The Philippines - Southern Leyte & Bohol Island

Tuesday 28th Jan.
We travelled from Higatangan Island and down to Padre Burgos, in the southern part of Leyte.

It's specially on the bustrips, we think about how much we miss family and friends at home. It's really all the small simple things, that we usually take for granted, that we miss the most, like I can miss baking at my job, miss listening to the radio everyday, miss being able to turn on the TV and relax on our own couch. Maybe our subconsciousness makes us think about all the good things, just to survive all the horrible transportation.

When we reached our destination it slightly started raining and there wasn't any cheap accommodation around, the beach was suppose to be really nice, but we couldn't take advantage over it in those weather conditions. No place had wifi, and that's definately nessesary in rainy weather.

We decided to take a jeepney back to Maasin, it had become dark and we still hadn't found a place to sleep. We had no map over the town, so I went into a store to ask for directions to a cheap hotel.

The girl there spoke fluent english, as a lot of philippinoes does. She knew a few places where we could ask for a bed, while she was telling us the directions, she interrupted herself and invited us, to her own house, where they apparently had a vacant room. So if we didn't mind dogs and a messy house, we were welcome in her house. A really nice gesture, and we would love to stay with some local people.

We got a bit worried about the messy house though, and due to the fact that there's a lot of rabbies here, we were worried about the dogs aswell. Oh well, it was a brilliant opportunity to learn about the philippino lifestyle. In the house lived this girl, her husband, 2 kids and her mom.

Her mom showed us to the house. We got met by 5 barking dogs who surrounded us immediately. The mommy tried in vain to get them to stop barking. We walked around the garden slowly. Everytime we put our hands down to pet the dogs, to get them to know us, they just barked louder. The house wasn't as messy as assumed, but had a strong smell of wet dog, and no wonder when there's 5 dogs walking in and out of the house all the time. Apparently the dogs get an injection  against rabbies every year, so we didn't have to worry about that very long.

Luckily our room was in another building, renovated a year ago, so everything was brand new and homely. We actually got the nicest room in the house, so we were extremely satisfied.

The family helped us out with our further travel plans, and since they were so nice and kind to us, we decided to stay for two nights.

Beautiful landscape

Wednesday 29th Jan.

We enjoyed sleeping in, in this home looking enviroment. Walking down the stairs and into the house, we got surrounded by all the barking dogs again. It got a little annoying, but you just can't have it all.

The family, we don't remeber any of their names, and I'm not sure we ever introduced ourselves, so they're just called the family. They recommended a place where we could grap some lunch, took a tricycle there and got extremely disappointed... Again. Can't believe that their food is that bad!

We went to the beach, the sun was burning, and since it was a weekday, we were almost the only ones there, some kids played along the waterfront far away, and some curious locals watched every movement we made, from their spot in the shade.

In the afternoon when we went back to the family and entered the garden door, the dogs didn't bark of us anymore. Such a relief. After a little cake time with the mom and daughter, we offered to cook for them at night. We really miss cooking and we could make some food that we actually like, plus the family could taste some traditional danish food. A win-win-win situation.

We found what we needed in the local market and supermarket, and cooked danish meatballs, potatoes and gravy for the whole family. The daughter was open minded, so she didn't hesitate eating it, but we could tell that the rest of the family, were a bit affraid of tasting this new strange food. The meatballs and the gravy got really popular though, and they took several portions.

The philippinoes eat rice to every meal, and they think they're gonna die if they don't get rice, so of cause they ate some rice aswell.. For their survival. We enjoyed the food more than ever and ate untill our stomachs wouldn't allow us to eat more. We heard a lot of stories about the typhoon Yolanda and got a great insight of the philippino lifestyle.

She looks a bit skeptical, but in the end she really enjoyed the food.

The family 

Thursday 30th Jan.

Time to say goodbye to this big hearted family. They helped us get to the right busstop and we thanked them for a wonderfull time.
We travelled by bus to Bato, where we catched a ferry to Ubay on Bohol island. A nice ferry with bunkbeds everywhere so we could rest and nap while sailing. We then took a bus to Loboc, the roads was as bad as the roads in Laos, we found that strange since Bohol is a touristed island and you should think they would renovate the roads then. On Samar & Leyte, where tourists is a rare sight, the roads are actually quite new and comfortable, it's just the terrible drivers who makes the journeys so bad.
A sweet and helpful guy helped us find a place to stay in Loboc, a brand new guesthouse, we were the first staying in the room and for only 400 pesos. The guy also provided us a motorbike for rent, the following morning. We could then discover the area by ourselves. Nice and easy. From this town it would be easy to reach the chocolate hills and the popular tarsier sanctuary.
At dinner time we looked around the town for food options, but we only found the premade casserole meals, and against our will we ate some of that.
Loboc was hit by a earthquake in september 2013, and that damaged a church and a bridge in the town, and several other buildings around the island. Neighter the church or the bridge is renovated yet, so that leaves the town center looking a bit chaotic and messy. We didn't bother sticking around in town, since there wasn't much to do around there.

The boat deck

Stunning Philippines

Damaged church in the middle of Loboc

 Friday 31st Jan. 

Our motorbike got delivered at 8am, and we were looking forward to a day of freedom, without any public transport. We left towards the chocolate hills, 43km from Loboc.
There was a few other tourists attractions on the way and we stopped by a butterfly garden, where a joking local guy gave us a guided tour around, and we enjoyed lunch in their restaurant with view over the romantic & idyllic garden. The closer we got to the hills, the more it began to rain.
We got annoyed on ourselves by only bringing one raincoat.
Sadly the rain didn't stop, so the view we got over the chocolate hills, was with bad visibility and nothing special. Rain can really ruin every good experience, but we're not complaning, cause overall we've been extremely lucky with the weather.
On the way back we got caught in one of the tourist traps along the road. A place where you pay money for seeing a snake that the locals tease and treat really bad, and we got to hold a big lizard. Sadly we didn't realize the crack about it, before it was too late. So by mistake we supported their way of mistreating the animals.. Opsi..! Or only by half, cause Erik didn't pay!
We were suppose to go to the tarsier sanctuary. It's a tiny ghost looking monkey, with very big and spooky eyes, sadly it wasn't our lucky day, cause the bridge that leads to the sanctuary, is the bridge in Loboc, that they didn't renovated yet. So there was no access to the sanctuary from our position.
We cruised around a few nice places along the gorgeous riverside, the weather was still a bit unpredictable, so we decided to find some dinner and drive home. We found a place with barbeque chicken and ordered one whole chicken each, and that would be our dinner.
We brought it home and ate it the Asian way (with our hands), and that turned into a big mess. Great that no one could see us!
We wanted to take a quick nap, and it turned into several hours, and when we woke up the rain was litterally pouring down, the power was off and it was ridiculous loud in the room, from the rain hitting the roof. Eventhough we lived in a brand new building we still doubted that it would keep dry during the rainstorm. We've never seen that much rain in one time before, and it lasted for 6-7 hours. So many bamboo houses was probably soaked and locals were saving their valuables, from the big amount of water. For us it felt kind of homely, and we watched some movies, where I managed to stay awake for two whole movies. It deserves a big cross in our notebook. Later we realized that the very bad weather was caused by a typhoon, that hit Cebu city.

The first stage of a butterfly.. Look like earrings

New hair decoration

Leaving the nest

 

A sad man in front of the chocolate hills

The tarsier monkey

Saturday 1st Feb.

It's amazing how much rain we got during that night, and how dry the roads already were when we stumbled out of bed this morning. The weather is extremely unpredictable here on the Philippines, and this was a clear sight of how big the contrasts are. The sun was shinning from a clear blue sky, and the roads were already dusty again, after probably 50 cm of rain.
We catched a bus to Tagbilaran, where we grapped the chance to get a "good" meal at KFC, in a big shopping mall. Finally some okay food.
A bus transported us to Panglao island, precisely Alona beach. For the first time on Phili, we got to a touristed area and we were actually relieved. Sadly a lot of chinese picked this destination for celebrating the chinese new year. We had a really hard time finding a place to stay to a reasonable price, it turned out that a lot of places raised their prices during the chinese new year.
We had a base on one of the foreigner restaurants, and then one of us was walking around and checking guesthouses, hotels etc. and the other one was checking for availability online.
Erik met a young couple from Croatia, who also were in trouble with accomodation options. They told us about a place by the beach, and eventually we found a free bungalow, close to the beach, for 800 pesos. Every place in town was expensive, and we found it illogical that a place near by the beach would be cheaper, than uptown.
We prefer being close to the beach, so this was absolutely perfect for us. The place was really charming, with a small garden, lots of flowers and a nice porch to hang out on.
After a long day of walking around in the burning sun and sweating like a pig, we cooled down in the clear beautiful water on the beach.
We met the young couple from earlier and had some drinks with them at night. We were happy to be in a touristed area again, I never thought I would say that, but after 10 days of travelling around in all the non-touristed areas on the eastern parts of the Philippines, it felt amazing to be surrounded by tourists again, eventhough 80% of them were chinese. We decided to stay here for a few days, and just relax our exhausted old bodies.

Alona beach sunset

Sunday 2nd. Feb.

A day full of relaxation, blog working, swimming, suntanning and delicious lunch and dinner. 

The first place we went for dinner wasn't that amazing though, we waited over an hour to get the food, and when it came, Eriks burger was as cold as a beer should be, and my chicken gordon bleu was totally rare inside. So we didn't bother sticking around for another hour of waiting, we just left with shaking heads and a frustrated mind.
The second place (Le bleu'Elephant) we got some amazing tasteful and perfectly cooked food, made by a foreigner. We realized foreigers are the only ones who knows how to cook around here. And this food was really amazing.

Our nice little porch

The view over the charming garden

   

Monday 3rd Feb.

Just another lazy day, hanging out on our porch and the beach. It was needed just to be able to relax and enjoy the stunning beach. In the night we returned to the good restaurant, where we knew we wouldn't get disappointed.

Cute little fellow

The best chicken gordon bleu ever

Tuesday 4th Feb.

Time to get back to the travels, and this day would be a good one, since it was only a few hours to our next destination, Siquijor island.
First we had to eat at our favorite sandwich bar, also called Le Bleu'Elephant. It's two different restaurant, with the same name and two different french owners.. And right across the street from each other. Confusing and stupid (typical stubborn french people).. But seriously good food.
We catched a bus to Tagbilaran on Bohol, and from there a 2½ hours boatride to Siquijor Island. 

Riding the jeepneys

Arriving at Siquijor Island