Day 119 ... El Nido is our next stop and I honestly can’t believe we got there in one piece! We were packed into a rusty, old 12 seater minivan with a cockroach for company. It was more like a 9 seater and 3 seats for 3 year olds and under. Don’t even get me started about packing the van with luggage! We had the craziest driver ever, although we had been warned about the driving over here. He must have been driving 60-70kmph and not really slowing down for corners, cows, over taking, children, watermelons, under taking, goats, 40kmph signs, other vehicles, men riding water buffalo, check points with bollards, roadworks, bridges with ramps or torrential rain!! Baring in mind the road to El Nido is like the road up to the French Alps! We set off 2 hours late and it took 4 hours to get there. We booked the transport through our hotel in Puerto Princesa but we certainly won’t be doing that again! I did think I’d rather see what we’re booking and book a bus online but Adam seemed to think we should just book through the hotel and the guy confirmed it was aircon so seemed okay. It could have been worse I suppose, but it was not the comfiest journey. Adam even felt the need to mention that just in case we do crash, cover my head because I was sat next to a metal post in between 2 windows of the van!! I felt like I should be sending ‘I love you’ messages to all our family, but I wasn’t going to do that and worry them ha ha! We stopped off for lunch, I wanted some dry food seeing as I felt sea sick from the drive so far and the pre cooked meat and rice did not look appetising so we ordered 2 ham and cheese sandwiches! You just never know what your going to get when you place a food order anywhere in SE Asia!! It arrived and it was a sandwich on the smallest white, square pieces of bread which had a pathetic attempt at being toasted (there’s an issue with proper toast in SE Asia, as in they don’t do it!!) with some plastic cheese and something that resembled sausage meat but because I had no idea what it was made up of and in SE Asia that could literally be any kind of meat, we decided not to risk food poisoning and took the sausage meat off to enjoy our floppy toasted plastic cheese sandwich. At least they sold roasted cashews and brownie bites which helped to fill us up! We stopped again for a 5 minute toilet break and someone noticed there was something hanging off the van from underneath! Apparently string is the answer..!
I’ve got to give it to the Philippines, it’s so much cleaner than Cambodia. There was so much rubbish lining every single road side we drove along. The Philippines is almost pristine with barely any rubbish thrown on the ground at all. The drive we have done was so scenic and beautiful, lush green countryside with amazing limestone cliffs for the finale when we arrived in El Nido. After we checked in and booked Tour A for tomorrow morning with the tricycle driver who we were dubious about giving 500 pesos deposit to but we thought we’d give him the benefit of the doubt. We went for a walk to find some dinner, we were getting peckish after our floppy, plastic cheese sandwich! We found the beach and had a nice dinner watching the last of the sunset.

Day 120 ... We’re finally back in the sunshine and planning all kinds of things to do while we’re here! First up, Tour A ... which consisted of Small Lagoon, Big Lagoon, Secret Lagoon (although it didn’t look so secret to me with the 40 strong line up to get into it!) and a couple of lovely beaches! We hired a kayak at Big Lagoon as the swim from the boat to the lagoon was pretty far and seeing as I seem to have regressed in my sea swimming abilities and had a mini panic attach in the water at Small Lagoon, mainly because we got near a shallow part and there was coral and sea urchins, we thought the kayak would be a safer and more fun option! Glad we did too as this lagoon should have been called Huge Lagoon! We’re obviously a little out of practice at being in the sun too and we’ve both burnt! The sun is obviously really strong here. I think we need to presume that everywhere we go apart from Dubai! When we were getting back on the boat from our visit to Small Lagoon adam caught the GoPro waterproof holder on the side of the boat and it snapped the GoPro clean of the waterproof floating handle and it plopped straight into the water and sank to the bottom! Thankfully it wasn’t too deep, although deep enough, to swim down with his flippers on and retrieve it after Adam spotted it on the sea bed. It was mainly dead white coral so it stood out pretty well. If it was much deeper it may have been bye bye GoPro so we were lucky to get it back! After dinner on the beach and another ice cream fix at the local gelato shop we headed back for a relaxing night at the hotel and to cover our sunburn in Soleve hoping it’s ok for tomorrow’s trip!!

Day 121 ... Tour C ... Another day, another boat trip. This time was more islands and beaches instead of lagoons. I got in the sea at the first stop and got straight back on the boat. The water was rough, but quite shallow with coral and rocks underneath so I didn’t have the right footwear and it was difficult to swim. So Adam went to see what Secret Beach was all about and he came from behind the rocks and waved to me to go and see. So I gave myself a kick up the backside, got a life jacket on with my havianas and got in the water and with Adams help I made it but it wasn’t easy! Once we got round the back of the rock it opened up into a little hidden beach and shallow water area which was really nice. We spent the day hopping from beach to island. We met a lovely girl called Alesha who was from Milwaukee but lives in the BVIs and works ob yachts and visits Necker Island everyday for a living! She went on holiday for a week but when the cyclone hit and wiped everything out, including her home she kept on travelling and will have been away for 7 months in February and going home on her mums birthday to surprise her! I cannot wait to get home and surprise my parents and sister and see their faces...so excited!!
Anyway...it’s tea time and I didn’t fancy risking another beach side restaurant after I ordered exactly the same thing last night as I did on our first night but it wasn’t the same at all it was fish slices instead of pieces so it was full of bones and not much fish! So we went to the chicken wrap stall we walked passed last night on the way to the gelato shop and tried out a wrap which was on a flatbread, it was amazing, so tasty and packed full! So we went back for another and got them wrapped up for our lunch on the rollercoaster minivan ride tomorrow. Yay, we don’t have to purchase a floppy, plastic cheese sandwich again!! Now time to pack...AGAIN!

122 ... Time for the crazy, terrifying minivan drive back to Puerto Princesa this morning. We got a tricycle to the bus depot to get our Lexxus Minivan, thankfully it was a not quite as rusty, not quite a crazy driving and therefore I didn’t feel quite as travel sick as I did on the way here. The van also wasn’t full, there was only 9 out of the 12 seats filled so we had plenty room. Unfortunately the van driver kept stopping to pick up and drop of locals along the way so it added time to the already long journey but I guess if they have no other mode of transport then they’re helping them out.