Miniloc, El Nido, Palawan

For the longest time, I have told my mother that we should vacation to Palawan. Honestly, I'm sick of the Boracay scene and I had been going there since I was little. I wanted something different. A family friend of ours went to El Nido and their pictures were perfect. The place looked like Bora Bora! It was a pricey trip but my family and I decided to go ahead and go for it.

From the beginning, the customer service was exceptional and I could tell was catered to foreigners. The resort is paired with the airline. The short airline trip had food included. We were bused from airport to the small airplane. When we arrived at the tiny and remote El Nido airport, we were bused from the airplane to the waiting area. We didn't have to worry about our luggage since it would be sent directly to our rooms for us. The waiting area had bathrooms, food, and entertainment. We were then bused from the waiting area to the pier, where we took a boat from the mainland airport to our island resort, which was about a 45 minute boat ride.

Then finally we reached our destination, resort island of Miniloc. We were greeted at the pier by singing, a full song performance at the main resort lobby with drinks and necklaces. The buffet lunch was already ready for us. Afterwards we met with our personal guide who would organize our whole stay's schedule to fit all the excursions we wanted to do. Then we walked up to our cottage to see our luggage already there waiting for us. It was a wonderful first impression.

Our cottage was small with two levels. The first level had two single beds for my brother and I then one bathroom. The second level had a full sized bed for my parents. It is unfortunate that there was only one bathroom. Also, we weren't able to get any of the seaside cottages since it was completely booked. I was pretty disappointed by that.

The rest of the day consisted of exploring the resort. We had to walk up quite a few stairs to our cottage but our view was amazing. Monkeys would even come down from the mountains and hang around our cottage.

The beach area is actually quite small. Miniloc itself is a small resort in that it doesn't hold a lot of people because the resort area is small. They pride themselves on being green so they try not to invade the island too much. So for a resort, it has a small intimate group kind of feel. The beach is filled with corals so definitely wear water shoes. The water is so blue and the weather throughout our whole stay was perfect. It hardly rained and it was never too hot. Out first day was pretty uneventful, but beauty of the island kept us in awe all day.

Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, Bagac, Bataan

Pride in the Past...Hope for the Future

Well at least, that's their slogan. I had never heard of this place before so I didn't know what to expect. It was a very long drive from Manila through some remote and winding roads. However, when we got there, the trip was well worth it all.

I liken it to a Philippine version of Williamsburg, basically it is like being back into the past where they recreate a town from the 18th century. Houses and other structures were actually bought and moved from many parts of the Philippines to this one area. A lot of places are still under development and the construction is still on going. Still, the parts that are complete are gorgeous nonetheless. This will be a picture heavy post because all the pictures are too beautiful to not post.

We originally booked a whole house since our group was originally going to be larger. However, due to some unfortunate circumstances, half our group couldn't come. We still had the whole house nonetheless. We stayed in Casa Meycauayan. It has 5 bedrooms total, three on the second floor and two on the bottom floor. The second floor is all connected to a single living room with an entrance. The two bottom rooms have their own entrances and are separate. Although it is historic on the outside, it is modern on the inside.

We did a bit of unofficial touring of the area that evening. We missed the cultural show that night since for some reason we though it would be at 8 pm, but it was actually at 6:30 pm. Oops.

The next day we did the Heritage Tour. It was great to see all the buildings on the other side of the river. There is even an island you can rent if you have the money! Although the tour was great and informative, oh my gosh the heat was unbearable. I am normally fine in the heat but this day just killed me. We didn't even finish the tour. We went back to the house close to the end.

It's hard to believe we were only there overnight. It was just so memorable that it felt like we were there for much longer. It was kind of sad leaving since I wanted to take more pictures. I would love to go back again. I'm sure it will be even much more beautiful once all the things under construction get fixed.