El Nido

The Island of Palawan, which is between Manila and Cebu on the western side of the country, is a very green island spanning about 250 km from south west to north east and has the area named El Nido at its northern tip.

I rented a scooter and decided to check out the beaches on this side of the island.

The first beach is the Vanilla beach towards the south side of El Nido. It has a beautiful densely wooded small island about a kilometer away. There are ziplines running from the shore to this island and one can enjoy that adventure for about $15.

I was hungry and got some food with seafood and veggies which was delicious.

The beach is not too long and most of the time the high tide covers up the beach. However, it is beautiful and has a view of many islands in the sea close by.

There was a storm overnight and the beautiful coconut tree in the picture below was flattened the next day I passed by that spot.

Next I started riding towards the Nacpan beach. The whole island of Palawan is densely wooded too, and seems to have very good concrete highways. However, there are many patches where the highway is discontinuous.

The Nacpan Beach is similar, and has two islands off the coast.

There are beautiful coconut trees everywhere, and the sand is light brownish.

There are coconut vendors who would sell you a very big, fresh, cold, juicy coconut for $2. After you finish drinking the coconut juice, they will cut the coconut for you so you can eat the meaty part of it.

The last 2 km from the concrete highway to the Nacpan beach are the worst. There is so much dirt and deep puddles, that is very hard to ride a scooter to get to the beach.

Once you get to the highway though, the road is very beautiful and the surroundings are very pleasing. There are paddy farms on one side and mountains on the other.

Driving towards the Duli beach, the last 2 km on are similarly unpaved and rough, and you have to cross a steep rocky downhill, but at the peak you do see an excellent view of the ocean and a small island not too far from the shore.

Similar to the prior two beaches, Dili is also very clean, peaceful and picturesque.

On this beach, there were a few small restaurants typically called Resto bars. I went to one which was run by a British person who had just retired to the Philippines and started that resto bar.

The roads have good markers for people to find the different beaches and attractions in the area.

The next one was the Sibaltan area where I kind of lost track of the road and went around in circles, but the views were fantastic all around.

I kept taking the paths which led to the sea, and all had unpaved, rocky, narrow passages that ended up at the sea. I saw a very tiny island just off the shore, which was very cute looking and had a small house on it.

As I kept going towards the vanilla beach, back to where had started from, there were many places with excellent views of the sea and islands, I stopped and took pictures and videos as often as I could.

I especially liked the views of very tiny islands with trees that were very close to the shore.

Besides the beaches, there are many waterfalls in the area and many tourists come here for scuba diving and snorkeling. Palawan is a precious treasure of the Philippines.