In Paradise, Life is a Buffet

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Start with the seaweed wrapper of crystal warm seawater. Roll in sharp limestone cliffs, hundreds of tropical fish, turtles, private beaches, emerald lagoons, coconut trees, pina coladas, sea kayaks, world-class diving beneath the stilts of your cabin. Add wasabi, soy sauce and you’ve got paradise sushi.

I’ve travelled and far and I’ve travelled wide, so when I say that Bacuit Bay in southwest El Nido is probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, you’ve got realize the scale here. There are 45 islands, mostly deserted, most protecting The Beach of Dreams. Besides the town of El Nido, there are a couple of high-class luxury resorts in the Bay, and I got the chance to stay at oldest and grandest, the El Nido Resort on Maniloc Island. Its environmental policy is impressive, they even give guests biodegradable plastic bags to collect any trash you may find during your stay. See when you throw in five star accommodation and service with the above, you get goo-goo at the possibilities. A delicious daily buffet with several dozen home-made condiments, stilt and beachfront cabins, snorkelling and diving gear and sea kayaks and yachting and happy hour at the beach bar and a spa and hell throw in a Wii…it didn’t matter that it was rainy season, it mattered that somehow I had managed to find this place, and from the second I arrived all I could think about was how on earth am I going to get back here?

Heavy rain had pretty much killed my rock-climbing story, but I did manage to kayak the limestone channel of the Big Lagoon in a few hours of sunshine. Photos could never do it justice, words (considerably less than a thousand of them) are insufficient too. We take a boat out to explore some private beaches, a big cave where I felt compelled to just jump in the sea and swim right into it. Apparently, in the 20 years the resort has been open, I’m the first guy to attempt such a thing, which somehow scares the hell out of me. Why am I not scuba diving? Because I’ve got a bum right ear, hell, it’s only been a couple years since I had a big ear operation and have been able to put my head underwater, never mind taking a week long PADI diving course. It occurred to me that if a tandem instructor can help you skydive without any training, maybe a tandem instructor can help me dive, just deep enough to get the experience, not deep enough to do any serious harm (I hope). So I grab Rommel and Jeff, the two resort activity studs, and they kit me up and walk me over to the pier, drop me into a sea of tropical fish, and Rommel carefully steers me around the coral and clown fish, controlling my breathing apparatus and depth.

For those of you who have dived before, you know the feeling. For those of you who haven’t, well, the buzz is so huge that the risk of the bends, lungs bursting, ears exploding, shark attacks and anything else you can think of is not risk enough. Intimidating bully jack fish, luminous flighty parrotfish, fish that look like dogs, fish that look like frogs, fish that look like monsters, fish that look like beauty queens, fish that look like Republicans, fish that look like Democrats, fish that look like musical instruments, fish that look like tools, fish that look like the sun, fish that look the moon, fish that salsa, fish that play chess, fish that are tidy, fish that mess, fish that are nerds, fish that are jocks, fish that can make everyone laugh, fish that are too shy to come out, spiky fish, smooth fish, naughty fish, nice fish, scary, sporty, posh, ginger and baby fish, everywhere I look I see fish, fish, fish, fish …and me. Tropical fish in the warm light blue, piano-heavy rain pounding its keys on the water above my head, a toccata and fugue of sea life. El Nido is nothing less than a tropical El Dorado.

I just took a lunch break in the Dusit Thani hotel buffet. You could feed a mid-sized school with the food on offer, and everyone would get a different dish. I sampled a little bit of that, a little of this, left feeling satisfied, but kind of wished I had the time (not to mention the appetite) to try it all. After just a few days in Manila, and a few more in Palawan, all I can do is look forward to a second helping of The Philippines.

Dusit Thani Hotel
Manila, The Philippines

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