Philippines

Philippines

I landed in Manila on July 22^nd at around 5am and had no problems going through immigration. I grabbed by bags and headed for the taxi stands. I had spoken to a Spanish woman back in Hanoi about the Philippines and how to get around. She spoke only Spanish but I was surprised that I could understand everything she said. Good preparation I thought for my future country Colombia. She told me that there are a lot of scams at the airport and to take the yellow cab company, not the white or they’d rip me off. I got to my hostel MNL without any problems. When I checked in, the hostel rep checked me in and showed me to my room-a top bunk. I hate top bunks. They suck. They are awkward to get on to and off. The ladder always hurts my feet. I told him that I had emailed them specifically and asked for a bottom bunk, which they agreed to. He said that I would have to wait for 2pm check in for a bottom bunk spot to open up. I said fine and located a couch in the common room to sleep on. I slept for a few hours and woke up at noon. That’s when I met Joe from France (Martinique) . We talked for a little bit and then I met his friend Anton from Germany. We went out for my first Filipino lunch which included the famous Chicken Adobo and a nice cold San Miguel beer. We spent the afternoon hanging out and talking back at the hostel since it was pretty hot outside. Then I met Sina from Germany who was also friends with Anton and Joe. Her and I got along instantly and talked for hours about various subjects. When the evening came around, we decided to go and grab some food and hit up a bar for drinks. We recruited Andrew from Australia to come out with us too. We wandered the streets a little bit and went to a bar that Andrew had been to before. We had only 10 minutes until happy hour ended so we made sure to hoard beers before then so we wouldn’t have to pay the high prices. After this bar we strolled down the road and saw a small lounge with live music. The prices were extremely high so most of us just watched the band play who did a great job with cover songs. I checked my phone and saw that Hussam had messaged me and called me a few times over Facebook messenger. What? Hussam is suppose to fly in tomorrow night, how is he here tonight? I messaged and called him back but no response. We went back to the hostel and I looked for him but no Hussam.

In the morning, we went out for breakfast but I still had no idea where Hussam was. Sina asked me what he looked like and then told me she thinks he is the guy sleeping on the bunk on top of her. I went to her room and yes, there he was. She told me he was snoring a lot and I laughed. I decided to take it easy and watch a few episodes of Marco Polo on Netflix. I looked up and there was Sam (Hussam). It was so nice to see him after all these months. We caught up and went to grab a bite to eat followed by some beers. He introduced me to Dean from New Zealand who he had gone out with the night before. At night we were all going to do a “Pub Crawl.” The staff told us it was a good pub crawl so we listened to them but we all thought paying 1000 pesos/$30 CAD was too much. We thought a party bus would pick us up but instead a woman showed up and was calling cabs for us. We were a bit confused on what was happening. She clarified that we would be going to a high end club at the end of the night that normally costs 1000 pesos to get in. The hassle started when she said we had to wear closed toe shoes to get into the club or they wouldn’t let us in. I had to wear my hiking boots with my dress, ha ha. It looked terrible. Anton didn’t go because he had a cut on his foot and couldn’t wear shoes because it would hurt too much. We didn’t want to leave him behind and as we walked to the street, I stopped the group and asked if this pub crawl made sense. We should be going to bars, not clubs and for this much money all of our drinks should be included. I asked the organizer what drinks were included, she said none but there would be some shots. I knew what shots she was referring too. Cheap, fruity, Aleeze type shots which none of us wanted. I told the group we could organize or our pub crawl and it would be cheaper. Then a couple people mentioned they wanted to explore outside of the city in a new area. I didn’t want to be the one that told the group this wasn’t a good idea so I said fine, we’ll do this. We got to the first pub and met another group of local Filipinas. We were going to have a games night? I didn’t understand any of this and what was going on. The organizer wanted us to play Minute It to Win It games and we all thought it was a dumb idea because we signed up for a pub crawl which meant drinking. We headed to the second place where we sat outside a restaurant. I took my hiking boots off and wore my flip flops which I carried in my purse. We looked at the prices of drinks and I said no way am I buying anything. The organizer told us we had to buy drinks for the next game. I told her no, she could buy drinks for us if she wanted us to pay since we had already put so much money down. One of the organizers Craig had brought his Tinder date to the table as Dean had discovered since he was sitting next to her. I was pissed off. I wanted to search for a 7/11 to start drinking with the group since this was a waste of time and our money. The organizer to our surprise bought us a few beers which kept us tamed for a little bit. After we left this place and headed to another bar. Sam and I spotted a 7/11 across the street and headed there. The organizers asked where we were going and Sam said he had to grab some smokes. We were gone for some time before reappearing feeling much better. The organizer said we were heading to the club now but we told her, the plan included 5 places and now one is being cut short because of time? She decided to accommodate us and take us to another club where we had a great time dancing. We left that club after about an hour and head to the “nicest club in Manila.” We got there and I put my hiking boots back on since they were very strict about shoe attire. I still don’t understand what their logic is, maybe broken glass? Or they want to look trendy? Hiking boots don’t look trendy with a dress on people! This club was huge with multiple rooms and an outdoor swimming pool. We had a few drinks and after a couple of hours we decided it was time to go home. The organizer thankfully paid for our cabs home and arrived back at the hostel around 3am. I was a bit hungry and remembered I had some noodles that I could eat. I realized Sina was hungry too so we split the package. Then Anton and Dean were hungry too so we shared the noodles. It wasn’t enough food so we walked to the 7/11 to grab some more treats. We were all upset at the hostel staff because they obviously made a cut of money from this “pub crawl” but at least we had made the most we could of the night.

The following day we decided we would go and visit Taal volcano. We took Felix from Montreal with us too. We knew it would be much cheaper to go as a group since we had to rent a boat to get to the island and we could divide the costs. We took the bus and got off on the stop the driver’s agent recommended for us in a city called Batangas. We were suppose to get off near Lemery but none of us data on our phones so we kept getting the run around by locals. We paid for more transit to get to a tourist office which we thought was the port. It ended up being the Mayor’s office. We went inside and asked the receptionist if it was possible to take a boat to Taal volcano which is on an island. They said it would cost around 3500 pesos/ $96 CAD which was far too much then we were willing to pay for since it was suppose to cost a total of $1500 pesos/ $41 CAD. We decided to give up on the Taal volcano mission since we had already spent so much on transportation and various tricycle/jeepney rides. A jeepney is a left over jeep from the Americans after World War 2 that has been modified to be used now as a mode of transportation for locals. We took some pics from the mayor’s office facing the lake then grabbed some beers from a local store and head to the pier. We could see the island so we thought since we couldn’t get to the volcano at least we could take some pics in front of it. After some time we decided it was best to start heading back or we might be stuck in this area for the night. We got back to the hostel and we were all very irritated by the staff because they had given us wrong information on how to get to the volcano. We were upset about the pub crawl and the volcano and decided the staff at MNL hostel couldn’t be trusted for good information. That night Sina really wanted to check out a Reggae show so we all went pretty late. It was more like a electronic Reggae style which was different then the Reggae we are use to hearing. We would spend one more night in Manila before heading north up to Baguio.

In the morning we got up and all head to the bus station. Sam and I both grabbed sim cards because we didn’t want to have another volcano situation again. We grabbed tickets from the bus station and started our long journey up to Baguio. When we got to Baguio, I was shocked. It was a city with extremely
bad air pollution and was very crowded. We arrived around midnight with no hostel booked so we started our search. There was a man at the bus station who said he had a “Pensioners” place for us to stay at. We arrived and he led us to the basement to a very musty room with mattresses on the floor. This wasn’t exactly what we were looking for so grabbed a jeep to Baguio Village Inn. Sam had stayed here before so he knew it was a good spot. We rolled up and got rooms. Sina and I shared a bed which was fine since I don’t move much when I sleep. We woke up in the morning and decided to do some site seeing. We thought we were going to a village where people lived called the Tam-Awan Village. We arrived and I was lucky enough to claim a student rate by showing them my old student card. It doesn’t have an expiry on it and still works so why not? We did a tour of the village and a small walk around it but there wasn’t much happening inside. We later read that this was a replica village of what the real thing looked like. We left the village and walked up the street to a restaurant called the Farmer’s Daughter. There we ordered some traditional Filipino meals and then after took a taxi to Burham park. At the park we rented a swan to row around the lake and took in the sites. We all took turns rowing the big bird which was a lot of fun. We had heard of this local craft brewery so we caught a cab to see what it was all about. The Baguio Craft Brewery had been around for a few years and had multiple beers on tap. They were all very expensive and food was over priced but we decided to chill out on the rooftop and enjoy the view. Well, what was left of the view since the rainstorms were about to start. We head back to our Inn and the next day we were going to head up to Sagada. In the morning we talked to Sina and she had to head back to Manila to catch her flight to Germany. I felt bad for Sina because she had come up to Baguio to hang out with us and we were gonna leave the poor girl here for the day. Dean, Sam, and I decided to stay another night while Anton and Joe who had limited time went up to Sagada. We went to Mines View Park and did some souvenir shopping in the area while the rains came pouring down on us. We checked out the view from the park which was ok but foggy cause of the rain. Sam and I picked up zip up sweat shirts with hoodies because he had warned me Sagada would be cooler and I didn’t have anything. I have to admit, I was a bit jealous he got the pretty red sweater and I had to settle for the grey sweater because they didn’t have another red one in my size, lol. We grabbed dinner at famous local restaurant called “Good Taste” and head to the main strip to find a bar to enjoy some drinks. We closed the bar down and wanted to go to another bar. There we met Jeremy from France. He had a few drinks with us and had to leave to get his bus back to Manila. The only bar that was open was country/karaoke type of bar for locals. As soon as we walked in, everyone was starring at us. A table spilled their entire pitcher off beer on me and I was really upset. After talking to the local guys about how they needed to apologize if something like that happens, they bought me a beer which was nice. From the corner of my eye I saw another guy standing up and waving his head over Sam, making fun of him. Sam turned around and the guy shook his hand like he wasn’t making fun of him. I told the guy that wasn’t cool and to stop doing it. That must have pissed the guy off. We all had gotten into a bit of a fight with them and waiters told us not to make friends with any locals here. Insinuating that they might take advantage of us by making us by them beers, etc. We left the club and head home and in the morning we said good bye to Sina while Sam, Dean, and I head to Sagada.

On the bus ride up to Sagada, we passed a small city called La Trinidad which had beautifully coloured houses and buildings on the mountain side. The road was quite windy along the mountain side but had beautiful landscape of rice terraces. Sam had been to Sagada before and had told us it was a very small town. We got there, randomly ran into Anton and Joe on the street and checked into a hotel. We all had some dinner then head to a small bar up the street. Anton had mentioned a hike he wanted to do that was really beautiful but we had to wake up at 3am. I really wanted to do the hike since we hadn’t done a lot of active things these past few weeks so I said my good bye to Joe and Sam and head to bed.

I woke up at 3am to check the weather, and the stars were amazing. I got ready and made sure to bring my headlamp. Sam and Joe didn’t wake up but Anton was waiting for Dean and me outside. It took us about 45 minutes to walk to the view point and we realized all the local tourists were taking jeepneys to the top. The view was terrible, all cloudy, we didn’t get a good view at all. It reminded me of the Poon Hill hike I did in Nepal, not fun. We hung out on the top for a couple of hours before walking back to the town and grabbing some breakfast. Dean and I were pretty tired so we went back to bed for a few hours. We woke up around 12 and we decided we wanted to do the “Cave Connection.” Joe and Anton had done Cave Connection the day before us and said it was a tour of the caves but it was a little bit like spelunking. We would have to crawl on our hands and knees and it was a difficult 4-5 journey through the caves. We went to the tourist office and got our guide 18 year old guide Alex. We had met Alex the day before at the bar and he was really drunk. We wondered how he had sobered up to do this. I only wanted to come to see Sagada for their hanging coffins. They use to be Pagan and hang coffins of their deceased on the sides of mountains so their souls could get to the heavens quicker. I saw a few at the entrance of the cave but not the same as I had seem on Google images. Alex our guide, had brought an old kerosene lamp with him and was wearing flip flops. We were told to either wear flip flops or do the cave with no shoes as it was slippery. We got to the cave and I had already slipped at the entrance cutting the top of my feet up a bit. We waited for Alex to light up the lamp and then head into the cave. WTF did we get ourselves into? This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life with no helmet or harnesses. We had to contort our bodies in  awkward positions to crawl through caves and hoist ourselves down through tunnels of darkness. If you fell, you would die in a huge cavern. Who knows how many feet below us. I was stressed out and not enjoying myself. The caves in Vietnam were stunning and all you had to do is walk through them. This was some next level garbage. Any wrong foot placement or hand placement and you would slip. Our guide made us use his body at times as a brace or his knee to climb on. I just wanted this to be finished and we were nowhere close to being done. We got to an area, which we had to wade through water. My foot slipped and down I went into some water having to swim to the top. After we climbed to the shore, I looked up and saw a rope. Ummm…what? There was no way I was climbing this rope. I don’t have the upper body strength for this. There must be another way, I thought. Nope, there wasn’t. We were going to climb this rope with the help of our guide and another group’s guide to the top. For the first time in my life, a wave of panic came across me and tears started streaming down my face. I didn’t want to do this and I don’t want to be here. I told myself to shut up and it would be fine, to just follow what the guide told us and we would get up there safely. I knew if I slipped and fell, there was no harness to save me. I would go crashing down on the rocks. When it was my turn, I grabbed the rope and looked up where my foot should and hands should go. With the help of the guides I made it to the top with happiness that I made it up uninjured. At this moment, I really wanted to get out of the cave, and we weren’t done yet. There were moments were my foot or hand would slip while scurrying across the side of  a giant rock and I hated every time it would happen. We continued through the maze of tunnels and slippery rocks until finally we reached an opening. Our guide told us we could either go up now or continue downwards for an unspecified amount of time. I told the guys they could go if they wanted to and I would wait for them at that spot. Dean really wanted to do it and then Sam was convinced he should do it too. For me, I didn’t enjoy any of this, I didn’t need to keep going and for what? More stress and pain? We decided to head up and that’s when my foot slipped and I smashed my toe against a rock. It was painful and bleeding but I slowly made my way to the top. When we reached the light, the guys were pretty happy they had accomplished the cave and all I could think about was, what an unnecessary dangerous activity. We head back to the hostel, showered, and put our muddy clothes in a pile. The laundry mat wouldn’t get our clothes washed and dried by tomorrow morning so I had washed them and hung them to dry. We met Sam at the local Kimchi restaurant, which takes a very long time to order from so he had preordered for us. We feasted on some friend chicken, which was delicious.

In the morning we woke up and there was a torrential rainstorm. It was tropical storm Carina and she was hitting the northern Philippines hard. Our clothes were soaked on the balcony. Dean was heading to Banue to do some hiking and Sam and I were heading up to Kalinga. We wanted to see this tribes up there and Sam was gonna get a tattoo from this 98 year old women who did them for her tribe her whole life since she was a teenager. The tourist center told us it wouldn’t be a good idea to head up to Kalinga because the rain could wash out the roads and cause landslides. We decided it would
be best to head back to Manila and try to run from this storm. We wanted to spend the night in Bontoc as a half way point but the bus driver forgot about us and kept driving. The bus driver’s assistant woke up some Filipino boys next to us and they told the driver to pull over. Through their interactions we realized something was wrong and asked them what happened. They said they fell asleep and we missed the town and now we are 3km’s away from it. We told the driver’s assistant he has to turn the bus around the drive us back. He said no they couldn’t do that. We told him, it wasn’t our fault, we didn’t know that was the town and since he sold us the ticket he knew that since we were the only two foreigners on the bus. He should have announced the town Bontoc when we arrived but he kept quiet. Sam and I got off the bus, grabbed our things in the pouring rain and found shelter near by. The two the Filipino boys named Chino and Ralph got off as well. We realized we would have to hitch hike back into town since walking on these windy roads would be too dangerous. Then we heard the sound of an engine starting up nearby us and we told Chino to go talk to the driver of the dump truck and see if he’d drive us back to town. The driver and his wife were so nice, they let us jump onto the top of the dump truck and drove us back. Even though the rain was coming down hard, it was still a fun little adventure. We got to this small hotel in Bontoc, checked in, showered, and grabbed some beers and had some lovely dinner. We had to ask the receptionist how to use the toilet. I’ve never seen a toilet like this. There’s no seat and no tank to flush the water. There’s a bucket next to it with a tap of running water. But does one squat over the toilet and squat on the sides of the toilet? The receptionist told us you would have to squat then fill up the bucket and throw it into the toilet to flush it. Toilet paper would have be carried outside and thrown into the trash can. Ok……I think I’d rather go to the woods. After dinner, we head to a Karaoke bar called Cable Car. It was one of the only bars that were open at night. As we walked through the rain, I slipped and smashed my toe again into the wall. It started bleeding again and I had to wrap it up at the bar. We watched an older lady boy sing songs on request as we drank. She wasn’t particularly good but better than nothing for entertainment.

In the morning, we boarded our bus to Baguio as Sam had some friends we met in Sagada he wanted to see and I thought it would be good to relax and work on the blog and finish my Netflix series Marco Polo. We took the bus back to Manila later that day and checked into OMP/Good Shepard hostel. We got “lost” for a few days in Manila, just relaxing, meeting new people, and hanging out. A girl named Nahia looked at my toe and said it was infected. I said to her no way, it’s fine. Then she took a picture of it and showed me. I knew right away I needed to go to the hospital. Nahia came with me and it was a relatively quick 5 hours. The doctor said it was infected, gave me antibiotics, and got a nurse to clean the wound. I also got him to check for lice since my head had been quite itchy for the past month. He checked and said no lice thank god but gave me some anti fungal shampoos. I head back to the hostel all bandaged up but feeling good. Thank god Nahia was with me through this ordeal, much appreciated, thank you 🙂

During our stay, we met Arian from Germany and his friends Christof and Jon. We spent a few nights drinking with them. Arian had a very sad personal tragedy happend to him. Sam and I felt terrible for him and wanted to help try to console him. One night we all went out to Senor Pollos for some pork sisag and had some beers. After we head to Z hostel which had a roof top club and that’s where we met Queenie and her friends. She’s a local lovely Filipino who we would see a couple more times during the trip. We also met Yonatan from Isreal and his friend Magda from Poland.  The next night at the hostel we met a new group of people which included Chris and Ryan from America. With the group and Yonatan and Magda we went out to see midget boxing. Definitely something that we didn’t want to do but we were dragged by a group. The bar was forcing us to pay beers at 160 pesos and I told them I don’t drink and want water. They told me 180 pesos for a bottle of water. Sam and I were really irritated but ended up caving and having a a beer each since sharing a beer wasn’t allowed. After that we head to another area to a couple of clubs to enjoy Manila’s night life. After about 5 days in Manila we booked flights to Puerto Princessa on the island of Palawan. It had been really hot and rainy these days in Manila so we thought being near the ocean would be great. As we left Arian gave Sam a really lovely drawing from Germany and me a bag filled with exotic fruits to say thank you.

We got to Puerto Princessa and paid 50 pesos for a ride to Sheebang hostel. It had a great bar scene but the hostel was not up to any standards. It had extremely creaky bunk beds where you could hear and feel every movement your bunkmate made. We spent a few days at the hostel meeting new people and hanging out. Sam went to Cowrie island with a group of people but because my foot was still infected, I didn’t want to aggravate it more. One night we went to the Tikki bar which was the popular local club. It was a huge bar that had a stage, live music, and dance floor. The hostel owners friend Ruby drove us to the bar with her cousin Glen. At the end of the night it was clear that she wanted me to hook up with her cousin Glen, telling me how great of a guy he was. I didn’t want to be any where near this scene. Sam and I realized it was time to get out.

We then head to El Nido the next day with Laura from England and Lasse from Denmark who we went to the Tikki Bar with the night before. El Nido was suppose to be amazing but since the rain and wind was so bad, the coast guard cancelled all boats going into the water. We were hoping to head to the island of Coron but there was no way that was going to happen. We wanted to do an activity tour but they were all cancelled too except for one day. I was a bit too tired to go but Laura went with some other people we me at the hostel. There wasn’t much to do in El Nido and the town was super expensive with food and drinks so Sam and I decided to go back to Puerto Princessa. We got back to Sheebang hostel and felt like it was too much money to stay in their ghetto rooms again so we got a private room across the street with two double beds for cheaper! We did hang out at Sheebang hostel and met more friends to hang out with. A girl looked at me and said, hey, aren’t you friends with Jason, I met you back in Bangkok. Then I remembered we met her on our last night in Bangkok and she was leaving to go to Phuket. Jason has her on Facebook but I didn’t. Her name was Ashley and then through talking to her more, I found out she’s friends with Laura too. They both teach in Korea. Small world eh?

In the morning I met this lovely group of people with Ashley and her friend. We decided to rent a boat and go to Cowrie Island together for the day. We were warned that there were stone fish in the water. OMG!! Stone fish?!! One of the deadliest fish in the ocean and if you touch them, you immediately need to get the antidote for treatment. The Philippines doesn’t have this antidoe so you have to fly to Singapore or Australia for it. I know of a friend who was diving in the Andaman Islands and his dive instructor was in the shallow end playing with some kids when her hand touched a stone fish. She ran to the kids screaming to get out of the water and told her dive master something had stung her. He went back into the water and saw it was a stone fish. They had to emergency helicopter her to Singapore for treatment. I’m not sure if she lost her arm or she died from the sting but this animal is not to be taken lightly. While on Cowrie island the staff told us not to worry because the stone fish were on the other side of the island. Umm…wtf?! They are fish, they might migrate to this side. We had to enter the water with our flip flops and not touch the bottom with our bare feet. I was pretty scared. The group I had met with spotted a floating dock and wanted to grab some beers to head over. I know my swimming isn’t the best so Ashley swam with
me to make sure I got there safely. We had had a good time on the floating covered dock for a few hours and then saw big jelly fish floating around. Not fun, no one wants to be stung by them. I gave a girl named Beth my swimming goggles because she wanted to do some diving to see fish and guess what? She lost them by accident 🙁  I was so scared to swim back without the goggles because the waves were getting rougher and the last thing I needed was salt-water blindness. I borrowed Jake’s snorkel and mask and head back to the island on my own. I didn’t realize but I had scrapped myself pretty badly on the dock on my thigh and I was bleeding pretty badly. I used some tissue to put pressure on it and stop the bleeding. We were the last group to get off the island and head back to the hostel.

The next day Sam and I had a flight booked to Cebu with a group of people we had met in El Nido and Puerto Princessa. We arrived and took a cab to the Le Village hostel which we knew had availability. We got into a small heated argument with the hostel staff who were charging too much for a room when on hostelworld.com the rooms were cheaper. They told us to book on hostel world and when I went to book it, the hostel staff logged into the hostelworld app and made the rooms no longer available. During this time, Laura arrived with Cindy, David, and Niklas. We told them quickly what was happening and decided to stay at another placed called the Tropical hostel. We left Le Village when the hostel staff said thank you to us in a rude way. We said nothing and proceeded to leave when some idiot guy sitting there starts yelling at Sam. Sam said nothing to him or anyone and this guy starts ripping into Sam saying a thank you back to the staff would be the least we could do. We got out of there, grabbed cabs, and went to the Tropical hostel. The opposite happened to us, the staff were so incredibly nice. They didn’t have enough dorm rooms so they upgraded us for free to private rooms with bunk beds. They were friendly with advice. We went out to eat some dinner and then head back for bedtime. In the morning we head out to grab some breakfast a took a photo in the 7/11 while devouring it all.

In the morning packed up to head to the bus stop. We were going to a small city south called Moalboal. We got there and checked into the only hostel near the beach. It was also called Le Village but I guess a sister hostel of the one we visited previously. We thought we were close to the beach but realized it was near a marina with no real sandy beach. At least the prices of food and beer were super cheap here if you went to the side street Caranderias. We got into a tricycle and head to White Beach. It wasn’t too sunny but we laid on the beach relaxing. Us girls didn’t want to go into the water because it looked pretty rocky. Stone fish was another concern. We finished up at the beach and head to a beach shack to eat some dinner and share drinks. Laura had come up with a great drink. Rum with beer. That’s what we drank and a few of us got pretty tipsy. We head back into town really late and knew we would be at the mercy of tricycle drivers who would charge us a ridiculous amount to get back. With no options, we started walking back into a town and then found a tricycle that would take us back for cheaper. We head to the local rock bar but I was pretty tired and wanted to grab some food before retiring to bed. Cindy and I found some cheaper street food and went back to let the group know there was another cooler bar down the street. We went home to get full nights sleep.

In the morning, we woke up to hear what non sense the group had gotten into. Everyone was pretty drunk but Laura had found a litter of puppies she wanted to adopt. She cried for an hour telling everyone she would quit her job to take care of the puppies ha ha. Cindy and I woke up pretty early and we head to a small restaurant, which had organized a boat for us to rent today. We tried to cancel the boat because everyone was still sleeping. Cindy met the boat owner at the pier and told him she really wanted to see turtles. It was the only thing she wanted to see on her trip so he took her out for free to snorkel and find them. I would have gone too but the waves were too strong to not go with a life jacket. I head back and met the group on the street but Sam was still sleeping. They were still up for renting the boat but I told them we might cancel it. About an hour later, Cindy arrived back the hostel, the most excited I’ve ever seen her. She saw turtles and convinced us to go on the boat tour. We woke Sam up and headed towards to boat. Making sure we grabbed chicken and rice along the way. The first stop was a small island which was good for snorkeling. I put my life jacket on and got into the water. Niklas had an amazing new snorkel mask, which covered your entire face and allowed you to breath normally. No water would get into the snorkel because of its design. I took it out for a try and loved it. I can’t wait to buy one and have it with me all the time. Sam and I took turns with the mask because he had glasses on and the regular snorkel masks were uncomfortable. After that session the group was ready to do some cliff jumping. Sam begged and pleaded for me to come with the group. I said nope, I’m staying on the boat. I know my limits and this is one of them. The boat driver and his crew brought the boat around the other side of the island while everyone else was swimming to get onto the steps of the island. The waves on the other side were terrible. Thank god I didn’t go. One by one everyone jumped. Laura was taking some time, she looked a bit scared but she eventually did it. Sam was the last person and he couldn’t jump, it was really high and he was scared he would hit rocks on the way down. Apparently you had to “aim” where you wanted to land. He took some stairs on the other side of the island and jumped into some water with very high waves. When everyone got back on to the boat they told me how their experiences were. They said 20 meters was much higher than they had thought it was but some of the others loved the jump. We had some lunch on the boat and went snorkeling again where we saw a giant turtle with two huge sucker fish cleaning it. I was turning around to switch masks with Sam when our boat captain spear-fished one of the sucker fish and the force of the spear hit the turtle too. The turtle swam off immediately. I was sad Sam couldn’t see the turtle. We asked the captain why he did that. He didn’t want to give us the real answer which was that he wanted the fish so instead he told us that the fish aren’t good for the turtle and will weigh it down. I knew this was b.s. They have a symbiotic relationship where the fish clean the parasites from the turtle and what he was saying made no sense.

We drove boat to another location and jumped in. Wow, these waves were big and the current was strong. I spotted another turtle and started swimming after it into the ocean and told myself to stop because it was much faster than  me and I didn’t want to get caught too far out. I spent some time snorkelling around the coral but the visibility wasn’t excellent so the group started snorkelling away to another spot. I tried to follow them but the current was strong and about half way I decided to turn around and swim back to the boat. I swam for maybe 5 minutes in really rough current making sure I wasn’t smashing into the rocks next to me. I looked up and that boat was gone. I panicked, where did the boat go? I looked around and realized all the boats look the same. I thought, should I swim to shore? Then I turned around and realized I would have to swim back to the group. It took me about 10 minutes. I told myself to stay calm and that I would eventually get there. I finally saw the boat as they had moved to the other side to be close to the other group. It would have been nice to get a warning. I swam past the other group and got onto the boat exhausted. The group got onto the boat so excited telling me about how they saw a family of turtles. I didn’t really care at that point. I was tired and wanted to get back to shore. We stopped at one last place to see sardines near the shore. I let Sam use the mask to see them but he said the water was pretty murky and I didn’t have it in me to jump off again. When we finished up, the captain brought the boat closer to shore. He helped us all get off and walk to the beach because it was so slippery on the rocks and we were all falling everywhere. We got back to the hostel, showered, and head out for dinner and drinks. The more popular bar we headed to had very expensive drinks. So we bought a bottle of rum and coke outside the bar and would take turns as groups going outside and having a swig. After that we were having a great time dancing and mingling. We got home at around 3am that night and I passed out.

In the morning, it was time for Sam and I to head back to Cebu city to to catch our flights to Manila. We finally found an air conditioned bus and said good bye to the group who was heading to see some waterfalls. We wanted to go to but we figured there might not be enough time and we didn’t want to miss our flights. When we got to Cebu city we head to a mall to eat and relax. We got to watch Suicide Squad at the theatres and then took a cab to the airport. We caught our plane and took a cab to our Junction hostel. The cab driver seemed on purpose missed all of our exits,
even when we told him where to go. We got to the hostel pretty late and checked in. Then we had a disagreement with the hostel staff who wasn’t able to do the math to check us in. Finally we got out a piece of paper and broke down the room rate. I was tired and not in the mood for another argument with a local. When we finally agreed and paid our rate, the staff took us to our room. I had a great sleep that night. The hostel beds were super comfortable and the layout of the hostel was great. I spent the morning working on the blog and fixing pictures on previous posts, a nice relaxing day. We met a group of girls from Holland at night and took them to our favourite spot to eat which was Senor Pollos. We grabbed our usual pork sisag, plantains with garlic sauce, and some cold beer. I was worried about the time since it was getting closer to my flight so I got up to pay my bill. Again, the restaurant staff was having problems with the math and calculating my portion of the bill. I was getting really late now and they were taking about 20 minutes to figure it out. Sam and I finally figured out the bills for them but we were angry. This isn’t the first time in the Philippines we are seeing severe math errors. We ran back to the hostel, I grabbed my bags and it was pouring rain. We asked the hostel to call me a Grab taxi or Uber and the drivers wanted 3-4 times the regular amount because of the “rain”. I said no way, that’s ridiculous! Sam and I went outside to flag a cab down. He negotiated the rate and since I was getting late, I just told Sam to accept the 300 pesos. This was about double the regular rate. We gave each other big hugs and said goodbye. It took about an hour to get the airport and as soon as I got off, I went directly to the front of the line up for security checks since my international flight to Taiwan was leaving in an hour. I got checked in, ran to my gate only to find the flight was delayed almost 2 hours. Ok, thank goodness, I can relax now. I finally jumped onto my plane and fell asleep only to awake in Taiwan.

GALLERY PICS OF THE PHILIPPINES