Upon arriving in the Philippines I met this girl at the Manila airport named Lili. She's from Germany and speaks very good English. Not only that but she speaks 5 other languages aside from her native tongue. We met up with her friend, Raphael from Belgium who flew in later in the day. We took a Jeepney (a elongated jeep) to the night market where in manila. The rows of people selling mostly counterfeit items went for miles.The next day the three of us hoped on a bus to Lake Taal. Its known as the smallest volcano in the world. Turns out you have to take a boat across the bay, hike up the mountain then climb down to see the great lagoon in the volcano. Unfortunately we did not have enough time. We needed to catch a flight to Palawan. So after four hours of buses and one crazy taxi driver we made it right on time to the airport. After arriving in Peurto Princess, the island south of Luzon we stayed the night before venturing on a 6 hour bus ride to El Nido. This is the place where golden beaches meet paradise. Accomodations are more expensive here and we did not bring a lot of cash. The first night we went walking around town and found a small carnival. Actually it was a ferris wheel with a few game stations most of which were run by children. Basic gambling, hoping once you release your basketball that is lands on the color in which you bet any certain amount of money. Lili won both the times she played. Come to find out there are no ATMs in town but luckily we heard there is a gas station across town where you can get cash for a 12% fee. We decided to change hotels to find something near a nice beach. We told our tricycle drivervBulletin(motorcycle with covered side cart) if he could find us an affordable accommodation we would pay him extra. We ended up walking down this jungle path and along the beach until we came upon this beach resort. Turns out the hotel was completely booked but somehow our driver was able to negotiate the owners suite for less than where we paid the night before and this included a beach front view. Lili was completely out of cash and Raphael had just enough for accommodations for two nights so we were all budgeting the best we could. What made it more difficult was we were secluded from the rest of the population, which means no convenience stores. Also they did not accept credit cards. We were afraid we had to pay beach front restaurant prices. Everything was expensive except for the special of the day, which we ended up eating for every meal the next two days. We had a talk with the owner. I guess she was a domestic worker in Hong Kong until she met her husband who.she said took her away from a horrible life and bought beach front property where a few locals lived in a dense forested area that was nearly impossible to reach before they renovated. We attempted to swim to an island, but it was unsuccessful. We underestimated how far it actually was. We grabbed some breakfast in th morning and headed to the bus stop where we waited for our van back to Puerto Princesa while the locals were playing card games waiting for customers to take in their tricycles.
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