Mar 20, 2025
We’ve been staying at a hotel that bills themselves as ’boutique’, principally because it has art installations in every room. Ours is a huge wall mural of young Filipino women floating on icebergs, which we think is incredibly culturally appropriate.
Today is our long drive day, about six hours the length of the island of Palawan from Puerto Princesa north to El Nido. They have obviously figured that it’s cheaper to hire a fleet of mini buses rather than fly us, so we were placed four people into a minivan, and a fleet of vans then headed out of town like a long white snake. I guess the wages are such that it’s cheaper to hire eight vans and eight drivers than pay for a plane fare. And remember that the drivers and the vans have to drive all the way back without us this afternoon in order to be ready for tomorrow’s jobs.
First thing our driver did after leaving the hotel was to pull in for some petrol. Given that he had been sitting in the hotel driveway for half an hour, you think he could’ve done it first. Unfortunately there is no self serve, and they seem to have a policy of serving every motorbike before they ever get to a car, so bikes pulled in and out while we just waited. They also have ramps in the driveway that every car runs their front wheels up on. Presumably it’s to tilt the tank back so that you can overfill it, but we have to remember that ‘why?’ is not a question worth asking. So after adding 20 minutes to our already long journey we were finally off. If it matters, petrol is round about $1.50 a litre.
Road construction here is all concrete, which is quite different. Given that the roads run for hundreds of kilometres and are often six lanes, it’s a phenomenal amount of concrete being used. Construction is, of course, quite different. It’s strange to see a construction gang consisting of a cement mixer and a hoard of guys in gumboots wielding wooden paddles to level all the concrete. Doesn’t end up with a smooth ride like our bitumen, but the roads are much more resilient, and once laid hardly ever need repair. Often the road is six lanes wide but everybody travels in the centre two. The second lane seems to be reserved for motorbikes, tuk-tuks, and wandering grandmothers. The outside lanes seem to be used by the locals for drying their rice out on sheets of plastic. Miraculously it seems to stay intact.
Stopped at a roadside kiosk for morning tea after a couple of hours. The only redeeming feature seemed to be a free meal for all bus drivers, and they chowed down like their lives depended on it.
Second stop around about 1 o’clock, but only for a few minutes as most people had their packed lunch with them on the bus. Arrived in the township of El Nido around 3 and checked into our lovely hotel. Was glad to see that they gave us the boom boom room, but maybe they are all labeled like that.
The rain started just as we checked in, so we spent a bit of time at the window looking out and wondering how far we should venture this afternoon. El Nido is the first town where they have told us that it’s not safe to drink tapwater. It seems a very touristy town, choc-a-block with backpackers, and we were encouraged to go for dinner early before all the backpacker island tours got back.
We had just ordered our dinner when the town’s power went out, and everything went quiet and hot. Seems like it’s a daily tradition in the Philippines. Almost every day the power has gone out somewhere between three and six. When it hadn’t come back on in a few minutes, businesses started firing up their own generators, which meant that it was noisy and hot. Wandered the streets after dinner with thousands of others.
S Resort, El Nido
Typical El Nido street. Anybody for a massage?
The Boom Boom room
Our morning tea stop
The tricked out gear stick on our bus
S Hotel