I forgot to write for a few days… oops. I guess that just means that I’ll be summarizing the rest of our trip here and hopefully won’t leave out too many important details!
We celebrated our second anniversary on the 6th. We did a lot of relaxing and ate some awesome food, which the women who cooked at our resort were so good at making. There was crab and calamari for lunch and then one of the guys climbed up a palm tree to cut us some buko! Drank some yummy buko and then scooped out the fleshy fruit with a spoon. The dogs here were obviously island-grown because they sat by us the entire time begging for a bite. Meat I could see, but coconut? (they got to lick the inside clean once we were done)
We celebrated our second anniversary on the 6th. We did a lot of relaxing and ate some awesome food, which the women who cooked at our resort were so good at making. There was crab and calamari for lunch and then one of the guys climbed up a palm tree to cut us some buko! Drank some yummy buko and then scooped out the fleshy fruit with a spoon. The dogs here were obviously island-grown because they sat by us the entire time begging for a bite. Meat I could see, but coconut? (they got to lick the inside clean once we were done)
Climbing the tree, barefoot, with machete, to cut us some buko!
Progress is coming along on the boat the guys are working on! It’s crazy how much progress four guys working on a boat can make in a day. The generator was cranked up all day long while the men were using their power tools for boat construction. This meant that we could actually turn on our fans in the room and take a nap! Oh, blessed sleep, how I love thee.
The next morning we woke up early to head to our new resort where we’d be staying for the next three nights. This place was a bit more upscale than the last, but not necessarily better… just prettier.
We stepped off the speed boat to a group of staff members singing with guitars, bongo drums, and tambourines. The PR hostess gave us a quick overview of the area and the resort and then showed us to our room. I absolutely LOVED our room! We got a cedar cabin built on stilts to where when the tide came in it was surrounded by water. There was a nice, big porch with a picnic table and lounge chairs where we spent a lot of time ocean-gazing and reading our books (I think we each read three books total on this trip). The pool was beautiful, as well! There was an infinity pool, a term I was not familiar with until last time we went to the Philippines. Basically that means that if you are in the pool and you look out towards the ocean it is “difficult” to tell where the pool ends and the ocean begins. A neat effect!
Our cedar cabin at El Rio y Mar.
At about 6:30pm on our first night we were getting ready for dinner when we each spotted a MOUSE in the room! I saw one come from behind the minibar and then run back, while Rex saw one come down the ladder from the attic. Now I’m a lover of all animals, even cute little mice, but I have an issue with them running around in the room where I’m sleeping. I remember one year at Garner State Park my dad had brought along some corn to feed the deer around our cabin. Apparently the mice living in the cabin found the corn first and spent all night stashing it around the room in various places. We never actually SAW a mouse, but the fact that they were scurrying around while I was trying to sleep made me lose many hours listening for “mouse-like” sounds in the room. I was afraid to fall asleep because “what if” I woke up to a mouse crawling down my arm?
Anyways, we told the resort about the mice and they moved us to another room temporarily. The other room was extremely nice, but it didn’t have the rustic feel of our first room, so the next day we moved back (they SAID the mice were gone, but we did see them once again our last night there). The new room had an incredible view from the bed… huge picture windows that opened up onto a veranda right on the beach. Beautiful, but I wanted cedar cabin surrounded by water. The resort was catering enough to oblige both of our moves.
I discovered that one of the most relaxing things in the world is sitting on a porch and watching the tide roll in around you. There was a small seawall in front of our cabin that made it not exactly right on the beach, but it was even more relaxing to hear the ocean waters gurgling through the rocks in the wall to fill up our “front yard”. There was a mangrove forest behind our cabin and somehow water seemed to come from both directions. High tide always came at night while we were there, so we would return from dinner to watch the tide come in. The mosquitoes were also keen on this idea, to my dismay... and they apparently like the taste of foreign blood.
The tide coming up around our cabin at night.
There was more relaxing to be had at El Rio y Mar Resort. We read books on the porch and by the pool, spent time browsing their book-swap room, and I even went to the spa one day to get a pedicure and paraffin treatment (silky soft feet!). The staff were amazing here and on our final evening for dinner we were seated in a special area between the pool and the ocean. The guy who would play guitar each night for the dinner guests came over and serenaded us a few songs. One song he played was “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. I’ve always liked that song a lot but after this vacation, hearing it will always bring me back to this happy moment… sitting with my sweetheart on the beach to a candlelight dinner… stars overhead and music being played for only us.
The beach and bar on the pier.
Eventually we had to leave our Palawan paradise. Our flight back to Manila was in the morning and then we didn’t fly back to Xiamen until the next morning. That left us an entire day of shopping! On the list: pandan cake, mamon, mangoes, and buko. For those of you scratching your heads right now, I cannot really describe the palatable pleasures these treats entail. They must be experienced personally to begin to understand.
The hotel staff informed us that there was a Max’s Restaurant (Filipino food and bakery… sells pandan rolls!) nearby at the Greenbelt Mall. We jumped in a taxi and headed there first thing… only to find out that they were already sold out of pandan cake for the day! Thankfully they offered to call around to other locations and have some brought in to us. Still, they could only locate FOUR rolls… not nearly enough! We were planning to stock up on at least ten! Oh well. We had a yummy lunch of lechon and some mango juice before roaming the upscale mall we were in.
Being a part of the Filipino island life was definitely an experience, but I love the Manila city life! You walk down the street and there is always a smell of food and fabric softener in the air (no matter where you’re at it seems) and all of the little stall-shops with their goods for sale. There are jeepneys and motorbikes zipping by constantly and I cannot get over how there are practically NO signs that are not hand painted!
Imagine looking at the front of a nice store, and instead of the store’s sign being a big, plastic, lit-up thing, it is a wooden, hand painted one… but the painting is near perfect to where at first glance you don’t even notice the difference. There’s also a Coca Cola sign nearby that is also perfectly hand painted. Look around some more and you notice that the ads and even names of taxi companies is hand painted on the sides of cars! There must be some really skilled artists around these areas!
Yes, Manila is densely populated with almost no trees and the worst traffic I’ve ever seen, but it is a really neat place. And I LOVE that I’m technically part of the Filipino culture (by marriage, of course!).
We made it back to Xiamen and school starts back up tomorrow. There always has to be an end to these experiences… I can’t wait to go back to the Philippines someday soon, though!
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