El Nido isn’t actually an island. It’s a municipality in the province of Palawan, made up of some 45 islands and islets. A short flight south west of Manila, it is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It translates as ‘the nest’, and sports a variety of accommodation, from backpacker hostels to five star resorts.

Now, FYI, I can slum it with the best of them. I’ve slept in a ‘hotel’ (in the loosest sense of the word) in Gorkha, Nepal, where one of the interior walls was constructed from decorative concrete blocks. You know the type. The ones that you’ll see forming the side of a multi level parking garage. The ones that you’ll see in your neighbour’s garden that perhaps looked trendy in 1972, but are now covered in moss, leaves and snail goop, and give the whole plot a certain ‘Abandoned Chernobyl’ chic. The ones that you can friggin see through. The ones that defeat the entire purpose of a private, interior wall. To compliment said see through wall, the opposite one had, smeared across it, what I could only surmise was excrement of the human variety, and to top it off, in the bathroom resided a spider that could have stolen my backpack if it wanted.

So, back to El Nido (this is a story about El Nido), since it was my birthday, and I’m a prince deserving of all the finer things in life, we chose to pony up a wad of cash and go fancy for the weekend. And fancy meant Miniloc island.

El Nido Resorts runs the only development on Miniloc. They have a few other resorts in the area, on various islands, offering slightly different levels of luxury and available activities, with Miniloc being marketed as the ‘eco-discovery’ island. As is often the case for this type of trip, to get there we had to start early. Really early.

But, thankfully, Manila has one of the world’s best recent inventions, Uber.

Did You Know?™

A 30 minute Uber trip from the Malate area of Manila to the Ninoy Aquino airport costs about $2.50. In contrast, a 30 minute Uber ride to Heathrow airport from London costs $35. Cray.

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