Question: How do you get to a paradise island that no one knows about?

Answer: Motorbike. Boat. Van. Taxi. Plane. Another taxi. Bus. Tricycle. And another boat.

And 24 hrs later we arrived at Borawan and set up our tent on our little island that was very nice. Naturally there was nothing to do on this little island. It rained and it was dark. Cue a 7.37pm bedtime. And that was our first taste of ‘almost’ paradise (almost because it didn’t quite meet the paradise criteria we had created in our heads). We had crisps and beer for tea and Gemma slept with my foot in her mouth. We then island hopped to all of one other island and then boated back to the mainland to the bus terminal because it did great Filipino food and checked ourselves into a 5 star motel as a treat. It was so 5 star that when I collapsed onto the bed I could have sworn I heard 1000 bedbugs scream. This was the point that we realised how difficult it can be to travel in the Philippines and we were totally ready to get the Palawan because we’d heard great things.

Palawan

The first thing we did when we arrived in Palawan was visit the prison. An actual prison where you can roam around and speak to the prisoners. According to Wikipedia (which is a very reliable source) it’s 3 times the size of Paris. We entered to find a group of criminals performing a dance routine to Backstreet Boys, ‘As Long As You Love Me.’ It was very surreal. I think I would have found it less bizarre watching a unicorn do the limbo. So the rest of the day was spent chatting to murderers and drug dealers, sharing coffee and having dance lessons. I picked up a few moves I must say. It was definitely an experience and interesting to hear their stories.

El Nido

Now, this is where the Philippines began to truly surpass our expectations. And we found paradise. We could finally stop searching because this is the most beautiful place we have ever been.

We went on a couple of tours which were great. Except one of the lagoons had some very aggressive fish that knawed on us like we were chicken legs. They actually drew blood from Gemma and she actually nearly bled to death. Lyvette concluded we’d been attacked by piranhas. Then Gemma got the shits and had to hobble around with a severed-piranha-eaten foot looking for some sort of toilet in paradise. Now what we learnt from this experience is that remote paradise islands do not have nice toilets.

It was a great day out.

El Nido became even more exciting because Lyvette’s sister, Janine and her friend Claire came and met us there. I celebrated their arrival by purchasing some £1.60 real life Havaianas. I can honestly say they may be my new favourite purchase of my entire travels. I love them, even though they’re made for men and have luminous tennis players imprinted all over them. I even took them to karaoke with us – Filipinos’ love singing. Power ballads are their thing. So when we rocked up whilst someone was belting out Celine Dion and Gemma decided to whack on Eminem and start rapping to it the bar went silent. We left sharpish, willing Gemma to hurry as she dragged her severed-piranha-eaten foot. I lead the pack because my £1.60 real life Havaianas were super springy and I was now an unstoppable force.

Boracay

Next stop. This started well with Janine losing all her luggage. She spent the rest of her holiday strutting around naked. Again, Boracay was paradise and White Beach is amazing. There’s not really much to report to be honest, we just had a good time.

This is the place we befriended Dave. Dave was a nice guy who loved boobs. We saw him at the end of one of our nights out holding hands with a girl (nothing wrong with that). Well actually Lyvette saw him first (myself and Gemma were busy perusing the hot dogs in 7-11), so she gave him a hug, as we all would have done. He hugged her back, as you do, his lady friend by his side.
Dave (casually): “Hi Lyvette, this is Steve”
Lyvette (bewildered): “Erm, hi Steve”
Steve (spitting his dummy out and stomping off): “Well Dave!!YOU’RE CLEARLY IN LOVE WITH HER!!!”
At this point Lyvette stood awkwardly not quite knowing what to do or what had just happened, whilst me and Gemma were busying analysing the ketchup for our hot dogs. When she told us about this later we found it hilarious, so funny in fact that I messaged Dave;
Me: “Morning! Do you remember Steve?”
Dave: “Who’s Steve?”

Well that was awkward.

Then Gemma left us again, after a month of travelling together it was totes emosh. And then Janine and Claire left us. But not before we ended their trip watching some live music on the beach. I especially liked the (very unenthusiastic) guy who had the very important role of sitting on a box and hitting it. It was at this point I decided that I simply have to learn how to play the box. On the other side of the box player was a guy pretending to play his guitar. I honestly don’t think he knew any of the songs and he wandered around staring at the trees and casually pretending to move his fingers. So there we were thoroughly entertained by the group on stage, my Havaianas tapping along to the beat, when along came the man with the coconut on his head. This in itself was quite amusing but then he joined the band and started hitting his coconuts, which was a joy to watch. Then he whipped out a lit cigarette from a random hole in a tree. Then he opened his bamboo bag and pulled out all sorts of musical apparatus – first came the rattle which he shimmied and shook like an excited child at Christmas, completely not in time with the rest of his group. We were totally engrossed in coconut man and his toys as he started randomly pulling new non musical apparatus out of his bag and attempting to make music with them. It all became too much when he extracted the nose flute. I creased. This guy is my favourite Filipino ever. It got even better when he started playing the chopsticks with his teeth. Meanwhile the box player was still doing his thing, the guitarist was roaming around the beach somewhere still pretending to move his fingers and the singer was imitating Shaggy (pretty well I might add). Coconut man was still withdrawing random toys from his bag when we saw what he was wearing on his feet. They were what can only be described as ski’s attached to his sandals. He was definitely on mushrooms. Or just high on life. To be fair if I lived in paradise I’d be high on life, store my cigarettes in a tree and play the nose flute as well. I’d even wear a coconut on my head.

Anyway I have concluded that I love coconut man. Almost as much as my £1.60 real life Havaianas (but not quite).

And that’s it. Paradise in a nutshell.We finally found it (a few times) and we’re grateful for that. If you Google most beautiful islands in the world Palawan and Boracay will be in there somewhere, and rightly so. If you venture there you may even find coconut man and his nose flute.

Now it’s just myself, Lyvette and my Havaianas covered in luminous tennis players.

Next stop Hong Kong…