Waiting on the El Nido ferry

I’d arrived in the Philippines solo, and ended up in El Nido, specifically Nacpan Beach. Nacpan Beach had a hostel called Mad Monkey, a common brand across SEA, this one built entirely of bamboo on its own beach 5km from El Nido. Spent a great few days there, partying, meeting people , chatting to strangers, but after 4 days it was adios. No more drinking excessive amounts of red horse rum on the beach. No more listening to memorable stories about how you went swimming with dolphins, they threw you up, and you landed vagina first on its hump, requiring surgery in Cuba, and having to get medevacuated out of the country without paying your hospital bill. NO MORE. I was going to Coron, by way of the 5am ferry from El Nido.

Asking the manager in Mad Monkey where the cheapest option in El Nido for a night was, mightn't have been the greatest idea. This room was rough. It was cleaned, once, and since then, let develop cultures of its own. It was a wooden hovel, with 6 bunks to a room, but not a hostel. More local than that. But near the port, and I was only spending one night, so fuck it, be grand. I’ll pay my €3 for the bed, in cash, and to be fair, the room looks fairly abandoned. No bags anywhere, no sign of life after the receptionist went back to her real job, and they even had an old spidery wardrobe for storage. Luxury. I went out for dinner, and caught up with a few friends from Nacpan on the sunset beach in El Nido, where you can zipline between islands. It’s cool ziplining, and not expensive, but the real catch of this beach was the sunsets. Sunsets in the Philippines in general are so vibrant, but ones over the water are something special. Brimstone red sky, fading to pink, with some clouds, all reflected on the water in front of you. We had a few drinks, knowing that this is likely the final time we’ll ever see one another, those bittersweet moments that comes with the hostel life.

I landed back to the hovel well before midnight. Got my bags prepped, when go tobann, heard some voices in the hall. More… people? Here? I’d to clean my stuff off the other 3 bunk beds. The door creaked open, and a mid twenties local lad came in. We exchanged formalities, had a bit of a chat, I asked what he was doing here, etc. He’s working on the ferries, but in the afternoon tomorrow, and normally lives in Coron. Nice fella to chat with, he asked me loads of questions, one of these people who seemed genuinely interested in you, it must be a skill picked up from working on the ferry. I said I was going tomorrow early, and checked it was sound to turn off the light, I was pretty wrecked anyways. No bother. Then, a curveball.

“Can I give you a massage?”

That’s probably not something that's taught on the ferry. Politely as I could, I declined the offer. He sounded disappointed, but look, I got the impression this wasn’t his first rodeo. Put it out of my mind, but struggled to sleep after. 1am rolls around, and I hear a whisper:

“Can I sleep beside you?”.

Again, declined the offer, less politely this time. But now, I definitely couldn’t sleep - those were 4 uncomfortable hours waiting for the sun to rise. I figured I should leave 2 hours early to be safe, it's a good 5 minute walk to the ferry.

Got to Coron fairly wrecked. Still managed to book a set of shipwreck dives for the next day. Trying to pay was a different story, it was still very cash based, and Coron ran out of cash in the atms for 3 days. Good times.