The So-Called Last Frontier: Phun in the Philippines

I only got to take one long trip during my latest sojourn to Korea, and it was during the summer of 2014.  Most of my friends were couples, and they all wanted to go to Thailand, where I have been enough times that I didn’t care enough to force myself along on a trip as a third wheel. 

So I planned to take a trip by myself.

There were (and are) several countries in Asia where I hadn’t yet travelled, so I looked to those places to find a destination.  Almost immediately I settled on the Philippines, but didn’t know where in the country I wanted to travel.  I researched Manila, Palawan, Cebu, and Coron.  I finally settled on traveling to Palawan, a large island that is less developed than other, more tourist friendly beaches.  I chose the beach El Nido, dubbed “The Last Frontier” by National Geographic, a beach a few hours from Puerto Princesa (the airport on Palawan).  Upon informing my parents of the coming trip, my mom told me she had some reservations about me traveling alone, but I told her I’d be doing it no matter how she felt about it.  In response, she called me a few weeks later and told me she’d booked herself on my same flights, and would be spending the week in El Nido with me, followed by a week in Korea.

So to Puerto Princesa we went.  The trip there was pleasant enough, but then there was the five-hour van ride to contend with.  It was, no exaggeration, the single worst car trip of my life.  Many of the roads were shoddily paved or not paved at all, and the rains of the season had rendered some of them just this side of useless.  We drove over plank bridges above creeks and through mud and stones on uneven roads for about half the trip.  To be fair, the roads were all being improved, and the ride may be considerably smoother now, and would definitely be smoother during the drier seasons.

Speaking of drier seasons, our trip did not occur during one of them.  There had been beautiful weather before our arrival and more beautiful weather was predicted upon our departure, but the week we were there featured near-constant rain.  In fact, there was a typhoon while we were there.  


Getting to our hotel required using the local version of taxis, which looked like nothing so much as large mechanized beetles.  

They featured a large covered sidecar attached to a motorbike, with both drivers and passengers covered by metal sheeting, a curtain over the door openings and a covered-ish space for suitcases in the back.  Two could fit on the bench next to the driver, and sometimes there was another seat facing backwards at the front, though that was always more squished than one would generally like.  The driver’s name (or the taxi’s name, it wasn’t clear) was emblazoned on the windshield in large, colorful letters.  One was called “Queen Blythe” while the one parked next to it was “Three Brothers.”  

They rarely moved at a pace above 5 km/hour, and going up hills was a crap shoot- it seemed like they were going to stall while shifting gears, and there was always an infinite moment while they shifted, a seeming suspension of time, where we had no idea if the bikes would keep chugging forward or if they would backslide into old habits at the bottom of the hill.

Our hotel was on one of these hills, and on multiple days, at multiple times the stairs up to our room were turned into a stream by the excess rainwater.  We almost felt like salmon attempting to spawn each time we headed toward our room.

The hotel was fairly nice though, and we met a few girls who were also traveling from Korea, with whom we went on a few excursions and day trips.  They were nice and were pretty comfortable and easy to be around, which was great.

We initially met the two of them when we booked the same tour, a common package in that area creatively named Package A: Lagoons and Beaches.  We went to the aptly named Big Lagoon and Small Lagoon, as well as the Secret Lagoon.  The day wasn’t all lagoons, however.  There was also Shimizu Island and Seven Commandos Beach.  The beaches were great, and when we stopped at Shimizu Island for lunch, we also got to go snorkeling.  We saw large blue starfish, a large variety of coral, and several different kinds of fish. After we were done our guides had made an incredible lunch, featuring fresh watermelon, yellow melon that looked like watermelon, pineapple, and mango, plus fried fish with a delicious sauce on the side, a calamari salad, and vegetables.  

It was a huge amount of food for just the five of us (there was also a very interesting Spanish woman on the trip) and our guides, but everything was delicious. 

The lagoons were the real event.  The Big Lagoon had several sections, where the rocks would narrow and then reopen into a new area, surrounded by limestone cliffs covered in all kinds of beautiful flora.  The water was incredible, warm and turquoise, darker blue where it was deeper and colder the farther we got from the open sea.  It was raining slightly, and as we floated calmly on the water, the gentle patter of the rain was dulled into a calming music in our underwater ears.  There was a cave at the end of the lagoon that was full of very cold water and just barely fit the five of us and one of our guides perfectly.  It was relaxing and wonderful. I stabbed my foot on some coral as I jumped out of the boat going toward the Small Lagoon, but it was dead coral, so although I bled a lot, there was no danger of illness.  The Small Lagoon and Secret Lagoon were also great, with the same limestone cliffs and beautiful water.  I would recommend that day trip to anyone traveling in the area. (Unfortunately, the pictures from this day were either bad or impossible to take- it was raining the whole day with no cover and we were spending most of it swimming)

The next day we hadn’t booked anything, but we talked to the girls and we agreed to take two bug-mobiles to a local beach that was supposed to be good, as the weather was predicted to be drier. 

On the way our drivers stopped on the side of the road and asked if we wanted to go to a hot springs.  The answer to that question is always yes, but we did not know what we were in for.  

We had to wade through waist deep water into a rice paddy, where we walked along a muddy ridge past a large, wild water buffalo toward a forest.  Once in the forest, we discovered there wasn’t so much a forest floor as a swamp.  I stepped only where the guide stepped and fared well, though everyone else fell in at some point or another.  When my mom’s foot slipped into the water her other stayed on dry-ish land, but she caught a branch right in between her legs.  As the guides hauled her up she loudly announced “Well, I’m not a virgin anymore!” at which the other two girls laughed and I rolled my eyes.  After about twenty minutes of hiking through the rice paddy and jungle swamp we arrived at the hot springs: a muddy puddle of water with a stream coming out, both of which featured water far too hot to touch for more than a few seconds.  So we looked at it.  And then turned around and went back.

It doesn’t sound good, and it probably wasn’t that good, but it was just the kind of off-the-beaten-path pseudo adventure that I can get behind, so I liked it.

From there we headed to the beach where we got cheap food and smoothies, including a delicious avocado smoothie.  

We ran into some other girls from Korea who were traveling together, and whom the girls we knew had already met a few times, including on their van trip from the airport.  We all sat together in a hut and swam together when the sun was out, laying in the sand and praying for a tan that wouldn’t come.  

We had such a good time with them that we all decided to book another tour together for the next day.

We wanted to do Tour C: Hidden Beaches and Shrines, which featured the Secret Beach that was on my list of things to do, but the wind was too strong and that tour wasn’t running.  Instead we did Tour B: Caves and Coves.  In the boat I could see why they weren’t running the tours that went further away; the water was very choppy.  

We went snorkeling at Pangalusian Island and Pinagbuyutan Island, and also swimming in the shallower areas.  Both beaches were covered in white sand and were beautiful.  


From there we headed to Snake Island, which was great.  We walked along a long sandbar where the water varied in depth from ankle deep to waist deep, and ran into a mangrove grove at the other side, then turned around and went back to Snake Island.  There was a hill there, so we climbed to the top to check out the view.  It was spectacular.

I stood on the bluff without my camera (these photos are from one of the girls), gazing at the view stretched out below me.  I was almost shockingly in the moment, a borderline off-putting feeling in this digital age of concentrating on how the photo will turn out or what someone you barely like just posted on Facebook.  It hadn’t been my favorite stop of the day, or even my favorite day tour.  Still, the sky blue (for once) above me and the turquoise water below was stunning.  I watched the line of people snaking along the sand bar that gave the island its name.  They trudged diligently through crotch deep water, their feet raking over rocks in the sand, ankles occasionally tangled in seaweed.  They moved slowly, inexorably toward the golden sands at the end of the snake’s tail, knowing, a I had when I began the same journey not thirty minutes before, that once they reached them there would be nothing to do but turn back.

On the way back we saw caves out the side of the boat, and even went into Cadugnon Cave, which was pretty cool.  You had to slide on your stomach through a small opening, and at the other end you dropped into knee-deep water which grew more and more shallow until you reached a sand strip at the other side of the cave.  You could climb up between a few rocks and get deeper into the cave, and even climb down into a few holes without too much difficulty.  

We passed Cathedral Cave past that, and could only look from the side of the boat because the water was too choppy to go closer.  It still looked pretty cool, even from a distance.

Our last stop was unscheduled because we had saved time at Cathedral Cave, and we just stopped at a small strip of sand that our boat driver knew.  We swam a lot and just talked, and then sun came out, burning us all on our last day.

I wish the weather had been better so we would have been able to adventure more on other days, but it was too wet to do more than travel to the local market or check out a nearby art shop.  The trip was still fantastic.

When we got back to Korea we were pretty tired, so mom stayed at my place the next day when I went to work.  The next day, however, she came to work with me for the whole day, and did the same for two days after that.  Most of the time she just stayed at home with my kitten, Cheeseburger Deluxe, and watched movies on my computer.  Not knowing the culture or language, or how to get around the city effectively, she was a little too nervous to leave my apartment without me, so I made sure that we had little mini-adventures on the weekend and when I got off work (though those consisted mostly of just eating too-spicy dinners at local restaurants). 

All in all, the whole thing was wonderful, and I’m really glad my mom came along for the ride.  She’s always been better at turning strangers into friends than I am, as is evidenced by us making six new friends together, and me not speaking to anyone at all for two days when I went to Japan alone.  We are how we are, I guess.