Palawan and the Asian Las Vegas

Almost back home...

No more Philippines... After Moalboal (which is pretty boring, especially when you don't plan to dive) we went back to Cebu. Spend half a day there and didn't really like the place. Just another big city. The only nice thing we saw was an old Portuguese fortress. However, the next day we went to Palawan, the skinny, long island in the south west. Arrived in Puerta Princesa and transferred via a tricylce to the bus station right away where we took a Jeepney to go to Sabang, home of the longest, navigable underground river in the world.

Sabang itself is a miniature town with no electricity and just a few shops but it does have an absolutely stunning beach. Wide and white with fine sands even when you walk into the sea!! So we spend some time on the beach and in the sea and did a hike to the river. The river is on of the more beautiful things I have seen during this trip. Lots of stalagmites (and -tites of course ;-), swallows, bats and a ceiling that reaches over 60 meters at some places! More than worth going to!! And you have to admit that this picture looks so amazing it looks like it's fake...

When we left I found out just before the Jeepney took off that I left my cell phone in our bungalow... the driver was willing to wait for 10-15 minutes so I ran back to get it. But of course Murphy's Law works just as well in the Philippines and we had a bungalow on the complete opposite side of the beach as the Jeepney was waiting... So I had a great workout, running at noon on my flip-flops for 15 minutes! Whaaa!! But I made it and it just took a few liters of sweat and some heavy breathing ;-)
Besides that, the transfer to Manila went without problems (except for running into the biggest asshole Filipino in the world...) and after a rather sleepless night we got up at 5.00 to make our way to Clark Airport. It was a long and tiresome morning but at around 16.00 we finally arrived in Macau. Macau is a very cool place, it's the Las Vegas of Asia so it has some huge buildings (casino/hotel things...), but you can also still see the Portuguese influence in a lot of buildings. I even found a pair of Adidas running shoes in my size for less than 30 euro! The other nice thing is that Macau is very small, you can go almost everywhere on foot, so no need to figure out difficult bus schedules or something.

On Saturday afternoon Shos went to the Chinese border to catch a bus to Yangshuo and do a trip to some other places, while I took a ferry to Hong Kong to arrange my visa. And that is exactly what I did today :-) I can pick it up tomorrow morning, have a train at 10.32 to Guangzhou and hopefully there are still tickets for the 14.13 overnight train to Kunming. If so, than I will be back "home" on Wednesday afternoon!!!
Here in Hong Kong I am staying at the Ascension House, a guesthouse run by a Scandinavian Christian organization. I know that you all think: That so does NOT sound like something for Ruud! And you are right! But this place is great! Nice people, good beds, yummy food! And it is cheap to stay: for HK$ 125 you can sleep and get 3 meals a day! Try beating that in this expensive place :-) Probably some of the people working there will be in Kunming later this year so we might see each other again.

Pictures will follow asap, but this computer won't let me connect my camera for some reason! (updated on 22 Aug)

Ciao vanuit Hong Kong!
Rudy

Beaching in the Phillies

Just a few of the many islands...
Here I am again! After all the rice terraces in the north we went straight down to Manilla where we had to catch a flight to Bacolod on Negros Island. Everything went well and in the afternoon of the 1st of August we moved directly from the "airport" to the bus station to catch a bus to Cadiz. Again no problems!! Got a room and the next morning we took the boat to Bantayan Island where we were planning to do some serious beach time. However... we both didn't like the island! It is to big to get the real island feeling and the beaches were far from extremely nice. That called for a quick decision and resulted in us leaving the next day and heading for Malaspascua Island. After a tiresome boat, tricycle, bus, boat trip we arrived at Malapascua and this was great! Nice small island, very friendly people, white beaches... just what we wanted.

Besides being on the beach and doing nothing I also went for three dives. Malapascua is known for the Thresher Sharkes and of course I wanted to see those! But no luck for me! Just a nice dive but no sharks. In the afternoon I did two more dives around Gato-Gato Island and those were very good. After 5 days we decided it was enough (and honestly we got a little bored because there is absolutely nothing to do besides doing nothing...). However the local kids were practising for some kind of festival and they had the best music and dance ever! Drums, trumpets and dancing kids, great way to spend an evening! And to share this experience with you I made you a movie (turn up the volume!!):

Yesterday we moved to Moalboal, a beach/divers town in the middle of the eastern side of Cebu Island. Going to look for the White beach this afternoon and I will tell you next time what we think of this place. Up to this point I am still a little unsure whether to recommend the Philippines as a destination to anyone. For divers there is no doubt that they should come here but for "normal" backpackers... I don't know. There isn't a lively backpackers scene as in Thailand or Laos but there are some beautiful sights here. The rice terraces in Luzon are beautiful, some of the beaches are great, but it just doesn't excite me as much as other places. The easy thing is that most people speak good to great English, so getting around is very easy!
Another "fun" thing here is that we are really getting into the Philippine way of living especially when we were on Malapascua. That means waking up at 6.00 and going to bed at 21.00-22.00... Strange, but there is so much noise outside that you just can't continue sleeping. On Saturday we have a flight to Puerta Princessa and that will be the last real destination for us in the Philippines. More on that in the next post!

Hastelavista,
Ikke

The Philippines :-)

Beautiful and strange...

Since last Friday I am in the Philippines. After a short but exhausting flight during the night we arrived at Manila around seven in the morning. Got money and took a bus to the north of Luzon (Baguio). Uninteresting town where we just slept and we took a bus early the next day to Sagada. This small place is really nice to spend a couple of days. The ride there is one never to forget! We visited a waterfall which can only be reached by walking through the rice terraces where this area is famous for. Also visited some hanging coffins and a cave where they "bury", stack the coffins of the death.




Today we took a bus to Banaue, another place famous for the rice fields. The bus trip itself has to be one of worlds most beautiful trips, seeing the inmense rice terraces and driving over small, unpaved roads through the mountains... just great!! The ones here are even more exciting than the ones in Sagada. Did a nice tour through some of the fields and tomorrow we go to another town in this area.



The Philippines are kind of strange... although it is an Asian country, the people and their language and habits are totally different from all other Asian countries I have been to. Almost all of them speak English and their native language sounds like a mix between Spanish and English. Same goes for the food... it is not as special as Thai or Chinese food. They serve either Western fast food such as burgers, or rice with a little bit of meat or fish. Too bad we have not been able to find really good food. The one good thing they do have is cheap and tasty liquor. A wide choice between gin, brandy, rum and whisky for next to nothing isn't particularly bad :-)

That is it for now. Tomorrow we have an overnight bus to Manila and from there we fly south to Negros island, hoping to find a great beach to chill on for a couple of days!!

Groeten uit "Azie",
Rudolf