We hired a motor bike to visit some beaches around El Nido and headed north to Nacpan Beach. The last 5km were dirt roads and quite nasty but nothing my chauffeur, I mean Craig, couldn’t handle. Unlike some other backpackers we saw who toppled sideways on some soft sand. It explains all the bandaged right calves we’ve seen from people falling with the hot engine on them.

This area is known for having twin beaches and as the road split we decided to take the left fork and ended up on beautiful Calitang Beach. Some ladies at a small eatery said we could park our bike there for free and as they had a cheap menu we agreed to have lunch their later. The waters were so calm and the sea so clear. It was rocky in areas but it didn’t matter when you could clearly see where to step. We had a little swim and then headed round the bay to a hill at the end. A trail led up and an incredible view was unveiled. The twin beaches curved in ‘C’ shapes on either side. Nacpan was totally different, the water was intensely blue and the sand pure white, all 4km or so of it! We instantly decided that we had to stay here, it was too beautiful of an area to just hang around a few hours and we had planned to spend two more days in Port Barton on our way back south but screw that, we wanted paradise and this ticked all the boxes. Besides we hated how Port Barton scammed tourists by charging outrageous fees for transport.

Nacpan beach was bloody amazing. It was just perfect and we voted it in our top 5 beaches in the world…we loved it. There were a few islands dotted nearby and the sea was just so inviting. The only downfall was the jellyfish which there were quite a lot of at certain tide times.

  
We felt like we had the whole beach to ourselves as most people turn up via tricycle or motorbike along the right fork and just stay on a 200m patch of beach while we had kilometres just for us.

We loved the place already but then we saw some rustic Nipa huts along the beach and took a wonder in. It was such a sweet village, handmade huts, cockerels and pigs around every house and super friendly locals. The village was full of dogs too and I spotted a stunning wee puppy a lovely caramel colour. I carefully presented my hand out for a stroke and she instantly collapsed sideways, waved her legs in the air and whimpered till she got a belly rub. Man she was the cutest!! Right, we have to come back here now, so we popped into some grounds with a couple cottages, got a good price for a room and agreed to come back on good Friday.

  

We left paradise and headed back towards El Nido but continued south to Corong Corong Beach. It was low tide when we visited and lots of rocks were on show, it didn’t look very appealing so we continued onto Las Cabanas beach. It was quite a contrast to Nacpan earlier, a similar beach although we didn’t see it at its best as the sun was very low, but it was so busy due to a bar pumping out tunes and happy hour drinks.

We had a swim and noticed a few rocks around and then I saw a big one right next to me and realised it was a giant jellyfish!! It was huge and purple and I quickly called Craig over for a gawp. I put my GoPro underwater and took some snaps but the sun was too bright to see the pics. It was only when we got back to the hotel that I saw how big he was, and how many tentacles were swaying very close to the camera and my hand!!