Yesterday sucked, pretty spectacularly, but today... is better. I'm in El Nido, OLEH and all I can say is... I'm totally ashamed to be a tourist, you should SEE what they've done to this incredibly beautiful place. It really is spectacular (spectacularrr), with the limestone cliffs and the crystal clear water, very pretty, a bit like Halong Bay in Vietnam. I can only imagine how it looked before all these bafoons arrived. It reminds me a lot of some of the places we visited in Thailand, thumping music, massage parlours, slimy old men with young girls, drunk backpackers everywhere, couples making out on the beach with cheap bottles of wine listening to songs on the cellphones (vommity vom tackkety tack), people pestering you to go on island hopping tours. I suppose if you want a party vibe, if you want to hang out with a bunch of complete pillocks, this is your place.
All THAT... is why I'm heading out on a bangka for 5 days, through the Bacuit Archipelago from El Nido up to Busuanga, camping on small islands, snorkeling, fishing, visiting places the day tours don't get to, away from all the urrrgh people, armed with a bottle (or two) of Tanduay SUPERIOR (moving on from the 5 year, I'm fancy like that)
have a look
I am SO excited.
I'm staying at a delightful place called Spider's Pension, if that name isn't ominous I don't know what is. The guy at reception, well, he was kind of a girl, I think, I'm not entirely sure, he was wearing a VERY tight bikini, and he had massive boobs, and a very high pitched voice and he was SO drunk he could hardly find the key to my room. My room. Hahaha. I've been travelling now for four months, and I've stayed in some pretty rough places, but this one takes the cake, and the tea, and the ginger biscuits no one eats, and the awkward last delicious biscuit left on the plate that everyone's too polite to take, it takes the superfluous cake cuttlery, and the tea cosy... it's bad. I've just come back from dinner, it's almost 1am and the music is so loud I don't know how I'm going to sleep. There's brown stuff falling from the ceiling, the toilet is broken and all sorts of other treats. I'm being a bit of a grumpy old bat, but SERIOUSLY? I don't mind basic, but filthy is another business.
I'm tired. But I absolutely cannot wait for my little expedition up to Coron. Mmmmhmmmmm. Does this call for a celebratory underwater camera purchase? No. Yes. No. It's SO unfair when other people can take pictures under water and YOU can't, I get jealousy like no other when someone is crusing along next to me in the water, snapping away at the most RANDOM things... "GIVE that to meeee" I want to yell, but that would be inappropriate, I guess. If it's someone I know then I swim along next to them showing them cool things to take pictures of, I all but grab the camera out their hands and take the picture myself, I would imagine it's pretty annoying, but I do it anyway, it's a service, they should thank me.
