November 18th - Day 10

Coron town full of surprises

Tunduay rum is not the most pleasant of hangovers! I struggle throughout the morning as I'm looking for options to go to Cebu, Boracay or any other beach-like destination in the Philippines. Unfortunately the prices are not inviting, and any other plan would easily cost us over 150 euros each, plus all the hassle of flying to Manila, then another flight, etc., etc...

And then Don comes around! Don is a local guy who studied Tourism at University and definitely a smart guy! He surprises with some knowledge about Estonia, including a few key sentences... always a good calling card! We start talking about what we're doing around here and he tells us he is organizing some trips around the islands for 3 days/ 2 nights. It's certainly not cheap, about 2x our daily budget but it certainly sounds appealing! Going around random beaches, not worrying about accommodation, food or anything else, and we'd be spending 3 days with someone who knows the place and join other fellow travelers as well!

After some thought, we decided to go ahead with it! So from November 20th - 22nd, we'll be away from any kind of comfy bed, electricity or any other commodity :)

We then relocate to the SeaDive resort where we will be spending the following 2 nights. The place is run by an american who married a filipino woman and the staff at the restaurant is rather impolite, especially taking into account Filipino standards! But well, the place is the nicest and cheapest around so we decide to go ahead and stick with the choice, the room is really nice, unbelievably cheap and the location is just perfect.

One interesting thing about backpacking around the Philippines is the absence of dormitories, very common when you are traveling on your own. At least in Palawan I did not see a single dormitory, most rooms are either double or triple so if are planning to visit Palawan make sure you are ready for that!

After checking in we head to the local market where you can find all the imaginable fruits and we can't resist to buy out some tasty looking mangos and some caramelized bananas. Food is incredibly cheap in the Philippines, you can easily spend 3 euros in a whole day having rather decent meals!

The rest of the day is rather uneventful and we spend pretty much the whole day in the terrace of the SeaDive resort, writing our blogs and just enjoying the view and sunbathing...

In the evening we get a rather unpleasant surprise from Don: the Swedish girls have missed their flight and since we're only 2 now... he can't make the tour. He mentioned that they might arrive on the next flight in the morning and so we could head out to the islands a little later than the usual - hoping and waiting is all we can do. Let's hope the girls make it the morning after and that we can still go on the trip... I was definitely looking forward to it!

We then head out for dinner and sit at the Coron café, just on the corner of Coron's main business street and the one that leads to the main square. You will notice that I often don't know which street something is located because... well, filipinos don't either and neither maps nor streets have names written down (in Manila you could find them but trust me: it's not that easy to get around with a street map there, they really are not accurate - at least the ones I had were not!)

Thirty minutes later I get my food and the waitress, with a big smile on her face tells us: "we're sorry, but we ran out of the fish that the ma'am ordered... would you like to choose something else?" Erm... you could have said that before I thought but... after 10 days in the Philippines I know better than to complain and simply smiled and said that we'll just split the food :)