Jeepney, bangka, tricycle, minivan, bangka, bangka, bangka,...

Our next destination was the island group of Visayas. We chose the more remote island of Sibuyan as our starting point. We left Donsol hoping to catch a boat to Masbate city, on Masbate island. From there we could take another boat to Romblon, we hoped. Only a two hour boat ride away we arrived in Masbate, only to be told that there is no boat. We would have to drive in a minivan to another city, Mandaon, to catch a boat the next day. Easy, right? After two hours of stunning drive through the island we arrived at the pier. A coast guard told us that there was only a boat on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. It was Wednesday evening now. Shit! We had just missed it. The friendly guard made some phone calls, and found out that there was a boat tomorrow to Roxas, a bigger place on Panay island, with better boat connections. We would have to take the 5 am minivan to the Milagros crossing, and from there we could take a tricycle to the pier and we should make it to the boat. Quite early, we thought, because it was already 7 pm. We hadn't eaten anything all day, simply because we couldn't find a place to eat. All we had was some crackers and soft drinks. It was time to find a place to eat and sleep, fast. The guard saved our asses again, pointing us towards a guesthouse. Or so we thought. We checked in, had dinner, and by the time we got back in the room, ready for bed, the whole room had been taken over by a cockroach colony. They were everywhere! Usually we are not so worried about a few insects, but these things were all over the place, coming from under the doors, from the sink and from the hole in the shower room. They had taken over the backpacks, so we had to repack everything and chase the things out. There were so many that we couldn't sleep before we had taken all of them out and closed the holes with tape and carpets. We went to bed just to be awake all the time with something crawling on our faces. We ended up leaving for the 5 am minivan without any sleep. What a great start for the day.

 

The lucky thing was that the minivan was actually at 5:30, so we had time to grab a few bread rolls from a bakery which for some reason was already open. We also found a banana and water. At least this day started with breakfast! And again we took the same beautiful road! Enjoying the early morning rural life with pigs, goats, chicken and dogs running around the streets, we made it to Milagros in a bit more than an hour. Someone grabbed our luggage, and carried them to the boat. We tipped him a 50, and after buying tickets he took us to a coffee shop where we spent a while drinking instant coffee and watching tv with the not so talky owner. Next door was a little restaurant, where we could get food. Great! Food! That was something new. We knew the bangka ride would be at least six hours, possibly more, so we were happy to get something to eat before the journey. It was only 7 am and we were already eating rice and warm food. And they even had a vegetarian option for Anni! We had plenty of time, the boat was supposed to leave at nine.

 

As soon as we saw the boat filling up, we thought it would be wise to go reserve seats. First come, first serve, applies to the boat rides in the Philippines. As soon as there is no seats left, it doesn't mean that the boat is full. It means that the last people sit on the outside space, in the sun. That's exactly what happened to us on the last bangka to Masbate. That was okay, the ride being only two hours, but we thought six or seven or eight or whatever it was going to be, would be too long for that. So we waited another hour in the boat, watching the motorbikes, pigs and goats being loaded on the boat, before it actually took off. Leaning on the backpacks or lying on the little space outside in the sun, half covered with tarp, we managed to get a few hours of sleep before we arrived in Roxas.

 

We were happy to find out that we could take another bangka to our final destination, Sibuyan island, tomorrow morning. Finally! The constant moving was coming closer to an end. We were exhausted and checked in to the first and only hotel we could find. We ended up paying way over our budget for the "only available room", a junior suite, for 1500 pesos in Midtown Hotel. We were too tired to care. Nobody seemed to know of any other place. So we just got dinner and went back to the room. At least the beds were soft and the shower was warm. Little luxuries count for a lot after such an exhausting journey.

 

The 8 hours of sleep and a shower were much needed. Still tired, we took off again for the last boat ride. It was going to be another 5 or 6 hours to San Fernando on Sibuyan island. We got there about half an hour before the bangka took off and because the boat had a covered rooftop and the last rides had been nice and calm, we decided to sit on the roof. Theoretically a good idea, just the waves were huge this time and everything and everyone ended up being soaked. At least we had rain covers for our backpacks. Once during the trip we managed to climb over the roof to the toilet on the other side of the boat, the second time never came because it was too scary. But we made it to San Fernando alive! We checked into a home stay called Sea Breeze. We were ready for bed, again.

 

We never realised how slow moving in the islands could be. We had been constantly hungry, tired and uncomfortable for days. We knew we were moving too fast, but with the limited time and huge amount of interesting places to see, we had no other option. Also, getting food seems to be a problem. There simply are no restaurants. All they sell are fruit, mostly bananas, and sweet stuff, like cookies and sweet bread. Another option is meat. You can always find grilled meat or chicken, but Anni is vegetarian and it just is not an option for her. Finally, we were where we wanted to be, in a guesthouse where we could use the kitchen, and we didn't have to go anywhere in a few days. We were happy.

 

 

Surfing, diving and chasing whale sharks

At five in the morning we were somewhere in Manila, in a taxi, circling around the city, the driver stopping at several bus stations to ask if they had a bus going south soon. Finally we found one that was just leaving and quickly stuffed our backpacks on the passenger seats and jumped in. We were tired but happy to be out of Manila before the famously horrible traffic got too crazy. Didn't really sound like an attractive city to us, so we decided from the beginning to avoid it if we could. Success.

In a few hours we were in a city called Tagaytay, where you can see the Taal volcano from a viewpoint. We hadn't planned to climb it or do a boat cruise around it (which about half of the city's population seemed to want to sell us one way or another), so we thought we'd just stop on the way, sit down, have a look, and keep going again. It was the weekend before the Catholic Holy week, so trying to find a place to stay so close to Manila didn't sound too appealing. So we got a tricycle which took us to the viewpoint. After resting a while, enjoying the view and a cup of coffee we drove back and tried to find a bus to Batangas. A friendly guy standing at the bus stop threw us into some bus, and it still is a mystery to us how we managed to change buses in the right place and get a minivan which took us right to the Batangas pier. Somehow we were where we wanted to be. We had had no food all day, no sleep last night and we were happy to be so close to our final destination. So we went in and got our tickets out of Luzon island to Mindoro.

Ready for bed already, our day wasn't over. After two hours on a bangka (Filipino type of boat) we arrived in Mindoro island's White Beach. It looked horrible. Bars, loud music and too many people is not what we are looking for on an island. So we had to find a quieter place. We took a tricycle to Talipanan beach, which, according to our guidebook, "is for people looking for real solitude". Sounded good. As soon as we arrived we knew that it was our kind of place. After a bit of walking around and comparing prices we half accidentally managed to haggle a family house with a kitchen and tv on the beach for 800 pesos a night from Mountain Beach Resort! That was a bargain, especially over the easter. Finally it was time for food and sleep! Oh no, first shopping and cooking... It had indeed been a long, long day. If only we'd known then how many days like that we would have in the Philippines.

We were really happy that we had found our easter hideaway. We spent the days snorkeling off Talipanan beach, where we found a nice coral reef. We did a couple of dives as well with Badladz dive company, which we would recommend. Nice people and small groups, just the two of us with a divemaster. We got to dive the Sabang wrecks, which consist of 3 tiny wrecks shattered on the ocean bottom, 1 of them being more or less in recognisable shape and you can even swim through if the current isn't to much for you, as it was for us. Great dive though, because there we saw our first ever frogfish! Crazy creatures! We also did a dive at Monkey beach, which was absolutely clear water, beautiful colors and thousands of fish! Water was freezing though. Every time after snorkeling or diving we were shivering! Not what we had expected with these hot days.

Our mission for Easter was also to extend our visa. We found out that there was an immigraton office in Puerto Galera, 20-minute tricycle drive away from Talipanan. So we got that done. This time it was no hassle like in the embassy in Singapore, no dress codes or anything, and the whole thing took about 20 minutes. So we had another 5 weeks in the Philippines. Great!

Ready to keep moving again, we left Mindoro and took a bangka back to Batangas on Luzon island. From there we had to change minivans and buses and tricycles several times, but in the evening after about 10 hours of travelling we made it to Bagasbas beach, close to Daet. It is a place famous for surfers and everything there is indeed about surfing. We found a room for 500 pesos from a nice guesthouse called Surfer's Dine Inn, where we stayed for four days, mostly swimming, bodyboarding and surfing (or trying to, to be honest). It was suddenly low season and the experienced surfers were somewhere else catching the big waves and the whole beach was left mostly to beginners like us. Which was great! No pressure, just rent a board and off you go! Good fun. We managed to catch some waves and stand on the board. We had done a surfing lesson 7 years ago in Australia but that was about it. The waves here were perfect and easy to catch even as a beginner. And the best thing was that the water temperature was good again! We had been freezing on Mindoro, but apparently the change from the South China sea to the Pacific side made all the difference. The water was almost too warm, but that's not really a reason to complain, is it?

From Bagasbas we went to what was supposed to be the highlight of our trip: swimming with whale sharks in Donsol, which has the highest concentration of whale sharks in the world. Or had, we should say. We arrived in Donsol after another long day in the bus just to find out that there had barely been any sightings in the last two months! 4 sharks a day over the Easter but barely any since then. The boat hire would be expensive and there were at least 30 boats going at a time, more than 90 a day. Only one boat is allowed to approach the whale shark at a time, which is good though, but that means that with even one sighting a day the chances of actually getting anywhere near it are very, very low. We stayed in a homestay, a place called Santiago. There we talked to other people who had tried it and everyone came back disappointed. There were no whale sharks. For a moment we thought about doing it anyway, but then we abandoned the idea. There just didn't seem to be a point for going. Very disappointed, we packed our bags to leave the next day. It was time to leave Luzon island for good.

 

North Luzon by bus

The second time we arrived to the Singapore airport we were prepared. We did not have a visa, but we had two flights: one cheap one to Taipei within 21 days of arrival, which we would not use, and one in 57 days. We would get a 21 days stamp upon arrival to the Philippines, but we could extend our stay later on in an immigration office, which are plenty around the country. Problem was that this could take a week or so, and we would have to do that within 2 weeks in order to avoid overstaying and being fined. But we would worry about that later. We checked in to the flight succesfully. And yes, already at the airport they did check that we had a flight out. If we didn't, we would have had to buy a ticket on the spot. Glad to have taken care of this stuff succesfully, we boarded the plane and stepped out in Clark a few hours later.

We got out of the plane and while getting organised we met an English guy, Paul, who was among the very few westerners on the flight. He had no specific plan, he just knew that, like us, he would go around North Luzon while trying to avoid Manila. With him we jumped on a jeepney, a Filipino version of the Thai songthaew, which took us to Angeles city. First we thought about staying in Angeles overnight, but it really wasn't that attractive. It was crowded, there was a big girly bar scene with old expats hanging around drinking beer all day, and it just didn't seem special in any way. So changing the plan and circling around the city in jeepneys and tricycles we finally made it to the bus station and hopped on a bus towards Baguio.

We arrived some time after dark. It was cold, also in the bus, because Baguio is in the mountains, in the altitude of about 1500metres. After looking around and haggling with the semi-aggressive touts, we made up our mind and took a cab to a hotel mentioned in our guidebooks. They were so expensive that the three of us squeezed ourselves into a twin room with tiny beds. Didn't matter, we were tired from the journey. We had a quick look around the city and decided to keep moving the next morning.

Our next destination was Vigan, which was an old and beautiful Spanish colonial town. We were hunting for a cheap place to sleep for a while, and since all the hotels were either crazy expensive or fully booked, we found a random homestay kind of place for a good price. Great! Vigan seemed like a nice place to hang out for a day or two. Also, what was surprising, Philippines reminded us of South America. A lot. There were empanadas, jeepneys that looked like a miniature version of Bolivian buses. And the language, Tagalog, is mixed with English and Spanish. Also people jumped into the buses to sell whatever snacks they had made. With the colonial history and some altitude here and there, we felt a bit like being back in South America. We had a fun day walking around the old town, sightseeing and enjoying a couple (and a couple more) beers in the evening. It was fun to actually to hang out with other traveller after spending a lot of time between the two of us. We couldn't really plan anything, the Lonely Planet Philippines had been so expensive in Singapore that we hadn't bought it. Paul had one, so we were also happy to borrow his book. In Vigan we found a bookshop that sold the Rough Guide, a book we'd never used before, but that would have to do it now. It was the only one they had.

Next day, unlike we had planned, we got kicked out of the hostel because they had a booking for our room. Why not let us know that any earlier? So we quickly packed our bags and we had to decide what to do next. It all happened kind of fast. Briefly consulting the new guidebook we decided that we could do a little loop around the north. On the maps there was a big road from Laoag towards Sagada, where we wanted to see some rice terraces. So we jumped on a bus to Laoag. Not the smartest decision we had made. It was an okay place, but not much for a tourist. After a night there, we found out that to go to Sagada we would have to go all the way back to Baguio! It wasn't possible to go straight from there, even though a road was clearly marked on our map. None of the locals seemed to know of its existence. Sagada is only famous for tourists because of the landscape and rice terraces. Nothing to interest most locals we guessed. It would be at least seven hours on these mountain roads again! We wouldn't make it to Sagada in one day, because from Baguio that would be another 7 hours and the buses only left in the morning. For a second we thought about hitting the northern beaches first, but with no decent accommodation mentioned and the catholic Holy week (the biggest and busiest holiday of the year) coming closer, we wanted to be sure we can find a place to sleep. Paul had already made up his mind, he would go to Sagada. So we followed him, thinking that it would be smartest thing to do.

On the way we slept in Baguio again, Paul sharing the room with us. The next day we hopped on an old, kind of uncomfortable bus that took us more or less safely to our destination. We were finally in Sagada! Now it was time to rest! And plan. We had been moving every day since we arrived to the Philippines, spending most of our time in buses. We really had to figure out what we wanted to do in this country.

We enjoyed our time in Sagada. We spent a few days just resting, planning and enjoying local scenery. We found ourselves in a mountain town with pine tree forests around us. At times it almost looked like home. We wondered what else this country was going to offer. It had been absolutely different to anything in Asia so far. We hiked up the up the hills to get a view over the numerous rice terraces in the surrounding region. We also hiked to a small waterfall nearby.

One day we dedicated to do a tour, exploring the famous hanging coffins and caves. Old burial coffins had been hung on the sides of the hills and inside the nearby caves. Before the tour we were told that sufficient gear for this sort of activity would be shorts and flipflops. It wasn't. The caves were wet and the flipflops got very slippery as they got wet, and climbing down the rocks in the dark of the caves was so scary that we skipped the last part and instead waited sitting in the dark listening to the bats. The guide and Paul, who was actually wearing shoes, went deeper into the cave. In the end it still was worth the few euros that we paid, but next time we'll take proper shoes no matter what people tell us.

After a few days we kept going to Banaue, where the biggest rice terraces are located. The next morning we took a tour. A jeepney took us to the beginning point of the hike. And what a ride that was! We got to travel on the rooftop of the jeepney, not because it was full, but because we always wanted to try that! We got an amazing view and cheers from the locals, who probably don't see too many white people travelling like that. Or maybe they just thought we looked silly flying up an down on the bouncing jeepney, who knows. Dodging the occasional power lines we made it without any bruises. With numb bums we started the hike down the stairs on the mountain slope.

The rice terraces were breathtaking. We went to the Dragon's backbone rice terraces in China. They were bigger, but we were there just after harvesting and on a foggy day with fires burning everywhere. This time we got a beautiful clear view over the terraces, which were full with water and green rice growing everywhere! Just as we had hoped. We also hiked to a waterfall, where we went for a quick swim in the cold water. Perfect on a hot day! Back to town we travelled on the rooftop again. Because we could.

Paul was in a bit of a hurry because he only had three weeks in the Philippines. He decided to take an overnight bus to Manila, where he could get a boat to Cebu. Feeling like we had seen enough of North Luzon, we took the same bus. We didn't want to go to Cebu because of the busy Holy week with its rising prices, but we had to head to the south anyway. We had other plans. In the early morning, still dark, we arrived in Manila. We got a taxi from the bus station and negotiated that Paul should be dropped off at the ferry terminal first. It was weird to see him disappear into the crowd in the dark after spending a week with him. We hope he made it to Cebu safely. But we had other things to worry about now. We had to find a bus going to the right direction. We waved our goodbyes as our taxi was hushed away by the officials.