A Tale of Two Minks': The Philippines

At the beginning of the school year, many of the teachers were already making plans for the Chinese New Year break. Hunter and I were very excited as we dreamed of all the places we could go. South Korea? Japan? Thailand? The sky was the limit. One day we happened to overhear our director talking about a little place in the Philippines called El Nido. He explained that it was his go to place and he had been several times. He described it as the most picturesque place you can imagine. And cheap to boot. After a little research and a few minutes drooling over pictures, we were hooked. It looked amazing AND we could stay for a lot longer due to how cheap everything would be.

I never imagined us going to the Philippines but after spending almost two weeks there, we were certainty not let down. It is an understatement to say the Philippines are beautiful. I can’t describe the gorgeousness that was everywhere and the pictures just don’t do it justice. A majority of the country, or all of it rather, seems untouched by Western commercialism. Everything is raw and in a natural state. The people were down to Earth, kind, sweet, and helpful. The ocean and the beaches were magnificent and breathtaking. I felt like I was constantly looking at a postcard.

We experienced too much in our 13 nights to detail in just one blog, so we will break our trip into three separate posts which will describe the three places we spent the majority of our time.

Verde Safari

We spent about half of our trip at an isolated little “resort” called Verde Safari. To get there we flew from Shanghai to the capital of the Philippines, Manila. We then flew a short distance to the island of Palawan to a quaint city called Puerto Princesa. We arrived in the evening and had a long day ahead of us so we ate dinner and went to sleep. The next morning we woke up early and rode for 5 hours in a hot, sticky, cramped van along a bumpy dirt road all the way to El Nido. Once we arrived, the owner of Verde Safari, Anne, picked us up and took us for another bumpy ride. This trip was much shorter, lasting only one hour.

Verde Safari is very far North on the island of Palawan. It is tucked away in the forest, surrounded by a village on a little cove. It is owned by a couple who were very kind and low key. There are only a few bedrooms with personal bathrooms for rent (or you could camp on the beach) so there were often not many people there. There were quite a few days where we had the place to ourselves and it felt as though we had our own private beach front.

Verde Safari provided peace and quiet and was very secluded, which was a nice alternative to the more touristy El Nido.

This is what our place looked like. It was cute and simple! It was behind the owners house and less than 100 yards away from the beach. They filtered the water so we were able to drink it, however they did not have a water heater. That made for very cold showers!

The beach offered crystal clear waters and bright, white sand. We often sat in the hammocks right in front of the beach. We spent a lot of time playing poker, bad mitten, and eating. We swam a lot and explored the area too.

There were some cool lava rocks that we liked to climb. They were down the beach from us and if you continued to climb them around a cliff, there was another pretty cove where you could swim.

Our first full day at Verde Safari, we went for a boat ride with a local fisherman. He took us to an island right across from our beach where we went snorkeling and hiking. We climbed to the top of the island where we had a great view of everything surrounding us. The fisherman also took us to a beautiful cove that was north of us. It was surrounded by rock so there were no waves. The water was crystal clear and so beautiful!

One day we went hiking and explored the village nearby. We saw a lot of huts, beautiful hills, rice fields, and said hi to the locals. The little kids were so adorable and were always so excited to see us and talk to us. Despite the rampant poverty, many of the people we came across were some of the kindest and happiest I have ever met.

One day we went on an island hopping tour in El Nido. El Nido is really unique little town where most of there revenue comes from tourism so they cater to Westerners. However, they also incorporate a lot of their own local culture and food. It was my favorite place out of the three we stayed.