YT's 3 S: Palawan - Discovering El Nido

I was not really inspired to find yet another title with bragging adjectifs qualifying the infinite beauty of a place. Palawan is - likewise Boracay - another regular member of rankings such as “Top 5 most beautiful islands in the world”.

While I can now say I have been in Palawan and stay on this island, the 4 days I had there and the very limited places I have seen have to be put in perspective. It was yet again the experience of a lifetime and I feel lucky to having wandered the beaches around El Nido.

El Nido is probably the most known corner of this island (in the North-West part) and it is naturally there that we headed from Puerto Princesa, where our flight from Cebu landed. I have been regularly writing about long commutes - that one was nowhere different from the others. Although there are “only” around 250 kilometres from Puerto to El Nido it took more than 5 hours to get there despite the driver of our van slaloming comfortably between the Jeepneys, the motorbikes and the tricycles overpopulating the roads. Thankfully our pension was on the side of the main road 3 kilometres from the village of El Nido and we where dropped of there already late at night.

We couldn’t see much from the hotel room and sleep was most needed when we arrived. We would get our reward from all the commuting when we woke up by discovering the view.

Of course it is impossible to compare one location to another, one island in Thailand in the Caribbean or in Polynesia to its filipino cousin’s without loosing any kind of objectivity. It is definitely a matter of taste and often depends of one’s experience in a given corner of the planet. My experience in El Nido together with the great time I had there made it very special… And man that view!

And the greatest part is that it is at least as beautiful under the over than on (is)land.

I won't say much more about El Nido besides that it was the first time since The Challenge in Ko Pha Ngan (22nd of December) that I was going in the water (more than the time of a shower obviously). Jeroen and Andres enjoyed the wonderful big blue world for a few dives and I join them on the boat to snorkel in the same areas.

I spend to much time in the water that I got burnt real bad on the back... This is the risk you are less expose to when diving... or wearing sun proof clothes or sun protection.

Here are some pictures I took with the GoPro. No filters or adjustments made only cropping and rotating the pictures :D Amazing time that was.