Philippines

Spent a few more days in Taipei before taking off to Philippines for Chinese New Year. 

Stayed in Puerto Princesa for one night, found the so called white sand beach, and took off the next day.

Spent 2 hours atop a super crowded bus through some amazing landscapes, and arrived in Sabang in the early afternoon. 

There wasn't too much to do there, the main attraction is an underground river that you can do a tour through by boat. It was pretty amazing. The only light was a flashlight connected to a car battery, so the photos are lacking. This hotel did have the coolest art piece behind the front desk. Made with shells all found on the beach out front. 

After a couple nights there we head more north to A popular town named El Nido. Checked in to a hotel a bit out of town, unfortunately the beach was nothing special. The sunset was nice though. 

The next day we tracked down a super sweet place located on an amazing beach, the whole hotel was ran by transvestites, awesome hosts, and there was the best monkey who lived there too. His name was Moi-Moi. 

The days were spent hanging around in the hammocks, playing with the monkey, eating amazing food and exploring the nearby limestone islands by boat. 

Moi-Moi was the friendliest monkey I've met, you could take him out on his leash and he would run around on the beach and wrestle with the local dogs, then come running up and climb on you when he started getting scared. The only thing was he hated girls, he would pull at their hair or show his teeth, he knows what's good. At night he would sleep sitting atop a post only 4 inches in diameter, and he would be so scared that if you went near he would clasp onto you and fall asleep and wine if you tried to leave.  So one day we built him a house...

He seemed a bit unsure about it at first, but by the end that house became his home.

Checked out a bunch of the nearby islands, this was was definitely one of my favorites, called Snake Island. It was connected by a walkway of sand and even at high tide you could walk from one to the other. 

 

 Met some cool acrobatic local kids, jumped off some cliffs with them, buried each other in the sand.

Even saw some of the wildlife hunting and fighting not to be someone's dinner. The snake won...