Boracay

Our last stop in the Philippines was Boracay Island, which is known for its amazing white sandy beaches, blue water, and kite surfing.  

Overall, getting around the Philippines was a little trickier and a lot more time-consuming than we anticipated.  Even though it seems like it should just be a short flight from one island to another, there are actually very few direct flights.  Usually, you have to fly all the way up to Manila to layover, and, since the flights here have a reputation for frequently being late or cancelled, you need to plan plenty of layover buffer time, just incase.   

After an early 7am departure from Bohol and a 3.5h layover in Manila, we flew to Caticlan.  It's the closest airport to Boracay, but it is actually on a neighbouring island.  Upon landing, we thought that we would be walking distance (600m) from the Ferry port and intended to figure out how to get to our hotel on our own, but it turned out that the airport arrivals are in a separate building on the opposite end of the airport (2.6km away).  Feeling tired and not wanting to haggle with the TukTuk drivers, we decided to just pay the local kiosk to take us door-to-door ($1050php/$25cad per person included: airport to Caticlan Jetty, Ferry to Boracay, Boracay Environmental Fees/Tax, and minivan from the Boracay Jetty to our hotel). 
We finally arrived at our hotel at 5:30pm.  Considering Bohol and Boracay are only about 500km apart, it sure felt like a LONG day of travel!

Bulabog Beach
While Flo was spending a couple of days visiting family in Manila, we decided to stay near Bulabog Beach on the windy East side of the island so that Dom could get a few kite sessions in.  The kite beach isn't as clean or pretty as Boracay's famous White Beach, but it does have great wind and a friendly chill vibe. 

White Beach
Flo met up with us and we stayed at a really nice hotel on White Beach, on the West side of the island.  Our beachfront hotel had a nice restaurant and sitting area on the beach that provided shade and great views from breakfast til sunset.  It was also close to our favourite cute little local smoothie shop called Eva's Fruit Shake.  We had the best Mango-Pineapple smoothies every day 😋.

Most of our days were spent beaching and exploring the ~4km stretch of White Beach and beyond.  White Beach is probably one of the cleanest and most beautiful beaches that we have ever been to.  Even though we were here during Lunar New Year and the area was absolutely full of tourists, it didn't actually feel as busy as other beaches that we have been to because the beach here is so wide and long that there is plenty of space for everyone.

Along the South section of White Beach, there is an algae that grows near the shore and accumulates at the Southernmost end of the beach.  As you walk down, the water starts to have a green tinge that eventually becomes a green sludge the further South you go. For some reason, Jen found the spinach-smoothie waves completely mesmerising and fascinating, so we stayed here contemplating the sludge for quite some time 😂.

Diniwid Beach
On the North end of White beach, there is a small walkway that you can take to get to Diniwid Beach.  Since Diniwid is tucked away from the main White Beach stretch, it is much more quiet and secluded.  Even though Diniwid is small, it was worth the visit as it has some karst formations that make it really pretty. 
At the end of Diniwid beach, the walkway looked like it had been damaged by a typhoon, but we continued carefully through and ended up at the remnants of a hotel. 
Talking with a local hiker, it sounded like someone had built the hotel without following the government's environmental rules, so they were told to tear it down. They did a poor job of tearing it down... but on the bright side, the remaining structures provide some nice viewpoints and a footpath to Balinghai Beach.  

After we crossed over the walkway, we were actually surprised that it was still there and not blocked off - it doesn't feel particularly safe after you see the what's left of the walkway's foundation 😯.  We're guessing it probably won't be accessible for very much longer.


Filipino Food Favourites
Despite it being very popular in several countries that we've travelled, we have never been drawn toward trying any of the "Shaved Ice" desserts like "Bingsu" (S.Korea), "Baobing" (Taiwan), or "Kakigori" (Japan).  We thought of "shaved ice" desserts as being something like the Snoopy-Snow-Cones from when we were kids, which neither of us liked.  In fact, neither of us are even really into ice-cream (weird, we know).  But once upon a time, Jen had seen an episode where Anthony Bourdain ate (and seemed to really enjoy) a Filipino shaved-ice dessert, called "Halo-Halo", from the super popular Filipino chain, Jollibee.  The memory of seeing that episode gave us enough motivation to finally give Jollibee and "shaved-ice desserts" a try.

We were amazed at how busy Jollibee was and luckily managed to snag the last empty table by the door.  We ordered the "Super meal" and "Aloha burger" to sample a bit of everything (burger, spaghetti, chicken, salisbury steak, rice, juice).  We really wanted to be able to say that we loved everything and totally understood the hype... but in reality, we were rather underwhelmed - the food was just "OK".  

Back in Puerto Princesa, we learned that Jollibee didn't serve Halo-halo anymore, so we had been trying to hunt down other places to find Halo Halo.  It was actually surprisingly difficult - we were unable to find anywhere serving Halo Halo in El Nido or Bohol (some had it on a menu but said it wasn't available when we asked about it).  We found one good Halo Halo in Puerto Princesa at Noki-Nocs, but all of the other places that we tried in Puerto Princesa and Boracay fell short (Mang Inasal, Halo Mango, Chowking)..

Then we tried Ice Flakes Boracay and never looked back! 
It may not be a "traditional" Halo Halo, but the method that they use to shave the ice made it our favourite dessert by far. What makes their version so special is that the ice-shaving machine is somehow able to make the ice in a way that it is super fluffy and extra smooth.  It actually feels like you are eating fluffy, freshly-fallen snow that is full of sweet delicious flavours that melt in your mouth.  This was unique because the "shaved-ice" elsewhere was more like chunks of crushed ice with sauce on top, that you have to chew through, instead of it melting quickly in your mouth like snow. 
Ice Flakes Boracay also served other shaved-ice flavours, so one night we also tried the mango coconut flavour.. it was good, but we quickly reverted back to Halo Halo because we liked the variety of toppings (particularly the delicious Leche Flan)!.

We had several nice meals in the Philippines, but other than Halo-Halo, we unfortunately didn't fall in love with any of the traditional Filipino dishes.  We didn't find them very appealing because they were all really heavy and meat-based dishes served with rice and zero vegetables.  

Jen's quest to find a good Filipino "Ube Cake" also failed - we tried it at 4 different places and although they were very inexpensive, they were sadly all disappointing flavour and texture wise.

Bohol Countryside

Instead of joining a big "Bohol Countryside" bus tour, we opted to rent a car & driver to see the sites on our own (2800php, ~$70cad).  This allowed us to leave an hour earlier to beat the Lunar New Year crowds, and gave us the flexibility to decide which of the standard-itinerary stops we wanted to visit (and how long to spend at each stop).

Chocolate Hills  (Entrance Fee: 100php, ~$2.50cad)
We started our tour at 8am and drove ~2 hours to the furthest site.  Our first stop was at a view point of the UNESCO Heritage site, Chocolate Hills.

The Chocolate Hills are marine limestone hills that are conical-shaped and stand between 30m and 120m high. They take their name because the limestone mounds are covered in a layer of soil and grass which, during the dry season, turns chocolatey-brown in colour. In Bohol, there are an estimated 1,200-1,800 individual mounds.  Since they are all so similarly and uniquely-shaped, they have a very man-made feel to them, but we learned that scientists theorise that they were formed naturally, from geological shifting and erosion over thousands of years.

Along the way, we also asked the driver to stop at some rice fields so that we could take pictures. Here, our driver informed us that the tree-covered hills in the background are also part of the Chocolate Hills.


Tarsiers at Bohol Enchanted (Entrance Fee: 100php, ~$2.50cad)
Our next stop was supposed to be at the Tarsier Conservation Area, but our driver recommended a different place that he said was better because you can get a closer view of the Tarsiers.  We went along with his recommendation and stopped at Bohol Enchanted, which turned out to be a very small park with a pretty local feel.  There were only 3 Tarsiers here, but they were not behind any cages so we were able to get so close that you could touch them! (Note: you can't touch them because they get extremely stressed out).  

Tarsiers are the second-smallest primates in the world, standing around 6 inches tall and weighing around 100g.  They are nocturnal and endemic to the Philippines but most are found on Bohol.  They are currently one of the world's most endangered primates.  

They are SUPER cute!!  When Jen saw them, her eyes grew almost as big as theirs 🤣.  Tarsiers are rumoured to be the inspiration for the Star Wars character Yoda, and when we saw them moving around in real life, it totally reminded us of Grogu (baby-yoda) from the Mandalorian. 

Check out this video by Ze Frank, to learn some fun(ny) facts about Tarsiers: True Facts About The Tarsier

Bilar Man-made Forest
On our way to lunch, we made a quick stop at the Bilar man-made forest. This red and white mahogany forest exists because it was part of a reforestation project over 50 years ago.  We just snapped some quick photos and were back on our way.


Loboc River Cruise (Fee: 850php, ~$20cad)
We stopped for lunch at the Loboc River Cruise. It was a really touristy-but-nice cruise where you enjoy a lunch buffet of traditional Filipino dishes, while appreciating the scenery along the Loboc river.  The activity lasted about 90 mins and at the halfway point, we stopped at a platform where some locals perform traditional Filipino dances. One of the dances was quite entertaining to watch because the dancers have to dance between 2 long, thick bamboo sticks, which are being hit together on the beat by people on either ends of the bamboo.  It's something like double-dutch jump-rope, but with (what we imagine are) more painful consequences of getting your feet crushed between the bamboo if your timing is off.  The dance starts gets increasingly more exciting because the music continually speeds up and the dancers have to dance more and more frantically to keep up with the rhythm and avoid getting hit 😃!


Xzootic Animal Park (Entrance Fee: 100php, ~$2.50cad)
The next standard itinerary stop was at a place called Xzootic.  We didn't really know what was here, but we agreed to stop, paid our 100 pesos, and went in. 
They assigned us a guide and went to the first room where we saw 13 HUGE pythons lying on different areas of the floor. Our guide introduced us to the various snakes and invited us to pet the snakes while posing for pictures.  We loved how silky and smooth the snakes felt and couldn't believe how huge they were.  Most of them were lazing around and not moving much but we lucked out and saw one of the biggest snakes start moving toward the corner - it was really fascinating to watch this huge thing actually moving around!

Dom and Flo also decided to pay an extra 20 pesos (50 cents) to hold one of the smaller snakes around their necks. 

Both Xzootic and Bohol Enchanted had small butterfly enclosures that we spent a bit of time in. If you look closely, you can see that one of the butterflies had semi-transparent wings - pretty cool!

The animal farm also had a few other random birds, monkeys, and a Kopi Luwak weasel that we finally saw up close... but the huge pythons were definitely the highlight here.


Baclayon Church
We were wondering why this particular church was on the standard itinerary, as opposed to one of the many other churches along the way that looked interesting or bigger.  It turns out that it's because this 18th-century church is one of the oldest (structurally original) churches in the Philippines, and it is made from coral stones.


Blood Compact Shrine
This was just another quick (standard) stop where you take a picture of a statue and then head home. 
At the site, there was no explanation about what the statue's significance was or why it had such a weird name, but after checking the internet, we learned that a "blood compact" (aka "sandugo") is a Filipino ritual where both parties cut their arms and pour the blood into a glass of wine, then they both equally drink the blood mixture until it is empty.  The ritual signifies an agreement to peace and friendship between the 2 parties.  This particular shrine depicts the 1965 blood compact made between Spanish Explorer, Miguel López de Legazpi, and the Bohol Chieftan, Datu Sikatuna, which was considered the “First Treaty of Friendship between two different races, religions, cultures and civilizations”.


Island Hopping Panglao

Compared to Palawan, there aren’t as many islands to visit in the Bohol region, but Panglao Island Hopping still has something to offer!  We started our day quite early, meeting up at the tour operator at 6am.  From there, we took a van to the Western tip of the island and our driver stopped at (what seemed like) a random place on the side of the main road.  A crew member, met us there and we followed him through the local village, to a small inlet where the boat was anchored.


Between the islands of Panglao and Balicasag, there is an area where dolphins normally go to feed, so our first activity was dolphin watching.  There’s no guarantee of seeing dolphins, but lucky for us, within 5 minutes of arriving in the dolphin area, they starting showing up right beside our boat.  We even saw 2 of them playfully jumping straight up out of the water!  Unfortunately, they were too fast, so we didn’t manage to get any pictures of their cute playful jumps. 🙁

From here, we continued to Balicasag Island where we hopped onto a smaller boat to do some snorkelling. We started in the deeper area where you can often see turtles, and then drifted with the current to see the coral and other marine life. 

Since Jen and Flo didn’t see the first turtle, the boat guides brought us to the shallow waters where a turtle had been spotted by another group.  All of the tourists were packed around here, but the turtle seemed to be ignoring the crowds and doing its own thing.  We managed to snap some really close pictures because at one point, the turtle decided to escape the tourist hoard and swim straight toward Dom! 

Our last stop was at Virgin Island, a sand bar nestled between Balicasag and Panglao.  We stayed here for about 1 hour, wading through the ankle deep crystal clear water, appreciating the beautiful stretch of natural sand, and trying to spot (and avoid stepping on) the sea urchins, shellfish, and starfish.  We were amazed that although it felt like we were standing somewhere in the middle of the sea, the water was so clear and completely flat and calm in every direction, as far as our eyes could see!

Beaching in Panglao

For the next part of our trip, we planned to meet up with our friend, Flo, who was coming to the Philippines for a couple of weeks to meet&visit her extended family, and vacation with us. 

Our flight from El Nido to Bohol was scheduled to depart at 8:30am but when we arrived at the airport just after 6am, the hall and walkways were packed with unhappy people waiting around with their luggage, amidst chaos.  We found our way to an AirSwift agent who explained that all flights since yesterday morning had been cancelled because one of the planes broke a wheel and was stuck on the runway.  Result:  small airport, 1 runway = NO flights going in or out.

All of the Manila flights were being redirected, so those passengers were all waiting around to be sent (5 hours) by minivan to Puerto Princesa. Our flight had been tentatively rescheduled to later in the afternoon, so we all sat anxiously waiting and watching to see if the mechanics would be able to repair and move the broken plane from the runway, in time for our rescheduled departure.  Lucky for us, they managed to move the plane at around 11am, so we were able to fly out later that afternoon  😥

Flo arrived in Bohol a couple of days after us and we stayed on the touristy island called Panglao.

Most of our time was spent around Alona beach, but we did venture out and explore Dumaluan Beach on one of the days.


Dom snorkelled at Alona Beach and manage to find some unique marine life: a colourful sea urchin, a big jellyfish, a sea snake, and a really shy blue fish with white stripes (maybe a Blue Koran Angelfish?).  He also saw clown fish, angel fish, star fish, sea urchin, etc.


Compared to other countries, there weren’t many touristy restaurants serving local food here, but we did find some good international restaurants and loved how awesome they were at presenting their food.  We discovered "smoothie bowls" which was new for all of us, and we absolutely loved them!


Island Hopping in El Nido

What makes El Nido special is the combination of ~45 karst islets and islands nearby, all surrounded by crystal clear waters.  El Nido's premier attraction of Island Hopping, involves taking a boat to visit those different islands, beaches, and lagoons, while doing some snorkelling and kayaking activities along the way. 

The local tourism authorities define the 4 standard island hopping tours that can be offered by operators (creatively named Tours A through D).  It doesn't matter which tour operator you go with - if you do "Tour A", the price and island locations will be the same for all of the operators.  That being said, some of the standard locations may be modified due to poor conditions such as strong winds and waves.  On a daily basis, the local coastguard decides which tours are cancelled, modified, or allowed, based on the upcoming day's conditions.

Tours A and C are the most popular.  While we were there, Tour C had been cancelled every day for several weeks (since Christmas).  The other tours had also been intermittently cancelled, so there was a backlog of people waiting to go island hopping.  We tentatively signed up for “Tour A or C” and our tour operator used WhatsApp to let us know (at 6am) which tours were allowed/cancelled for the day. 
 
Tour C
We lucked out and managed to go on a modified version of tour C - we kayaked in Cadlao Lagoon, snorkelled at the Helicopter Island beach, ate lunch on a beach on Mantinloc Island, and snorkelled at Palilo Beach and Hidden Beach.  We were really looking forward to visiting the "Secret Beach", which requires you to swim through a small hole in the karst to get to it (kayaks are too big), unfortunately, this stop was removed due to strong wind and waves.  The next day, Tour C was fully cancelled again.

Here's what the main beach looked like when we were gathering to start our first tour. Not sure if this is the usual scene, or if it was particularly packed with people that day because the weather was finally better (all tours had been cancelled the previous days). 


Tour A

We were really pleased with our Tour C experience, so 2 days later, we did Tour A.  Here we explored Secret Lagoon on Miniloc Island and snorkelled elsewhere on the same island.  It was really windy that day (56km gusts), so instead of eating (a lot of sand) on the beach, we ate on the boat shielded by the karsts of Inatula island.  
We were then supposed to kayak in the Big Lagoon, but someone messed up the Blue Lagoon permit paperwork, so they would not allow us to enter.  We ended up doing Cadlao Lagoon for a second time, instead, and then finished by visiting 7 Commandos Beach.  We still had a great time, but we were a bit sad about missing Blue Lagoon as it was the highlight of this tour. 

Here is a short video of our experiences on tour A and C


Hidden Beach
Hidden beach is hidden by a big karst wall.  At the opening near the wall the water gets shallow, so boats are not supposed to go in.  Since there was a strong current and big waves, we had a pretty tricky swim to go from our boat to the calm lagoon area.  Jen got to practice her lifeguard skills, towing one of the other tourists back to our boat because he couldn't swim.  Once we arrived at the Hidden Beach, we spotted some cute little black-fin sharks swimming through the crystal clear water. 

Cadlao Lagoon
This was a really nice lagoon with clear water at the beginning and then silty blue water at the end. On our first tour we kayaked here for about 1 hour. On our second tour, we decided to snorkel and saw a group of clown fish. 

Helicopter Beach
It was just a beach, but it was nice.  There was supposed to be good snorkelling here, but the seas were choppy when we went so the visibility was too poor to see anything. 

Secret Lagoon
Off to the side of one of the beaches, there is a hole in one of the karst walls.  Once you go through, you end up in a small lagoon that is entirely surrounded by natural walls.  We luckily arrived early so there weren't that many people, but as we were leaving, there was a big line starting to form.  Later that evening, we overheard other tourists saying they waited an hour in line to get into the Secret Lagoon. 

Snorkelling
We stopped at a few different snorkelling spots during our 2 tours.  Since conditions weren't great, we didn't see very many fish, but we did see a purple clam, a few clown fish, some blue star fishes, a couple of parrot fish, and some other random small fish/sea creatures that we don't know the names of 😂. 

Lunch
The lunch on our first tour was quite spectacular.  While we visited the various tour stops, the boat chefs prepped the meal.  At around 13:00, we arrived at a small beach and the crew floated a table and the dishes over to the beach, in a kayak.  We had a wonderful feast!
On our second tour, because of the high wind, we ended up eating on the boat sheltered by an island. It was still nice, but less spectacular. 



Boat's Personal Space
In El Nido, it seems that the boats don’t have any personal space. Even if the area is crowded, they go in as close as possible to their destination and then when it’s time to leave, the crew have to figure out how to untangle the pontoons.  The pictures show the crew struggling to free one side of the boat, while the other side is completely deadlocked 🤷‍♂️

We were amazed at how affordable the island hopping tours were (~1400php, $35cad / person) for the full day.  It's worth noting that there were a couple of additional expenses that we didn't find out about after we were on the boat: 
  • Kayak rental at each lagoon - 300-400 PHP (~$7-8 cad/kayak/hour) 
  • Water shoes - 100 PHP / person  - The water shoes were optional but we highly recommend taking them.  There were several areas where people were hit by strong waves or slipped on the uneven surfaces and badly scraped their feet/legs on the jagged coral and rocks.

El Nido

El Nido is a small town in Northern Palawan, which is surrounded by limestone karst cliffs and unspoiled islands that have stunning blue lagoons and white sand beaches. It used to be a fishing village, but because of its natural beauty, it became a tourist hub. 

From Puerto Princesa, it was an uncomfortable 5 hour ride, zig-zagging through the mountains in a 12-passenger minivan packed full with 14 people… but we finally made it.  Maybe we were tired from the journey, but our first impression of El Nido was not the greatest - it was noisy, crowded, and lacking charm.  We quickly learned that Palawan was suffering from energy and gas shortages, so El Nido only had power 12 hours per day while we were here (from 8am to 2pm and 8pm to 2am).  The result was that each establishment ran huge noisy generators during the other 12 hours of brown-out time, filling the small town with inescapable noise and exhaust fumes.


We came here to do some island hopping and were surprised that many of the island hopping tours were cancelled by the coast-guard due to rough conditions.

Fortunately we had several buffer days here, so we spent the time walking around town and nearby beaches to take in the scenery.


After a good meal and some sleep, we re-framed our minds and started to appreciate the small, scenic El Nido for what it was.


On Corong Corong Beach (a 15 minute walk, South of El Nido), we frequented a really nice bar called Sip Sunset Lounge, where we enjoyed happy hour drinks while watching the sunset.


We also did a 45 minute canopy walk above the city.  Although short, it does give you a great view of the town and bay. 

One of the unusual/cool things we encountered during the canopy walk, was the rock that sounded like a bell.  According to our guide, they tap and listen for this sound in the rocks to determine whether the section of rock is solidly attached to the surrounding cliffs, or loose/broken-off (hollow bell sound).

Puerto Princesa

Our first stop in the Philippines was Puerto Princesa.  We didn't have any special reason to go here other than it being the best flight  that we could find from Taipei to Palawan (ie. shortest duration with a reasonable price, but.. it departed at 1:30am on New Years Day).  

We took a post-redeye rest day to wander the town.  Everything was closed on New Years day so it was a very quiet and slightly eerie introduction to the Philippines.  A few restaurants were open so we discovered a popular Filipino dessert called Halo-Halo.  Since the dessert is based around shaved ice, we imagined something similar to (flavourless) snow-cones and were quite skeptical at first.. but it turned out to be really delicious!  We ended up trying it at 2 different places, Mang Inasal and Noki Noc's.  We preferred the one at Noki Nocs because the ice was smoother / less chunky.


There isn't much to do in Puerto Princesa other than visit the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River UNESCO site, which is now one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.  At 8.2km long, it’s one of the longest underground rivers in the world. 

To get there, we took a 90+ minute car ride to Sabang, followed by a 30 minute motorboat ride to a beach near the cave.  We then walked through the forest to an area where we were given helmets, audio guides, and assigned to a small rowboat.  

The cave tour only goes in about 1.2km (of the 4.3 km that are navigable by boat).  We spent about 35 mins inside the cave contemplating its wonder while listening to the audio guide.  The audio guide was well done and helps ensure that tourists remain silent during the cave visit, to reduce disruption of the delicate structures and wildlife (ie. bats) that the cave is home to. 

After the cave tour, we took a boat back to Sabang where we had a buffet lunch, and then drove back along the narrow winding road to Puerto Princesa.  

Apparently, we lucked out with the tour because previous days had been cancelled due to bad weather and choppy waves.  Overall, we enjoyed our day, but we did wonder if it was really worth it given that it took ~6 hours of transport+waiting time (there and back), just to see the cave for only about 30 mins.. 🤔