The Philippines, the New Traveller's Paradise

We left Seoul on a high, ready to relax and experience the chill island life. The journey was a blur, bringing us from Seoul through Manila and finally to Coron Busuanga Airport.

The island of Palawan. Sea’s so blue, coral unblemished and whole, villages.. not quite ready to deal with the massive influx of tourists that have been increasingly coming to visit in recent years. Going from the metropolitan and modern city of Seoul straight to Coron was a sort of culture shock within itself. Not necessarily a bad one, but it hit me then that, though I was still with Becky (and later Dammy), villages like these, or in around this scale would become more and more of the norm for me along my travels.

My eyes were glued to the window of the minibus on the way towards Coron Village. I had NEVER seen such beautiful rock formation and greenery so close up. That in and of itself is saying something as, back at home, I do live in an area quite dominated by foliage. In fact, Seoul should have felt more foreign to me that Coron did, but in fact it was the opposite. Everything was so green. Everything was so big. Nature was all around me and I loved it. The journey from the airport to Coron was very long, but I was ok. The views outside were absolutely breath taking and held my attention for the entire ride.

We arrived at Two Seasons Coron (not Four, though we never did find out why..) ready to just relax and decompress from the past week of running around Tokyo and Seoul. And relax we did. The days we spent here are a blur of beautiful sunsets, too strong iced mojitos and lazy poolside chilling. We ventured out a few times to take in the sleepy underdeveloped town of Coron and indulged in massages and foot spas and that’s about all that we did. The locals in Coron were some of the kindest I came across in my travels. After a few days of lounging around the pool we departed for El Nido.

El Nido is quite popular on the backpacker trail. Because of this, it was just that teeny bit more developed than Coron. Here, we exchanged the luxury resort accommodation for a clean room in a guesthouse. Our focus here was to do some tours and Island hop, thus we came to the conclusion that having a “nice” hotel wasn’t exactly essential. Arranging a tour wasn’t hard, from the moment we checked in we were shown tour packages that would bring us to some of the Island highlights. We booked a tour to leave the next morning and then left to wander around the night market and taste the local delights.

A brief word on Filipino food.. Please note that this is my own opinion only, though along the road, I have gotten the same opinions from travellers I have met that had also been to the Philippines. The food of the Philippines.. well nicely putting it, compared to the absolutely delectable dishes I’ve tasted during my tour of Asia is subpar at best. Later on my trip, I found myself actively avoiding all Filipino food (You’ll find out why shortly) and eating other cuisines. After dinner and a few cocktails on the beach, we headed back to our guesthouse to end our night.

The morning of the following day saw us getting up uncomfortably early and blearily following our tour guide as he deftly wove through the small streets of El Nido to pick up more guests that would be joining us on the tour. Guests collected, we waded out to sea (yes, literally waded through water) and hopped upon our boat. The whole experience was amazing. I came to appreciate and understand why the Philippines is becoming the next biggest travel destination for backpackers and luxury travellers alike.

The tour brought us through many lagoons, to a few secret beaches and through it all we had chances to go snorkelling in the crystal clear waters, or kayaking through the limestone cliff and rock formations. During the day lunch was served on the boat – a buffet with fresh seafood, different meats, rice, vegetables and a variety of other foods.

Eventually it was time to depart and say goodbye to the amazing crew onboard. I left feeling inspired and amazed, and the nervous part of me that was ready to go solo calmed a little.

Later that very evening though I experienced my first bout of travellers food poisoning. It was horrific. I didn’t know if it was from the meal I had eaten the night before, or the seemingly fresh food from the tour that day, but whatever the cause, I was up all night throwing up and losing water rapidly. It got so bad that I could even keep water or dioralyte (rehydration pack) down. Within 10 minutes everything would come back up. It arrived at the perfect time too because the very next morning I was scheduled to get on a ferry back to Coron (note the sarcasm). I can definitively tell you that particular ferry ride will hands down go down as the worst travel journey I’ve had in my life. Between me still throwing up my innards, the strong waves shaking the boat and the lack of air conditioning on the boat (It was circa 35 degrees), I thought about flinging myself off the side off the ferry to get some form of relief. Eventually we made it back to Coron and subsequently flew to Manilla where I enjoyed the last few days with Becky and Dammy (who met us in the airport after flying in from Dublin).

Manila, Manila. Where do I start? Big? Check. Crowded? Check check. Smelly? Definite check. For those of you planning a trip to the Philippines, definitely skip it. It pains me to say this, especially as someone who absolutely loves to travel and will usually find something to do in even the most ‘boring’ of places, but if you have the option to do so, skip Manila. There’s absolutely nothing of worth to see here. Instead – go to Cebu, the old capital of the Philippines. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go on this trip (though Becky and Dammy did). Cebu is filled with rich culture and history of the Filipino people. Manila, quite bluntly is not. It’s not filled with anything. Except for malls, malls and more malls. Oh, and this random amusement park beside the Mall of Asia. The only good thing I did in Manila was eat some Korean food with Dammy (when I was well enough to finally eat), party it up in Royal Nightclub and take a nice sunset picture. After 4 days in Manila (honestly, way too long), I left the girls to carry on solo with my appetite still at most very dodgy, and at the least non-existent and in a state of chronic exhaustion.

My adventure continues on here, in Thailand; theflying-elephant.com/blog/thailand-the-gateway-to-south-east-asia

Bye for now,

Babs