Welcome to week thirty-four of the backpacking diaries. I’ll be updating you weekly on where I’ve been, what I’ve been getting up to, and most importantly, how I’m really feeling about this insane decision I’ve made.
As you probably know, I’m currently backpacking through Asia after quitting my job and leaving London for good.
I want to remember every moment of this experience, and document as much of it as I can, just like I’ve documented everything else in my life post-18 on this website.
You can keep up to date with my travels on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube but for now, enjoy week thirty-four of the travel diaries!
If you missed the first thirty-three weeks of backpacking diaries, you can catch up here.
Top tip: for mobile data around Asia, we used the Jetpac eSim. This was super handy and easily installed onto our phones as soon as we arrived in Japan! Get $5 off your eSIM package when you use my referral code: ORLZRLN2.
Day 232: Monday 4th November 2024
Location: El Nido, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
Another day of island hopping today! I still can’t get over how blue, green and transparent the water is here.
The Philippines islands and waters are definitely some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, without a doubt.
We snorkelled, chilled on Entalula Beach and had a beautiful lunch, sun bathed, relaxed on the sand and then went snorkelling some more and swam at Pasandigan Cove on Cadlao Island that had the best ocean water I’ve ever experienced.
I’m not usually one for swimming in the ocean because of seaweed and the fact you can’t really see what you’re swimming in, but this water was like drinking water it was so clear.
I could easily have stayed in this water all day and kept swimming.
Our last stop was a sand bar in the middle of the ocean, that quite a few boats had pulled up to. It was really cool to experience this little sand beach in the middle of the water, surrounded by nothing.
After a full day of being out at sea, it was back to the hotel, another sunset at Frendz Hostel’s rooftop bar and then dinner followed by some Filipino gambling.
I had beginners lucky and found myself up 100 pesos before I put it all on one card and lost. But, I didn’t lose anything and I didn’t make anything, so I can’t complain.
Day 233: Tuesday 5th November 2024
Location: El Nido, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
Today was more of a relaxed day and less action-packed. We headed to Angkla Beach Club at Nacpan Beach and chilled here for a few hours.
The weather was nice for the first ten minutes, and then the heavens opened. We were a little confined to sit inside and enjoy the rain storm from underneath the covers.
Some were brave enough to swim – you can’t get any wetter I suppose?
I mostly read, caught up on Instagram Stories and chilled out in the humidity. We all had lunch together and it was the perfect temperature for a very nice salad, but they were out of lettuce and a few other ingredients so all salads were off the menu for the day.
I ended up ordering quite the opposite of a salad, and had a heavy pasta carbonara, but it was incredibly tasty and made with truffle oil.
The sun popped out for a while afterwards and we chilled some more before heading back to the hotel to get ready for sunset and dinner.
We actually ended up at a karaoke bar tonight and I got a little excited and sang a few songs – it’s been a long time since I’ve sang karaoke so I was highly enjoying it.
Himself even surprised me by singing karaoke in front of me for the first time ever!
Day 234: Wednesday 6th November 2024
Location: El Nido & Darocotan Island, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
We had a late check-out today as we were heading to a new island for the next two nights that was only an hour away by van.
We all headed across the street from the hotel to a vegan restaurant for lunch, and it’s probably some of my favourite food that I’ve had during my time in the Philippines.
Also the most expensive, but the croquets we had were incredible, as well as the Spanish latte I had. It took me so long to order because everything on the menu sounded so good, I was spoilt for choice.
Afterwards, we left for Darocotan Island and little did I know the funniest part of this entire trip was just about to happen.
We took the hour-long van from El Nido, and then took a small long boat to the island for fifteen minutes. When we pulled up to the island, and disembarked from the boat, himself lost his footing and fell straight into the water, bags and all.
Thankfully, someone from the group was actually filming at the time and caught it all on camera. I haven’t stopped laughing since and had to put it on my Instagram Story so everyone else could get a good laugh too.
I posted it as an Instagram Reel too, so it can live forever – you can see it here.
All of my clothes for the next two days may have been soaked and full of sand, but the video that we will now have forever, was worth it. His pride might not see it that way, but it’s the best video of this entire trip, for sure.
We quickly checked into our hut for the next two nights which was so spacious with the most incredible view directly of the water. Thankfully it also had a little balcony area so we could leave all of our things out to dry.
We had free time until dinner, so watched the sunset on the beach, explored around the resort that we were staying at and enjoyed happy hour from 5pm-7pm before dinner was served at 7.30pm.
All meals are served communally here, and buffet-style. We had some very tasty Filipino food with pork adobo, noodles, rice, vegetables and more.
The night ended with a bonfire by the beach and toasting marshmallows on the fire before heading to bed around midnight.
I will say that we were maybe just a little too close to the ocean. It felt like the waves were going to come in through the flap of our tent, and the palm trees overhead were very loud when they swayed.
A very cool experience, but I was also eaten alive by mosquitos.
Day 235: Thursday 7th November 2024
Location: Darocotan Island, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
We woke up to our first morning on the island, with the sun beaming in around 6.30am. A few people had wakened even earlier to see the sun rise, but thankfully I was able to sleep a little longer.
We had a communal breakfast at 8.30am of pancakes, fried rice and scrambled eggs. Then we headed off to snorkel around the beaches here.
There’s actually a large shipwreck just off the beach where we’re staying, but the visibility isn’t always great because of the sand so we weren’t able to see it.
We headed a little further to another side of the island where there was lots of coral. There happened to be just a bit too much coral as you couldn’t actually stand, it was everywhere. I ended up scraping my knee a little off the top because there was nowhere to go to avoid it.
I lasted around ten minutes before I called it quits and headed back to our cabin. It was also a scorcher of a day and we were very far from any shade or coverings and I didn’t want to risk getting burnt alive.
After lunch and some free time, we had a cooking demonstration of a popular Filipino snack. It was like a deep fried banana rolled in sugar and it was delicious! Probably not great for the waistline if you have too many but I’m on my holidays, right?
Later in the afternoon we were taken to the local village on the island. Around 35 families live here that work at the four different resorts on the island, and there were lots of kids that we gave colouring books and sweets to.
There isn’t any education centres on the island, so the kids have to take boats to the mainland to go to school.
When we came back to the resort, the local pigs were let out of their pen and ran to the beach for some dinner in front of the waves. I felt like we were in the Caribbean, rather than a small island in the Philippines!
After an eventful day we had some free time to relax on bean bags, read and wait until happy hour started again for some more rum and pineapples.
Himself wasn’t feeling too well this evening, so we called it a night quite early on after dinner to try and get a better night’s sleep this time around.
Day 236: Friday 8th November 2024
Location: Darocotan Island & El Nido, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
Today is the final day of the tour! I can’t believe how quickly the 11 days have gone!
Another morning waking up on the island, looking out onto the ocean. Again, I wouldn’t say that I had the best sleep ever but it felt better than the night before.
We were checking out early this morning to make our way back to El Nido, so it was up for breakfast, packing, taking some last minute footage of the island and then back to the boat to take us to the mainland again.
We had a bit of a blip with the boat again (Steff didn’t fall in this time thankfully) but it got stuck on top of the coral because we were all so heavy. It took a few of the workers and then some of the guys on the boat to get off and start pushing.
But eventually we were off and back on the dry land of El Nido.
We were back to our hotel in El Nido by 11am, so our first stop was coffee from the coffee shop next door (they do a great hot mocha). We grabbed our laptops and worked here for a few hours before heading to a Ukrainian restaurant for some pierogies.
Not something I thought I’d be eating in the Philippines, but we had a strange craving after seeing someone I follow eating some in Krakow. And there just happened to be a Ukrainian restaurant right across the street.
We had free time until our farewell dinner, so we headed back to the hotel to shower and change and relax until around 5pm. It was the final sunset of the sunset tour, so we headed to Frendz Hostel rooftop bar again to catch it.
It was actually way too cloudy, and there was no sunset to see at all. But the rum and pineapples went down a treat. Probably too much of a treat, as we turned up to the farewell dinner slightly tipsy.
The farewell dinner was at an Italian restaurant called Russo Passa and the food was great. I would highly recommend the arancini balls and the pornstar martini.
After being full on food and everyone making their farewell speeches, we headed to a beachfront bar called Sava and drank some more while the waves crashed into the sand.
A great final night to say goodbye to everyone.
Day 237: Saturday 9th November 2024
Location: El Nido, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
And the Philippines Sunset tour has officially come to an end!
We had a nice lie in this morning in the El Nido Hotel and actually got a phone call at 12pm from reception letting us know if we weren’t downstairs in five minutes we would be getting a fine lol.
I’ve never been late or missed check-out in my life, but my stomach was not well this morning and we were relaxing in bed with coffees making the most of not having to go anywhere or be anywhere at an early hour.
We checked out (eventually) and headed next door to the coffee shop we have come to love in El Nido (called Grounded) and worked on our laptops for an hour or so.
I was starting to have really bad stomach cramps, so we decided to head to our next hotel in El Nido called Charlie’s, early to see if we could check in.
My period arrived today – great timing when the tour was just over! – and I was suffering. We were actually able to take a free car service from our hotel to our next hotel that was around 15 minutes away.
Thankfully we were able to check in right away and had a huge bed and room to collapse in. The TV had YouTube installed, so I spent the afternoon curled up in a ball catching up on lots of vlogs that I haven’t had time to watch with travelling, and also watched some Boracay vlogs to get excited for tomorrow.
I ordered room service for a late lunch once the cramps had subsided slightly, and then we spent the evening catching up on the Great British Bake Off, more episodes of Revenge and more YouTube.
A very quiet and bed-bound day that was much needed after a hectic 11 days of the group trip. But we’re flying to Boracay tomorrow to explore a new island of the Philippines and round out our time in this new country!
Day 238: Sunday 10th November 2024
Location: El Nido & Boracay, Philippines
Dear travel diary,
We had an afternoon flight to Boracay, so were able to have a lie-in this morning in the hotel. My stomach cramps were still persistent but thankfully not as bad as the previous day.
We checked out and took a taxi to the airport that was around 15 minutes away.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to a smaller airport in my life than the one in El Nido. It was almost like a train station.
The smallest security section, then a check-in counter that was more of a hotel lobby check-in counter. Then you could already see the departures area behind this, which was just one large waiting room with one coffee stand.
The wooden benches reminded us of being in a train station in Sri Lanka. It was quite an experience, and we were flying via propeller plane.
The flight was incredibly short, just over an hour in total and completely fine.
We landed in Boracay Airport and were greeted to our transfer service from Mandarin White Sands Boracay, the hotel I’m working with for two nights.
The mini-van took us to the boat, where we were whisked across to the island in a private Mandarin White Sands boat and then picked up on the other side by another mini-van to take us directly to the hotel.
All in all, I would say it took fifteen minutes from landing to being at the hotel – perfect!
We checked into the hotel that’s directly on the beach and were shown to our suite (!!) that had a balcony looking out to the beach and ocean. The balcony even had a plunge pool!
We had a his and hers bathroom with a large walk-in shower, bathrobes and all the space you could need.
Since it was early afternoon, we took a stroll down the beach to explore Boracay and head for some late lunch lunch at a place called Meze Wrap.
I had watched Adelle Cerna’s Boracay vlog while I was sick in bed yesterday, and saw this food spot that she had dined at and knew we had to go there. It was delicious!
We came back to the hotel to relax and get ready for dinner, as we were dining at one of the Mandarin’s other resorts, Mandarin Nest.
We had dinner on the rooftop with cocktails, the biggest spread of fresh seafood I have ever seen and then washed down with some iced tea.
The most perfect way to start our trip to Boracay!
Make sure to check back next week as it’s a bit hectic exploring Boracay in the Philippines, spending 24 hours exploring Singapore and then finally touching down in Bali, Indonesia!
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