Philippin' Awesome

After a half day of school full of holiday activities (I was the school's Santa if you can believe that), we took off for Guanzhou airport, got through the always pleasant Chinese immigration process, and took a short flight to Manila.  It was late, so we got a dingy hotel room for the night.

Woke up and had breakfast at the hotel, then walked around and did a little shopping, then took a long ride down a few blocks through Manila traffic back to the airport.  We were over an hour early for our flight, but they had overbooked, so we were stuck in Manila for another day, which would have been ok, except that they took the rest of the afternoon to arrange our hotel and transportation.  After a long, frustrating day sitting around the Manila airport, we got to a nicer hotel, further from the airport, but close to the water.  Dinner, a little walk, and got up early to go back to the airport.

Got on the flight to Busuanga, postcard views of green islands and blue water out of the windows the whole time.  The airport there was one of those cool little out of the way deals in the middle of nowhere.  Hopped in a van and headed for Coron through the countryside, where we saw white cows and lots of beautiful scenery.  We got into the hotel and decompressed a bit. The room was on the third floor right next to the rooftop bar, with amazing views of the bay, so we relaxed there and had a drink or two.  Just for something to do that afternoon, we headed over to the hot springs and had a soak.  Later, we had dinner at the hotel and walked around Coron.  Coron was strange because it didn't have any beaches in the town, and it was sort of a place you would expect to have beaches.

The front desk guy at the hotel (aptly named Angel) hooked us up with a private boat for an island-hopping tour the next day. We did lots of snorkeling, saw many interesting tropical fish, some jellyfish, and some amazing coral.  One highlight was the twin lagoons, where we had to swim under a rock to get to this lagoon where the salt water mixes with fresh.  Besides the difference in composition, it was also two different temperatures, with warmer water coming from the bottom.  When you swim through it, you mix the two different types of water, and you can see waves of temperature differences where they combine.  Very strange.  After a long day on the boat, we headed back to Coron, and arranged for a boat ride to El Nido the following day.

Some beautiful spot near Coron

Some beautiful rock near Coron

And a not-so-beautiful monitor that decided to join us for lunch

Up early, packed all our stuff, and headed to the port, where it didn't really seem like anyone knew what was going on.  Eventually, people started moving in the general direction of the water, and we followed, ending up in an outrigger with about 12 other people, plus the crew.  This turned out to be an 8-hour trip, and the scenery was stunning the whole way, but the seats were supremely uncomfortable.  By the time we pulled into the bay at El Nido, we were ready to get on some dry land.  We humped our luggage around the waterfront looking for a hotel that wasn't completely booked, and somehow randomly ran into Nanette, who had a huge beach house which happened to be available for the night.  We were tired of looking, so we paid a bit more than we wanted, and settled in.  It was a great house, with a huge porch right on the beach full of heavy teak furniture for lounging.  After going out for drinks and dinner on the beach, we relaxed on that porch and listened to the waves until we were ready for sleep.

Hello El Nido

In the morning, we got breakfast and did a little bit of looking around for another place to stay (Nanette was booked for the rest of the week), and ended up with her neighbor, Chelo, who owned a souvenir shop and a couple of rooms next door.  We took the upstairs family room, which was sort of thrown together, but in a great location, with a window looking out onto the bay and beach, and the sound of the surf constantly in the air, along with the musical voices of a group of Filipino girls who played in the alley outside.

View from Chelo's place

Once we were settled, we stopped by Palawan Divers to arrange our PADI certification course, including some classroom work and 3 days of scheduled dives.  Took a tricycle (motor bike with a sidecar) to a nearby beach an relaxed, played in the waves, and studied for my certification tests.

The next four days were devoted to diving, except one where the weather wasn't great.  There was a small typhoon somewhere nearby and the coast guard recommended everyone stay in.  On that day, which happened to be Christmas, we took off down the shoreline until we ran out of path, and then kept going a bit until we got to a small abandoned beach, where we spent the afternoon in the sun.

Our private Christmas beach

Diving is a great experience.  The book learning was annoying, as most schooling is for me, but I really enjoyed getting all geared up and getting in the water.  It took a couple of days for me to start feeling comfortable, but then it becomes really freeing, just floating around down there in a totally alien world.  My favorite sort of eureka moment was when I realized that I could swim vertically with my feet above my head.  Usually, we swim so close to the surface that that doesn't work, but once I figured it out, I used that position all the time to look at things on the bottom.  One of the other cool sensations was figuring out neutral buoyancy, which is using your breathing to hover in the water.

In case you were wondering what a certified diver looks like

The visibility wasn't great for any of our dives, but I did see a few pretty exotic fish: I caught a flash of orange on one of the early dives that turned out to be the fins of a scorpionfish, which is one of those that blend in with the bottom and look like a rock.  If he hadn't been swimming, I never would have seen him.  We also saw a couple of lionfish later, who have big protrusions all over them with little flags that wave in the current.  Also, tons of smaller, brightly colored tropical fish.  We didn't see much that was very big, so I'm looking forward to things like sharks, rays, and turtles on future dives.

Our last day in El Nido we hired a boat to take us out to nearby Helicopter Island for some serious beach chillin.  We took snorkels, but ended up reading and napping most of the day.

Next day was taken up with the long boat ride back to Coron, and getting to our hotel.  Our room was already inhabited by a huge spider.

Bo, our vigilant Filipino spider friend

I think this was new years eve, but I was exhausted so I didn't really go out.  We had new years day in Coron as well.  I was getting that depression I sometimes feel at the end of a weekend or a vacation, so I wasn't into doing much, and I was also kind of getting ready to be home.  After El Nido, Coron seemed like a much less special place.

Then it was back in planes for a much smoother journey back to China....

See you later, Philippines

and we've already booked another trip in February!

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