Trip to Philippines: El Nido

Finally some free time to catch up with the blog! This post is about one of the best trips I have made in my life. Not only because of the place we visited but because of the people I went with: my sister, sister’s boyfriend (now her husband), and my brother came all the way from Spain to visit me in Seoul. After one week in Seoul, we decided to fly to the Philippines and visit El Nido.

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From left to right, Javier, Ana and Curro in Manila.

DSC00486Although its islands are among the most beautiful in the world, the capital of the Philippines,  Manila, is quite an underdeveloped capital, with much poverty and  not so many nice places. Fort Wayne is one of its few tourist attractions.

From Manila, there are two airlines that fly to El Nido: ITI and Seair. These flights are quite expensive (around 6,700 PHP) and not recommended for people afraid of flying, as the airplane looks quite weak and it will bounce a lot during the flight. The other option (much cheaper) to get to El Nido is to fly to Puerto Princesa and from there take a long bus ride to El Nido most of the time on unpaved roads (not recommendable for a family trip).

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The plane that would take us from Manila to El Nido. It is operated by Seair and can only fit around 15 passengers. There are only 2 (or 3) flights a day.

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Inside of the aircraft.

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Doing the ckeck-in to El Nido.

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This is the airport at El Nido. The best way to go from there to the resorts is by tuk-tuk. You will have to bargain the price with the drivers though.

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With Javi on the tuk-tuk.

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El Nido is a very small town that lives mostly of tourists, fishing and agriculture.

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Art Cafe’s main entrance. Art Cafe is the main meeting point for tourists in El Nido. There you can have a refreshment, a meal, or even book your flight back to Manila, like we did. There is also free wifi available.

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Some of the views that you can enjoy in El Nido.

DSC00817Diving is another activity that you should not miss if you have the chance to visit this place.

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It is amazing how clear the water is here…

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No Photoshop here. This is just how water looks in El Nido.

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The Hidden Lagoon can be visited on one of the many organized trips around the nearby islands. Totally recommended.

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Nothing like this beautiful sunset to say goodbye (or better, see you later) to this beautiful country 🙂

Trip to Malaysia

Lately I am traveling a lot… which means I don’t have much time to update my blog, study Korean, or keeping in touch with friends.

Anyways, this trip’s goal was basically diving in Sipadan, which we couldn’t because we didn’t know that there is a one-month waiting list to dive there. But at least we got to dive in other closer islands and we finally got our PADI Open Water Diver License.

We decided to stay at Semporna, a town on the east coast of Sabah, in Borneo. From there, you can take a boat to many small nearby islands which are pretty good for diving. There is not much to see in this town, though. Most tourists here come solely to dive.

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With Alex, ready for some snorkeling.

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That’s me, diving.

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And that’s me with my friends, diving.

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This is what I call paradise 😀

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Sunset in Semporna.

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Floating houses. Many people in Semporna live on the sea… literally.

Once we got sick of diving, we flu back to Kuala Lumpur, and spend a couple of days there. The city isn’t one of my favorites, but I liked the mix of cultures and religions that you can see on the streets (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.). We decided to pay for a guided tour, which probably was a good idea because it was raining most of the day and it felt quite nice to move around by car instead of walking.

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Main gate of the Royal Palace, Kuala Lumpur.

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Partying with Marcos in Kuala Lumpur.

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In front of the Petronas Twin Towers. One of the least original pictures to be taken in KL. By the way, according to Wikipedia, the second tower was built by the Korean company Samsung Engineering and Construction.

We spent the last day of the trip in Malacca, a very nice colonial town two hours and a half drive south from Kuala Lumpur. This city was colonized by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. Therefore, Malacca seems anything but an Asian city.

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There are these tuk-tuks decorated with flowers everywhere around Malacca taking tourists around.

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Christ Church, at the Dutch Square in Malacca.

On the way back to the airport, we stopped at Putrajaya, a kind of artificial city where the government is moving most of its official buildings. There is a big mosque and selling of alcohol is forbidden in the whole city.

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In front of the Prime Minister’s office, in Putrajaya.

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View of the Putra Mosque at night.

Trip to Thailand

Sawatdee!!

Here are some pictures of our trip to Thailand. All of the ICEX interns in Seoul have spent six days relaxing in paradise-like beaches, from the pool to the beach and from the beach to the pool, drinking shakes for less than a dollar, and besides, Alex and I, got our diving license (the PADI Scuba Diver) 😀

Overall, the trip was great, although it was so hot and humid all the time. I imagined Thailand much more “Asian”. Sometimes I thought I was in South or Central America instead of in Asia.. I guess it must be because of the tropical weather;)

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The six ICEX interns, on the Thai Airways airplane.

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Taking the boat to Ton Sai Bay.

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Alex and Ciro on the kayak.

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InPhra Nang Bay, a beach near Ton Say Bay, where we went by kayak (here is a map).

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After Ton Sai Bay, we decided to move to a resort in Phi Phi Islands. Here’s a view of our island, Ko Phi Phi Don (picture by Jairo).

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This is a good summary of our trip.

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In front of Ko Phi Phi Lee, the island where the movie “The Beach” was filmed.

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With Carlos at the same beach. The sign is kind of scary, isn’t it?

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On the boat going to do diving.

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With Alex and two Koreans we met diving.

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We were lucky that it only rained one day. Anyway, the temperature was still like Malaga in august.

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Fire show on the beach.

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Back in Bangkok, the same heat but no beach. Here we are at the Grand Palace.

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Buddhist figure at the Grand Palace.

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We had Mirinda in Spain long time ago, but they stopped selling it. In Thailand they still have it 😛

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On a Tuk-Tuk, a kind of motorcycle with three wheels quite common in Southeast Asia.

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Jairo playing Takraw with some locals.

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Sunset at the Khao San Road market.

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Back in Seoul, with a three-hour sleep and ready to work. On the bus, Alex and Jairo looked kind of tired:P

And if you want to see more pictures, all of them are here.