El Nido in the sun
El Nido is a really small village on the northern coast of Palawan near the top of the island. For many years its been a retreat of hardy travellers where the only access used to be by boat which was itself a long and painful journey. As a gateway to nearby islands it has grown over the years as people moved and access improved. It still retains a small village atmosphere and laid back way of life. The streets are narrow and everyone goes about their business almost oblivious at times to the tourists who are increasing in numbers every year.

Local Children learning the art of 'pukka'
Walking down the streets children run up to you asking for your name and where you are from. Unlike children in many other places such as Manila they simply want to chat and get to know you rather than to ask for money. Earlier today I spent some time with a dozen or so children chatting to them and decided that I would try to teach them some new words. Grabbing my now worn and torn book (The Magus by John Fowles) I told them this book was ‘pukka’. A bemused look crossed their faces and they repeated the word time and time again until some of them actually got the word sounding perfectly right. Then grabbing other things I told them ‘this was pukka, and this was pukka’. They quickly grasped what I was referring to. As I walked away all I could hear were the kids muttering to each other ‘pukka, pukka’ and felt a sense of satisfaction that I had actually taught them a new English word, even though it was actually Hindi in origin!

Island Hoping
El Nido is famous for its islands. It's essentially the gateway to dozens of islands which can be accessed by a short boat ride. Tourists tend to rent a boat for the day and cruise the islands hoping off at beaches and going snorkelling in the bays and coves. Renting a boat with Michael (my Swiss roomate) and two Germans (Tina and Michael) we headed out for the day. For the first time in three days we were blessed by great weather so we opted to go for a swim in a cove and then do some snorkelling. Even though we put on large amounts of sun creame we all still managed to get sunburnt to various extents, myself being the worst due to my 'lovely' white skin!

Unfortunately the area has been savaged by dynamite fishing destroying some of the most spectacular coral whilst damaging others beyond repair. When you snorkel the damage is evident in the state of the coral. Yet I was amazed by the sheer numbers and variety of fish which I could see. The sad thing about the dynamate fishing is that it tends to be non-local fisherman who do it and not the locals who learnt long ago to work with their environment rather than against it. The government is attempting to tackle these illegal methods but do not seem to be having much success.