It's more fun in the Philippines!

Leaving El Nido

I am on my last day in the Philippines. Made my 6 hours trip in a van from El Nido to Puerto Princesa (PP) today. I have only one night in PP, and will fly out via Manilla to Singapore where I have my last vacation days. The driver we had down to PP today was in fact driving pretty carefully, which is good when you don't even have seat belts in the car. Had never been there, or had been removed. A thing that surprised me on the way down today, was that the white line on the side of the road here is hand painted! No machine! An important job, but it must be boring to paint the white line on the side of the road. Hope they make it a bit interesting some times, and paint the yellow line in the middle of the road as well. :-)
It's a saying to make people go to the Philippines, "is's more fun in the Philippines", and I think I will say yes to that, both for my stay in El Nido and also for the sail trip from Coron. This weeks in Palawan, Philippines have been good fun, and social, which is pretty important too when travel solo. I have had some good 16 days over here.

In El Nido have I just been diving, 5 days in a row and a total of 15 dives. The dives have been good, but the visibility have been bad on most of the dives. Down to 2 meter and at the best maybe 15, which is good. Even if the dives are good, I do not think that I will go to El Nido for the diving itself, it is not that good compare to other places. But, when one are in El Nido, it is most definitely a good activity and good fun. And El Nido is a nice little town to spend some vacation days, and I do believe it still is to consider as a remote place even for the Philippines and I like the place, more this year than last time.
The guides from Submarineer have been awesome, good diving and fun to be on the boat with them. When it comes to the divecompany, Submariner, I have only good things to say about them. I can for sure recommend to go diving with them if you go to El Nido. Good rental equipment, good divemasters and instructors and very good organised when it comes to logistic and everything that make the dives go smoothly for us divers. With 5 out of 7 days out diving it have only left 2 days for other stuff, and the other stuff have

been doing nothing, expect sitting at the Art cafe reading, writing on the blog while I have been eating and drinking. That is pretty good for a vacation day as well, as long as it isn't every day.
The days on the dive boat from Submariner have been really good, it have been nice people on the boat every day. Some of us have also been hanging out some of the evenings after the days dives, having some drinks and dinners together, it have been great and they have been very good company.

Between dives with Submariner

I picked up that it was a typhoon coming into Philippines when I was in El Nido, and that worried me a bit even if it was not supposed to hit Palawan. When I managed to get online, I found out that it was downgraded to tropical storm, that probably is bad enough for a Norwegian, and that it was not hitting close to El Nido or Palawan at all. Hope the people that got the storm, made it true it in a good way.
My tiny room at OurMeltingPot did the job, even if it was not more than a bed behind a door. I slept pretty good, even if it was noisy from the street before 23:00 and after 6.00, or it was some music that kept me a bit awake a few nights as well, and I was very surprised when I found out that it was coming from the church across the street, had not seen that coming.
Here in PP am I staying at the Blue lagon, stayed here 2 years ago too, it got a pool and it is 5 minutes from the airport, double win, and I do not plan to leave the hotel before I check out for Singapore.

Convenient seating for after food, just to lay back and relax.

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