A Scooter Ride to Nacpan Beach
The longest beach in El Nido
The trip from Puerto Princesa to El Nido was frustratingly slow. This was because we booked a van through our hotel and thought that it would be a rather direct transfer. Instead, the van stopped at the airport to pick up some other tourists, and again at the town’s main bus terminal to pick up some locals. Over the 6 hour trip, it seemed like the van stopped every 15 minutes to drop off and pick up locals to fill the seats. Since we didn’t have good WiFi in Puerto Princesa, we didn’t do proper research on the van and paid 600 PHP through the hotel — instead of the regular 500 PHP rate that other tourists in the van paid.
While Puerto Princesa is roughly in the geographic centre of Palawan Island, El Nido is located close to the northern tip and is where the ferry to Coron Island originates. El Nido is very much a touristy town that is almost overcrowded with non-locals. This drives up the price for food and accommodations, but this also means that there is a lot of selection in terms of tour companies.
We were surprised to find that our El Nido hotel didn’t have WiFi as listed on Agoda. We knew that WiFi is generally poor in El Nido, but we thought that we would have WiFi so that I could work and so that we could research things to do in town. Unable to research and plan ahead, we ended up making a few blunders.
On our first full day in El Nido, we went down to the hotel’s front desk to ask about tours and the owner suggested that we rent a scooter to visit Nacpan Beach. Island hopping tours start early in the day and it was already 11am, so we quickly got on board with the Nacpan Beach plan. The owner took us out to the main street to a scooter rental shop. The scooter rental was 600 PHP, which turned out to be 100 PHP higher than what the owner had said it would likely cost. If we had WiFi, we would have found out that there are plenty of shops in town that rent for 500 PHP. We tried to negotiate, but the rental shop wouldn’t have any of it.
That blunder aside, we had a grand time riding a scooter out of town to the beach along a highway, beside rice paddies, and down a gravel road. It took 45 minutes each way. In my opinion, every backpacker in Southeast Asia has some story about their first scooter ride. I remember reading a blog years ago about a female backpacker that wanted to ride a scooter. The local asked her if she knew how to ride. She said “yes”, though in reality she had no idea. The local gave a quick summary of the controls: the throttle, the brake, the signals; and then set her loose. She unwitting cranked down on the throttle and shot off like a rocket before clamping down on the brakes just before colliding into something. I don’t think this kind of story is uncommon in Southeast Asia, where a lot of backpackers ride scooters for their first time, pretending to already have the experience.
Fortunately, I know how to ride a scooter and have a motorcycle license… but I momentarily forgot which side of the road to drive on. Ha! After the local gave me the typical introduction to the controls and handed me the keys, I rode onto the road for a test ride and forgot whether I was supposed to be on the left or right side. I was suddenly struck with the doubt that I was driving on the wrong side of the road.
I had recently driven in Canada (on the right side) and New Zealand (on the left side). In a car, the steering wheel is on the side of the car closest to the centreline. A scooter doesn’t have a left or right side. There are no road markings or road signs to indicate direction, and it’s not uncommon for vehicles to park in the lane and have traffic flow around them, or for a driver wishing to turn to signal and drive down the opposite lane as they slow down for the turn. It’s common to find vehicles driving and parking on the wrong side of the road.
It took me about 20 meters of riding down the centre of the road to realize that I’d pulled off from left side of the road and should be riding on the right. Having grasped my bearings, I pulled a U-turn, picked Yuki up, and it was smooth sailing thereafter.
Nacpan Beach is probably the longest beach in a bay that we’ve ever been to. Sure, Punta Cana has miles and miles of beach — but it is divided into several bays that are side-by-side. Nacpan Beach is a beautiful strip of golden sand defining a crescent-shaped bay, backed by a forest of palm trees and soaked by emerald-green water.
The weather was mostly overcast, so the water wasn’t as blue as it could have been. It was still surprisingly clear though. The beach has a very mild slope and there are very few pebbles underfoot, which makes it nice for running into the water. I only saw one box fish; we didn’t swim for long because we got cold due to the lack of sun.
At the end of the beach is a rocky headland which I walked to for some photos before we left. I could see how clear the water was and how empty the beach was of people.
All in all, it was a pretty good day at the beach. We had hoped to go to more beaches around El Nido, but sickness got in the way after we did some island hopping tours. We did a lot of resting instead.
