I've always wanted to go on a cruise........

The last few days in El Nido were relaxing. The beach in The town was OK but there was a better one about 30 minutes up the coast. On the day before Liz and Sabi ere to leave we took trip there for bit of swimming and R and R. It was beautiful. The only way there was by tricycle the a path through the jungle. It was worth it. White beaches and a beautiful vista of the little islands surrounding El Nido and Palawan. We spend the day there. An resort hotel had been built just by the beach. Liz's curry would have fed a small fillipino town. Mine and Sabi's pizza was actually shipped from Italy, or so we assumed , it took about 90 minutes and was not worth waiting for.

Most of us were feeling a little jaded from the previous evening so found a hammock and spent the afternoon swaying in the breeze.
Sabi and Liz were leaving the following evening for Manilla and then Amsterdam. They had made the decision, despite the expense, to fly from El Nido rather than take the local bus back to Puerto Princessa and the cheaper Cebu Pacific flight.
After another lazy day we said our goodbyes and waved them off. It was really sad after spending the last month travelling around with them. I certainly had great fun and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Thanks Girls...


























Kipp, Jono, Andrew and myself had made plans to travel to Coron on Friday evening by the cheaper option of cargo boat, another adventure. The boat left at midnight and took around 8 hours. The day was spent on the beach after packing our gear and leaving it in a spare room. We would have a bit of time to kill during the evening but I was quite looking forward to a new mode of travel.

Back at the El Nido Plaza hotel by four, a bit of internetting and the dinner. There is a very nice place called the Art Cafe where they do really nice food and have free, albeit very slow internet access. While there are loads of Internet cafes around town, some hard wired and others Wi Fi, the connections continually break making it frustrating to say the least. I think Kipp was on the verge of a nervous breakdown on more then one occasion trying to organise his onward flights and flights home.

After a very tasty curry in the art cafe I did a bit of emailing, despite it being a great place the bloody waitress got on my tits and she seemed hellbent on harassing anyone who was using the Wi Fi but did not constantly have a drink in front of them. Kipp did a brilliant job of making a single coffee last 3 hours. I was not so successful and in the end got pissed off with the woman and walked back to our hostel. Andrew was enjoying the local gin with a number of locals, I joined the . One guy was telling us that we always needed to be careful in the Philippines as there were some bad people. There were stories in Manila about drugging and muggings but since leaving the capital it had been nothing but friendly. Some of the places were more so than others but we had never seen any trouble. In an effort to reinforce the fact that you needed to look after yourself one of the guys we were drinking with popped to his room and came back with a loaded revolver. He did remove the clip for Andrew to have a look but I have a view that guns and alcohol are not ideal bedmates!
I was a bit relieved when he returned it to it's holster and back to the room. They guy then announced that he also had an oozi. As Sabi would say 'for crying out loud'!!
Thankfully he did not feel it necessary to give us a demonstration.

Guns appear to be quite popular in quite a few places in South East Asia, especially the Phillipines. Those inclined can go to a shooting range and let off all types of guns. There was an option to the a cow, a grenade launcher and do your own BBQ. Not my cup of tea!

At 11.30 we all got loaded up with our backpacks and headed towards the little port for the cargo boat. The lady who had sold Andrew the tickets made a point, several times, of managing our expectations in that the schedule for leaving and arriving did include an element 'flexibility'. That it did, were were loaded onto the boat at around midnight. The cargo included about 20 water buffalos together with a hold full of rice and animal feed. We had been drinking a little and I had no idea what time we left. Around 6.30. I slept most. Of the journey. I was thankful for the alcohol as I stood on a nail and gave myself a nasty puncture in my right foot. It fucking hurt!!



















After boarding the boat in El Nido at midnight we arrived in Coran at 4pm. A long trip. Apparently there were quite heavy seas at points in the journey. I had no idea, I slept like a baby. When I did wake my foot hurt like hell. I did a bit of first aid with hydrochloric acid and iodine and hobbled off the boat.












There was a hostel called sea divers (original egh!) that looked OK and quite cheap. Kipp and I wasted no time, jumped in a tricycle and got the last cheap room, much to the disgust of another couple who thought that they had already booked it. No flies on us. First is first, second is nowhere. The American guy who was travelling with the couple who thought they had booked the room had a face like a slapped arse....

The room was one of the better we had lived in over the last month. Clean and dry and although it had a shared bathroom, it had hot water. The first in a month....

I'm now planning to get back to Borneo. It looks probable that I will need to go straight from Coron to Kota Kinabalu via Manilla in the next few days. The rest are planning to go to Malapasca to try and do some diving with the thresher sharks. Realistically I don't have time to do that if I want to get to Miri the first week in December.

I'll look into the flights.


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Location:Coron,Philippines