My trip to the Philippines

The Philippines

The first obvious difference between the place we departed and the place we landed was the temperature, the first being almost 0 degrees, while the latter was subtropical climate with temperatures around 30 degrees. The moment I stepped out of the plane the heat struck me.
We quickly learned about the Philipino attitude, we waited almost 1 hr to get our luggage.

Shawns friend greeted us the moment we got out of the airport. She had everything arranged, taxi drive and hotel reservation. We spent some time at a shopping mall where most of the locals seem to hang out too. There even was a mass held by a priest attracting a lot of followers.

I took off on my own the next morning exploring the streets of Manila, starting at Intramuros a walled city housing Fort Santiago. Thats where i learned about Rilaz, a local hero who fought for liberation at the time of spanish occupation. Thats where I also met a guy who turned out to be my tourist guide for the rest of the afternoon. He took me to the bay side where we witnessed a famous parade deticated to Santo Nino , the infant Jesus. Singing and dancing people in costumes passed by carrying a statue featuring a different infant Jesus of the sea, flower, horse etc. - anything you could possible imagine. People were super friendly and showed their appreciation for my interest in their culture with warm smiles and encouragements to participate. A very nice experience - the parade took hours to pass and i was getting tired , so I invited my guide for dinner.


The next day we went for an all day trip to Lake Taal, which houses 47 craters and 35 volcanic cones - Taal Volcano being one of the worlds smallest but deadliest with a death toll of around 6000 people ... The drive took two hours, long and bumpy but well worth it. The lake housed three different triangly shaped volcanos of which ones we were going to climb. After arriving on the island (involving a short boat ride) we were talked into riding a horse up to the summit as it would be hard to climb by feet (of course I should have realised that this was a tourist trick) ...



I didnt mind the experience of riding a horse but I had mercy with the guy that walked the horse, so I told him to sit up. However the guy the horse Shawn sat on didnt look happy at old, and the poor guy walking the horse did not get a chance to sit up either. Arriving at the summit, we got an amazing view - the crater was filled with water while there were several places releasing steam rising from the lava below. An interesting image which I took in for a maximum amount of time.



I opted for walking back down the mountain allowing the guy to ride the horse by himself - it was certainly the first time he saw somebody not using the horse after paying for it. The lake now was pretty active with high waves which caused us to be soaked by the time we arrived back on the mainland.

After returning to Manila, we decided to leave for Cebu the next morning. The flight didnt leave till 2pm the next afternoon. Before we eventually checked into a reasonable hotel the afternoon was gone and all remained of the day was night. We didnt waste much time and set off to do some sightseeing. Walking the streets of Cebu City I saw both busy markets and rough city areas (which I would have rather avoided) as this video demonstrates :



In terms of sights, the Magellan's Cross was certainly the most famous and interesting. Its a mere cross (as seen millions of times before) but enlosed in a chapel. This chapel didnt just attract tourists but also locals who either were trying to sell their baby (!!!!!!) or for kids to perform dances in order to beg for money. (watch videos below).



We went out clubbing the same night (of which half the night I spent on a sofa trying to cope with a severe stomach pain) getting drunk cheaply. It seemed to be a good place to meet locals.... I eventually went to bed at 3 AM. Sleeping in until 12 am we took off to the pier where a ferry would take us to Bohol - an island east of Cebu accomodating the famous Chocolate Hills (see movie below) :



By the time we came back down the sun was already setting. We were supposed to stop at a waterfall - being on the way back to the hotel - but of course it was too dark to see anything of value - as it turned out we would have to take a boat , but the boat people had already closed business that day - however upon seeing the potential of a deal the boat people quickly opened up business and designed a special night boat trip for us - but before we entered the boat we had been given the opportunity to touch a real Tarsier - the first time ever to see this animal. We finally set off on the boat in the hunt for Fireflies (!) - first it seemed like we got unlucky, but then finally we spotted them sitting in the trees - which looked like a christmas tree. I cant tell how many they were - but it must have been thousands. My fellow travelers caught one - the insects looking like an ordinary small bug with the exception that their tail was iluminated. (check video below).



We took it easy that night as we had to get up very early the next morning - as our boat would be leaving at 6AM. The boat would take us out to the ocean where we would be watching (wild) dolphins - many tourist boats were already out and about with the same intentions. First we didnt seem to get lucky, but then somebody shouted 'Over there!' and we finally caught the sight of some wild dolphins surfacing in order to breath (watch the video below) .. we saw them a couple of more times, but then gave up and headed for a small island called Balicasag, a short boat ride away.



Here we were given the chance to go snokerling, swimming or to just chill out. But first we had to have proper breakfast, so we settled down in the one and only restaurant on that island. During breakfast I was pondering on whether to go or not to try out snokerling. Who knows me well, knows that I dont really appreciated the close proximity of animals, in particular fish. But I had to overcome that kind of 'fear' (if thats the right word?) ~ so I decided to give it a go. The guide warned me: ' Beware of the longspined sea urchins. A sting would cause 5 days of severe pain! ' He explained they would be found on the ocean floor, but I would be safe if I didnt come near them. I am telling you they looked real scary giving me goosebumps from just looking at them. However the coral reefs I then got to see were really amazing with plenty of different fish ~ it all looked like an untouched piece of nature, a really peaceful place. I spend more than an hour out there watching all kinds of fish passing by underneath ... with me trying to reach them ~ though my attempts remained unsuccesful. Having a lot of fun, I didnt notice how the sun was slowly but surely burning the skin of my back. It was all red by the end of the day. On our way back we stopped just of the shore of Panglao Island to have a swim. We all were very exhausted and went to bed early that night.

We spent the entire next day getting back to Manila, our plane from Cebu to Manila being delayed for 4 hours (thanks Cebu Pacific !!). By the time we checked into our hotel in Makati it was 2 AM the next morning, just early or late enough to go for a last drink ~ Makati, having to offer more than enough places to cater for such needs.



The good points :
- (very) friendly, approachable and english-speaking locals
- Many interesting places to visit
- fairly low costs
- tourist friendly (however be beware of scams)

The bad points :
- difficulty of finding well-run (by means of not being to dirty) hotel rooms