About five hours after we FINALLY left Puerto Princesa, we rattled and coughed our way into El Nido. Of course, because of the open windows, that entire trip was essentially un-air conditioned. In fact it was worse than not having any aircon at all: every once in a while I’d get a little puff of deliciously chilled air wafting past my face, only to be slurped out by the vortex from the stupid open windows in the back. Whine whine, moan moan. Trouble in paradise (literally) – “ohhh, my nice cushy van wasn’t air conditioned enough.” OK, yeah, it seemed worse at the time than it does in retrospect. Still.
In any case, we unloaded and caught a tricycle to our hotel. We splurged a bit in El Nido and stayed in cabins at Greenviews Resort. Now, El Nido proper is a town wedged between two giant limestone outcroppings on a small bay. It’s very built up (by Palawan standards, anyway) and the beach isn’t great. I mean it’s actually not a bad beach, but it’s sandwiched in between a wall of buildings at the back and a flotilla of bangkas (the ubiquitous sort of outrigger canoe boats) in the water, and the beach itself spends most of its time in the shade.
Greenviews, on the other hand, is one of a handful of resorts sprinkled along Corong-Corong Beach. It’s about a 5-minute tricycle ride from town (or a pleasant 20-minute walk), and has the benefits of being a) much quieter at night than El Nido, which is a bit noisy from people and bands at many bars, and b) a much prettier beach, with fewer buildings and way fewer bangkas. That said, Corong-Corong is SHALLOW – like, “you’ll only be up to your shins after walking out into the bay for five minutes” shallow. So it’s not great for swimming. But it is very pretty, and it gets much better sunsets than El Nido (where the view of the setting sun is blocked by one of the hulking limestone karsts that frames the town).
Greenviews was terrific. It was more expensive than other options, but you get every peso you pay in value for money. The resort was tranquil, the beds were comfortable, the cabins were air conditioned and beautifully well built (including the all-important mosquito sealing), and the service was excellent. The staff are friendly and helpful, and the owner, Dave, was a real pleasure to deal with as I peppered him with e-mailed questions and requests before we arrived. I am happy to give Greenviews an unqualified thumbs-up. If I go back to El Nido, I’ll happily stay at Greenviews again.
A shot of our cabin at Greenviews El Nido
The bathroom at our cabin at Greenviews El Nido
The porch at our cabin at Greenviews El Nido
We got quite the treat on our first night there. Maybe the universe was apologizing for the window-openers. Whatever karma was behind it, we were treated to a sensational sunset that first night, on top of which we had a tasty dinner at the Greenviews restaurant, where I plucked a dish off the menu entirely at random and fell in love. It was called kinilaw (also written some other places as kilawin). Essentially, it was ceviche, but a fish by any other name would taste as delicious when marinated in local citrus and served up fresh and tasty. It was bright, acidic, packed with citrus and fresh cool veggies – a complete 180 from dark, heavy, spicy, pungent Korean food. Both kinds of dishes have their place in the world, but ceviche (or kinilaw as the case may be) is a kind of food I absolutely adore, and Greenviews, it turned out, was the best I had in my entire vacation.
Our first (and best) sunset in El Nido
Another shot of that first El Nido sunset
This shot pretty much sums up what my two weeks in Palawan was like
My first (and best) experience with fish kinilaw, at Greenviews El Nido
Basically the whole point of going to El Nido is island hopping. El Nido is parked at the heels of the Bacuit Archipelago, a tropical wonderland of little limestone islets ranging from “hulking mini-mountains” to “pristine beach paradises” and everything in between. The way island hopping works in El Nido is simple: pick a tour (A, B, C, or D), each of which visits a different selection of islands and locations; find a boat; pay the same price no matter who you book with (no seriously, the prices are absolutely standardized across the board, no matter who you book with: tour A is 700 pesos per person, tour B is 800, tour C is 900, and nobody seems to go on tour D. Those prices include lunch); then go out for your day. Generally they leave around 8:30-9 in the morning and get back around 4pm. We booked through Greenviews, with one of the local tour operators.
Well, what can I say? I can’t really describe to you what it was like to bob around the archipelago. Gorgeous? Doesn’t really cut it. Perfection? Pretty close (I wish the boat engine was quieter – be an amazing place to go sailing or kayaking). Stunning? Sure. No matter where you are out there, no matter which direction you look, there’s something mesmerizing and eye-popping to focus on.
We did two tours over two days. We tried to do tour C on our first day, but the wind and the water conditions were so bad that we had to scrap some of the stuff from tour C and add some of the things from tour A. This meant (we later discovered) that we missed what are widely considered the highlights of tour A and possibly the entire archipelago, the so-called Big and Small Lagoons. On our second day, we decided, having already seen bits and pieces of A and C, to do tour B. We loved it, which is a little weird because this tour is generally not regarded as highly as A and C, but we thought it was terrific.
There really isn’t much else to say, honestly. Each little island we landed on was spectacular; each deserted little beach was amazing. I guess one highlight is the “Secret Beach,” part of tour C. This is a somewhat famous location for a few reasons. First of all, it supposedly inspired Alex Garland to write the novel The Beach, upon which the Leo DiCaprio movie was based. Secondly, you get there in a really interesting way. You plunge into the open ocean and swim through a tiny hole in an otherwise impenetrable limestone wall. The thing is, the hole you swim through is a hole through a razor-sharp, jagged clump of limestone. One wrong move and you will get sliced to ribbons. What this means practically speaking is that you have to swim through when the waves are receding from the hole, because if you try to go through when a wave is crashing in, you’ll get chopped to bits. Have you ever tried to swim forward when the ocean is trying to move you backward? Not that easy. But once you get inside it’s pretty cool: a little lagoon with a little white sand beach surrounded by vertical limestone walls. Of course I have no pictures of this, because I couldn’t really take my camera through the ocean, but you can find shots of it online, if you’re interested.
A bangka at El Nido, ready for island hopping
Our bangka on a beach
Our lunch on island hopping day
What El Nido looks like
El Nido sky while island hopping
Snake Island. Absolutely gorgeous.
This is me in a gigantic cave
I took, in fact, about 250 pictures while out island hopping, but these are a tiny scattering to give you an idea of what it’s like out there.
One thing that bothered me was the trash. There was trash everywhere: on the beaches, on the islands, everywhere. And I’m sad to say, I’m not sure how much of it is left there by locals, and how much by tourists. There don’t seem to be particularly strong standards for environmental responsibility or stewardship in El Nido, at least not yet. We went snorkeling in one area, for instance, and the entire coral reef was dead, a remnant, probably, of the history of cyanide fishing in the area. There are apparently government-provided anchor points for boats to use at various reefs, but no tie lines attached to them, so even if boatsmen DID want to use the anchor points, they can’t. This was depressing. For the love of everything good, people, if you go to El Nido, pick up your trash, pick up other trash you see, ask your boatsmen to do the same, try and stop them if they try to anchor on coral, and create a culture of preservation, stewardship, and sustainability. El Nido and the Bacuit archipelago are uniquely beautiful, let’s try and keep them that way, hmm?
What else about El Nido? We spent four days there; arrival day, two out island hopping, and one in the middle for downtime and relaxing. As far as food, the Greenviews Restaurant was very good; Ogie’s was very good and reasonably priced; Sea Slugs was ok; Blue Azul restaurant was a total miss for me (some in my group agreed, others thought it was pretty good); and the Art Cafe was delicious but REALLY expensive. I did buy a pretty awesome t-shirt at the Art Cafe that I thought was reasonably priced for the quality, so if you are looking for souvenirs, they’re a good place to go. They also have a nice vibe. It seems like everybody in town ends up there, and they’re THE place to go if you need to book any sort of onward travel (van to Sabang? Charter flight to Manila? Boat to Port Barton? They can handle all of ‘em).
I will give one big, hearty recommendation to the Midtown Bakery in El Nido. I don’t know the names of any of the streets, but it’s a tiny town and it shouldn’t be hard to find. It’s a block or two back from the beach, on the main road that runs in and out of town. There was always a swarm of eager, sharp-elbowed locals clamoring for things there every time I went, which is usually a good sign. I personally didn’t care for their banana bread (way too dry and sandy), but everything else was terrific. I got in the habit of just buying a couple pieces of whatever they were bringing fresh out of the ovens, and all of it was yummy, in particular the pan de coco, little buns stuffed with a sweet coconut filling. Word to the wise, have small bills and hopefully exact change ready. They were not fans of breaking larger bills (they just flat refused), and several times they told me to either buy more stuff (to get closer to the bill I was trying to pay with) or shove off. You’re talking maybe 20, 30 pesos for a veritable feast of baked treats, so I was never too bothered by it.
This post doesn’t nearly do El Nido justice, but I’m just not sure I can do it justice. I can only say I’ve never been anywhere like it, and I think you should go.
We had intended to take a boat from El Nido to Port Barton next, but the seas were so choppy that none of the boats were running. We decided instead to take a van straight to Sabang next and head on to Port Barton from there. This, it turned out, was a fortunate decision, because Sabang sort of sucked and I’m glad we got it out of the way in the middle, rather than right at the end, of our trip.
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Tags: bacuit, el nido, greenviews, island hopping, kinilaw, midtown bakery, Palawan, philippines
