in water and sink, and Oskar Fulvio had to be paddled to safety by the local park guard, things were pretty great.
Next we were heading to El Nido, the tourist hub of the region, but instead of jumping on the 8 hour straight boat ride, we booked an island hopping tour that stopped at beaches and snorkeling areas in between and halted for 3 nights at a tented paradise resort on the island of Ginto, which we used as base for further island exploration. This area between the more popular Coron and El Nido was fantastic and completely void of other tourists. It is also known to have some of the clearest water in the world and we experienced some fantastic snorkeling.
Finally, we reached El Nido…the place that 5 years ago was what Thailand was 25 years ago. Surrounded by an archipelago of breathtaking islands with dramatic cliffs and (not so) hidden lagoons. So more island hopping on the agenda obviously. No longer a secret from the tourist masses, we had to be a little clever and I think we did quite well in avoiding the packs of orange life vests carrying lagoon clogging Asian tourists.
After almost a whole month in the Philippines, we had to say goodbye to Southeast Asia and the third world as we were moving onwards to Australia. No more island hopping adventures, no more meals under $5 and no more locals with random t-shirts carrying important messages such as “Voted most likely to wear this shirt” or “I´m the loud one.” Palawan was an absolute highlight and a worthy end to the first half of our six month trip. But we were also looking forward to the comforts of the western world, and to eating lots of meatpies. So far I think I have had 17.
