The Philippines - Fell in love with a paradise on Earth.

Tuesday 4th Feb.

At the port of Siquijor we immediately rented a scooter, it's the easiest and cheapest way to search for accomodation on the island, we payed 400 pesos for 2 days rental.
Although it was a big challenge to fit both of us, and all our luggage (unfortunately we carry a lot around) on the scooter, we still managed to do it. It was loaded just enough to make the philippinos turn their heads, they probably never seen western people loading a scooter before, and we sure looked like dumb & dumber. It wasn't comfortable, but doable. 
We read about a place called JJ's backpacker village, and we went to check it out. It turned out very well. We got a tent (300 pesos per night) right on the beach, with matress, pillows and sheets. The place had a outdoor kitchen, hammocks in the coconut palms and a cosy little restaurant.
It was without comparison the most fantastic and idyllic place we have seen. It was like the pictures you only see on postcards.. and all of a sudden we were IN the postcard... Really felt lucky and felt like we had found a hidden treasure. Siquijor already had made a really good first impression. This perfect place got even more perfect with a beer in our hands.
We shared stories with a danish girl, Laura and her australian friend Jes. This place was really intimate, and everyone was very social and friendly. So it only took a few hours before we all "knew" each other. For dinner we drove to a place called "Get wrecked", owned by an australian guy, he served us some really good food and cheap drinks. We probably shouldn't have driven the motorbike the few km home, but we took the change, and survived.

Our tent is on the leftside

JJ's backpacker village

Gorgeous sunset

Wednesday 5th Feb.

First night in the tent went fine, we both had a good sleep and woke up early due to the hot tent, the noisy roosters and the barking dogs. It was amazing to open the tent and have the stunning view over the beach, we felt amazed and everything seemed so peaceful. 

We enjoyed breakfast in the charming restaurant, and then we went for a motorbike trip around the island. Went swimming in a bright blue waterfall, discovered breathtaking beaches, visited a big resort, shared a huge Italian pizza for lunch and fell madly in love with Siquijor Island. 

We got back to JJ's, and started sharing stories with all the other travellers. Went for dinner at the Danish Lagoon, with Laura, Jes, a israeli guy and a really drunk american guy. 2 motorbikes, 2 helmets and 6 people. Ahem ahem..! The danish lagoon served the biggest and most juicy burgers, plus a lot of danish dishes.. I had a big portion of burning love and Erik couldn't live without trying out the famous burger. The night passed by with drinking rum & coke on the beach, while an americano/philippino family kept the bonfire going.

One of the many fancy jeepneys (public busses)

Cambugahay waterfall

On the jeepneys, it's all about the decoration..

Salagdoong beach

Marine sanctuary

Buying gasoline for our motorbike

Someone has got some money around here

This is a kiosk, and that's how they all look like

Another stunning sunset (Apo island in the back)

Burning love at the Danish Lagoon

A clear sign of a Danish restaurant.

Thursday 6th Feb.

A bit hangovered, but this place was perfect for this aswell. I really didn't want to leave already, but we arranged with Laura and Jes to dive the following day with Harolds Mansion in Dumaguete. 

We enjoyed our last hours at this amazing place, and then we delivered the motorbike back at the port before we left, with the so called ferry, towards Dumaguete. Harolds Mansions hotel was almost fully booked, so the only room we could get was a suite, lucikly we could fit all four in there, so it was good enough. 

We tried in vain to search for a redfilter to our Go pro camera, it would make the movies from diving brighter and more colourful. We had no luck in either of the places we tried, and specially Erik was annoyed, because it really would make the movies from underwater so much better. To comfort each other we ate a Mc D. That helped a little bit, specially the sundae ice made me forget about the camera... Haha! Finally we had wifi again, so at night when we got back to the hotel, and catched up with friends and family.

Our two roomies in the tent

Not a bad way to start the day

Dumb & Dumber

Philippinos tricycles

Siquijor Island

Friday 7th Feb.

Got up early to set up our diving gear. We checked out aswell, and already arranged that the boat should drop us off on Apo Island after todays dives. As always in Asia we had some waiting time, first we waited for the people who woke up late and should set up their gear, and after we waited for the bangka (a wooden boat with outtriggers) to arrive at the beach. 

Eventually we were ready for take off and sailed on rough waves out to Apo Island. Our Gopro cameras housing was leaking already on 10 meters depth, sadly we kept diving instead of interrupt the dive. 

That made the dive terrible, but also the fact that the sealife was really poor, and our divemaster didn't really care about us. She didn't show us anything, or didn't look back and checked if eveything was okay etc. 

So this whole experience wasn't really nice. And when we finally got back up, some water had found it's way into the camera and we couldn't turn it on again. The wind had picked up, rain was pouring down and we got really cold. Bad luck to us this day. Our surface time felt quite long and I just felt like I wanted to get through the next dive, so we could get into Apo Island and get some dry clothes on. 

Next dive was better though, we got to see massive turtles, getting cleaned from small fishes. A nice dive after all, also with a lot of different corals. Luciky the weather got better and as we were dropped off on the island, the sun was shinning from a clear blue sky. 

There's only two places to stay on the island so we booked a room, at Mario's homestay, in advance, to make sure they would have space for us, when we arrived. Electricity on the island was only on from 6pm to 9pm. Erik went for a nab while I wrote blog. We booked a set menu at Mario's for dinner and the night went by with rum & coke and blog working. 

Apo island beach and bay

Simply became a sunset junkie

Saturday 8th Feb.

When we woke up we realized that there wasn't any water, so we couldn't flush the toilet or use the shower. The staff had to fill up the bucket on the mountain, before we could get any water. We told them about the problem early in the morning, so they could fix it for later, when we needed it. 

We then went snorkeling in the shallow bay, and we swimmed with a lot of turtles.. They look like water birds when they're swimming, so cool. Some of them was the same size as us. We wanted to snorkel on the other side of the island too, but getting there was a bigger challenge than first assummed, and the burning sun didn't make it easier. All right, we might have taken a detour, but how could I know it would be that long and so much up and down. We walked on a lot of steep paths, which was unsafe, specially walking in flip flops. Erik got a bit annoyed, but I tried to remain calm and act cool. And I succeeded. 

Eventually we got to the other side, but there wasn't any possibilities for snorkeling there, waves were too big and there were too many rocks. We found an easier way back to the village again, and in the end it was a nice walk, and we saw a lot of the island by walking. 

Had to snorkel with the turtles again, since we never know when we get that opportunity again, and that's what Apo Island is famous for, so went in the water again and saw big turtles once again. 

We wanted a shower before we got picked up, by one of Harolds Mansions diving boats, but sadly the staff, back at the hotel, didn't fix our water issue, and it started to smell bad in our room, since we couldn't flush the toilet. I complained about this to the staff. It got really disqusting in that room before we left, but after my complain they decided not to charge us anything for the room. Sweet! 

Had a long and wet boattrip back to Dumaguete, where we checked in at Harolds Mansion again. 

The place have a really nice rooftop terrace, with couches, pooltable, food and wifi. The rain was pouring down, so we placed ourselves in one of the dry spots on the terrace, and did some research for our next destination: Moalboal. Philippines have, without a doubt the most unpredictable weather that we have experienced so far in S.E.A. We have had more rainy days during this month, than the first 4 month of our travels.

Stunning view from the top of Apo island

A cool little boat

Crossed fingers for these people.. We were in the same boat just 5 min before woth all our luggage... Risky..!

Sunday 9th Feb. 

Next destination Moalboal on Cebu Island, and we could look forward to only half a day of travelling. 

First a tricycle to Sibulan port, then a bangka to Liloan, then a tricycle to Bato bus terminal, a bus towards Cebu stopping in Moalboal, and last but not least two motorbikes excluding helmets to Panagsama beach. All together around 4.5 hours of travels. 

Erik booked a room in advance, and it turned out to be a great choice, because everything was booked. Backpackers lodge was a cosy place with kitchen facilities, a nice chilling area with hammocks and a outdoor terrace. We got a small room with shared bathroom for 480 pesos per night. Great deal for us, and we looked forward to be able to cook our own food.. But not before the next day though, where we could get some groceries. This day we ate out, and since we came to a tourist area again the food was a bit overpriced. 

We were told that diving with the sardines here is suppose to be a really special thing, so we compared prices at different diveshops around the beach, to get the best offer. For some reason we were tired and went to bed early, and that turned out as a bad idea, cause during the night, as people got more and more drunk, they also got louder. So in the middle of the night I woke up and those people kept me up all night. Erik had been busy on his laptop, so he didn't sleep before late. Our room was on the second floor, but the windows fronted the street and with those paper thin walls you can hear everything. I was sooo annoyed and was ready to kill someone.

Bangka from Sibulan port to Liloan

Monday 10th Feb. 

I really concidered finding another place with less noise, it would probably be more expensive, but I was getting crazy with all that street noise. We had two choices: Either we found another place and use money on eating out, or we stayed here, cooked our own food and got drunk so we could get a prober sleep. Guess what... We stayed! We met another danish girl, Jannie, who was travelling with a swedish girl, Anna, and they had been awake all night aswell, so I had some comfort in them. Erik didn't feel sorry for me. Apparently the backpackers lodge have a special deal with one of the diving companys along the beach, so we could get a 50% discount on the equipment, if we dived with them. We booked 2 dives together with Jannie for the following morning. 

Went grocery shopping and made burning love for dinner, we got so full from that hot heavy dinner. As promised to ourselves we went out for drinks at the one and only bar on the beach, Chilibar. On our way home we realized that we lost our room key somewhere.. Trying to think back of what we had done, and in the end all the staff in the bar was looking for the key. We went back to the lodge and searched for it there.. No luck! I kind of knew that I had it the last time, so Erik was giving me shit about losing it. A big surprise! And yes of cause you loose your key on purpose! We were desperate to get to bed, and since it was only a padlock that seperated us from our bed I decided to lend a screwdriver at a resort nearby. The guy was friendly and helped me out of my misery, and luckily we got into our room. This night I didn't get a lot of sleep. I was trying to find the key in my mind, and couldn't stop thinking about it.

Homemade breakfast

Happy with rum & coke

Tuesday 11th Feb. 

The key was found in the bathroom at the lodge, the staff told me early in the morning that some guest gave it to them, but of cause they couldn't place it on the table in the reception. And they already went to bed when we got in last night. So all good, all good. I was knaeckered and not ready for diving, but had to do it. 

A bangka took us out to Pescador island, and we dived from there. None of us were really impressed about the diving, too poor sealife and the strong current made the diving difficult. Maybe we're just too hard to impress after diving at Similian Islands & Richelieu Rock. Maybe a bad decision to dive at one of the best places in Asia first, and then do the others after. This was another rainy day, so we napped during the day. 

In the afternoon we went diving on the house reef, from Cebu divers. This was the dive with the sardines, and a very nice and different one. When we looked at the big schools of sardines, it was easy to get desorientated, because they move in so many different directions, and sometimes they were like a dark cloud over us, so the visibility got bad. There was millions of them, without exaggeration... Millions & millions!! 

We were happy that we did this dive, for sure a special diving experience. Life is just so amazing under water. We had homemade spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Yummi. And by the way it goes good together with rum & coke. This night got a bit messy and uncontrolable. Philippino rum is really good and very cheap, only 82 pesos for a bottle, and we only live once, so we celebrated life this night, and I let some people know my opinion of them.

Survival gear in the rain

Diving with sardines

Wednesday 12th Feb.

A perfect day for hangovers, the rain was litterally pouring down all day. We stayed in our room most of the day, no need to walk around in this weather. We only went to the restaurant next door for dinner. Catched up with friends and family and watched movies.The next day we left to Malapascua island.

To be continued...!

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