This is just a short list of the islands, beaches and attractions of El Nido. There are plenty more that you can explore.

Entrance to the Small Lagoon

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Southeast Asian Airlines (Seair) is only one of two commercial airlines that fly to El Nido. The unpaved runway of El Nido Airport limits the types of aircraft that can land there. Currently only Seair’s 19-seater Let-410, Island Transvoyager Inc’s (ITI) 19-seater Dornier 228 and the service helicopter of the Malampaya crew land and take off from their airport.

Seair’s Let-410 landing at El Nido airport

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Two weeks ago, if someone told me that traveling to El Nido can be done on a budget, I wouldn’t believe it. Now that I’ve been there, I can say that it *is* possible. Not counting the travel expenses to and from El Nido, staying in El Nido town can be quite cheap, given the range of budget accommodations available, as well as affordable canteens and restaurants scattered throughout the small town. It’s not surprising that a lot of backpackers from all over the world flock every year to this gorgeous place, as well as a growing number of Filipino budget travelers.

Just Wandering’s overly simplified and obviously not-to-scale map of El Nido Town
(click to view or download larger version)

During our off time (one day spent resting in between island hopping adventures), I decided to walk around town and check out some of the affordable places to stay in El Nido. This is a short list compared to several available online, but these are places that I have looked at and doesn’t look too dodgy. I wasn’t able to check the rooms on offer on most of them, but I have chatted with the owners or caretakers about their rooms and facilities. I they were kind enough to answer the questions of this pesky traveler who wasn’t even planning on staying at their place, they’re automatically included in the list.
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I’m trying to think back why we chose to stay in Marina Garden Beach Resort, but all I can think about is how glad I was that we agreed to stay here. The resort has the best stretch of beach for lounging and swimming. Though most of the resorts in town have beach fronts or have access to the beach, Marina’s beachfront is the widest and cleanest, and hardly any boat dock on its shore, which makes it the best for swimming. That’s why guests of other resorts flock to Marina’s beachfront.

View from Marina Garden Resort

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I’m back in Manila and I’m sorely missing the beach in El Nido. I’ve prepared a series of blog posts about this trip, and I hope you guys find it useful for planning your own El Nido vacation. First up is of course, the travel budget.

The perception of many is that El Nido is a very expensive place to travel to. It actually is, considering that direct flights to El Nido from Manila can cost as much as Php 13,000 per person. The cheaper alternative is to go via Puerto Princessa, but you’d have to deal with rough roads and cramped spaces inside vans or buses (or if you’re hardcore, saddled on an off-road motorcycle). The best place to stay for budget travelers is El Nido Town. There are several resorts and lodges that offer cheap accommodation to fit every budget. The same go for restaurants and shops.

El Nido’s main attraction, of course, are the spectacular limestone formations and sparkling white sand beaches of the islands in the Bacuit Archipelago. To visit these islands, you can either hire your own boat or go with a group tour. The group tour aren’t so bad, and they’re usually limited to about 8 to 10 passengers. If you’re a fairly large group (5 and up), you can try sweet talking the tour operator to let your group have the entire boat to yourselves. Tour of the islands usually start at Php 500 per person and already includes lunch.

This is certainly not my cheapest domestic trip, but considering that it’s a 5 day, 4 nights trip in one of the most amazing places in the Philippines, it’s worth every peso.
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It’s been more than 24 hours since I last used a computer. For me, that’s quite a feat. Though frankly, I think I ran up quite a bill on mobile Internet charges. It feels good to be on a holiday during a trip. Since I started travel blogging, each one of my trip started feeling like a great piece for the blog, not a vacation. I needed to take it slow and just sit back, relax and take in the beauty of the world around me. El Nido is the perfect place for that.

My workstation in El Nido.

El Nido, Palawan is in most Filipino’s dream destination. It was also part of mine, and I never really thought I would one day be here. Of course, Seair played a big part to make it happen — we were given return tickets to the island for free. Seair offers seasonal flights to El Nido, twice a week. We took the Wednesday flight out of Manila, and we’re taking the Sunday flight back.
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I didn’t really know what to expect of Krystal Lodge. For one thing, when we went there last June, there were hardly any information about this place online. No pictures even. Still, I trusted Ferdz‘ judgement. Besides, Coron is filling up because it was a long weekend, so we don’t really have much choice. When the jeep from Busuanga airport dropped us in front of an alley, my mind went into overdrive. What exactly are we getting ourselves into?

We walked through a narrow alley, finally emerging on a wooden platform, then on to a wooden bridge, passing the mangrove and jutting out into the sea. Welcome to Krystal Lodge.

Next to Ponce Suites, this is the most interesting places I’ve stayed in this year. Krystal Lodge is a series of huts on stilts over the sea. There’s a main house, that has the caretaker’s quarters, some rooms, the kitchen, and a common area, then further out are three more huts. Mhye welcomes us and shows us our rooms. Gail and Marc gets a room in the main hut, while Eric, Ferdz and I share the hut furthest out to sea. The hut was surprisingly roomy and quite breezy. We are amazed at the facilities of our little shack on stilts: one bedroom, a bar, a small dining area, a kitchenette, a loft and yes, it has a functioning toilet and shower! Outside, we have a small porch, a hammock and a smaller hut with seats and a table.

Eric and I shared the downstairs bedroom, while Ferdz had the loft to himself. the bedroom was quite roomy — there are two beds, and a huge shelf for our things. There’s also two tables, a fan and access to a changing area. And if you’re wondering, yes, there’s electricity too!

Of course, you can’t have an accommodation like this without its quirks. First, there’s the toilet and the shower. The toilet and the shower area are separate, but is right beside each other. Though the toilet had a door that locks, the shower only had a very thin curtain that blows out whenever there’s a slight breeze. Also, the wall that separates the two was a piece of translucent roofing… you know, the ones they use for skylights. Another thing about the toilet was this diamond hole in the wall at crotch level. When you’re sitting down in the toilet, it lets you look out into the sea and the island across.

Though there’s running water in the hut, it can sometimes be a problem when it slows down to a trickle. It was especially bothersome when the electricity went out on some parts of Coron and Krystal Lodge was affected. Not only do we have to navigate through the alley and the rickety bridge in the dark, we arrive at our hut, exhausted and sticky from island hopping, only to find the water’s out too. Though it was already midnight, Mhye did everything she could to have the water and electricity restored in our hut.

Krystal Lodge is rustic, rugged and certainly not for the high maintenance traveler. However, it’s these very same things that makes it charming.

Krystal Lodge
Coron Town, Busuanga, Palawan
Phone: (02) 4536343
Mobile: 09284108074
E-mail: mhye_310@yahoo.com.ph

Finally, the super delayed continuation of my Coron adventures post!

Everybody was nodding off as we putter from the Siete Pecados to the Maquinit Hot Springs. As the boat docked, Gail and I were only concerned about finding the toilets. We hurried through the wooden brige that winds though the mangroves and into the Hot Springs’s only two toilets.

Afterwards, we settled into a hut. The day’s exertions in the sea left us famished, and our dilemma was that we haven’t any food. Ferdz and Marc made their way to the concessionair stand, and came back with a couple of bags of chips and a bottle of soda — the only things that the store sells. Once the chips and soda were gone, Marc, Eric and I went off to dip in the hot springs. And boy, was it HOT! I’m used to soaking on heated pools, but at the spa, it’s advised to go gradually — first taking a dip in the 36 degrees Celsius pool, then the 38C, and finally, the 40C. In Maquinit, however, there’s only one temperature, and nothing to prepare you for the near 40 degrees Celsius water. That’s why we were adviced to go here during the evenings!

The heat of the pool certainly woke us up. As the sun set, we made our way to the entrance. Roge, our boatman, promised to send his brother-in-law who owns a tricycle to pick us up at 7:30 pm. As we were walking, the lights went out. Perfect! To makes matters worse, the tricycle wasn’t there, and we’ve no way of contacting Roge!

The way tricycles work in Maquinit, is that you hire one at the town to take you there, wait for you, and take you back to the town. Since we went there by boat, we didn’t really have any arrangements, save for the tricycle Roge promised to pick us up. Luckily, Roge sent two — but only one arrived. We waited for a couple more minutes, and as hunger and made its presence felt, we managed to convince one of the drivers to drive us to town while waiting for his passengers.

My camera’s battery died on me, and we were pretty tired to take any more photos, so this is the only one I have.

 
Since we were fairly dry and utterly starved, we decided to have the trikes drop us off at a restaurant for dinner. We ended up at La Sirenetta, a fancy restaurant out in the water, which is a short walk from Kystal Lodge. Revived by the thought of food, we eagerly studied the menu, not really caring that the prices is going to blow our budget. Hey, we deserved a treat! Excitement, however, soon became annoyance as our orders took a lot of time to come to the table. After close to an hour, we were finally served the dishes we ordered. The food was quite good, making it somehow worth the price and the wait. But as much as we enjoyed our pasta, chicken, fish and pizza, it was hard to fully appreciate the service.

With our hunger satiated, we made our way to Krystal Lodge. Seeing houses with the lights on left us with hope that we had electricity in our lodgings. However, it seems only a portion of the town has electricity, and unfortunately, Cyrstal Lodge wasn’t one of them. Slowly, we made our way through the narrow alley and unto the rickety wooden bridge to our accomodation, with Ferdz’ headlamp the only thing ligthing our way. We finally made it to our little shack on the sea. We were all exhausted, but we just had to shower before heading to bed. I gathered my bath things and went to the bathroom. I turned on the tap and was welcomed by a very weak trickle of water. Uh oh. I left the faucet on and went out to fix my things as I wait for the bucket to fill with water. Thirty minutes after, the bucket was less than a half full. This isn’t good.

With three of us needing to use the bathroom, this wouldn’t do. It was almost midnight. Ferdz went to wake up Mhai, the resort manager. The power outage somehow affected the water pump in our room. It couldn’t be repaired until the morning, so in the meantime, Mhai let us use the bathroom of the other hut that was recently vacated. I used Unit 9′s bathroom, while Eric used the bathroom inside Gail & Marc’s room. It was almost 2 am when we finally finished. What a day!