Phillippines

Hostel Balcony Day 1

Day 1:  We arrived in the Phillippines on Friday night at around 1:30 in the morning. The airport was dead in Manilla where we flew into and we just took a cab to our hostel. The Hostel was pretty cool with a nice upper floor for just hanging out and then our room was on the lower floor. The room was kinda dirty and the showers were cold but we each only paid around $5 a night there. And it was safe so that was the main part.

Day 2: We thought we should go to "sight-see" in Manilla since we were there. The unfortunate thing was there was nothing to see in Manilla. First we went to the Hard Rock cafe and bought shirts and ate. It was good western food after coming to Korea. After that we went to the old part of town but we didn't feel safe at all there. We just walked around and saw an old catholic church there where they were having a wedding. It was really beautiful wedding but outside of there everyone was staring at us. We had some little kids come up to us and start to sing us songs in tagalog and ask us for money. After that we got out of there and went to a park very close to there. The park had trash everywhere and wasn't very nice either. So we just decided to go to the mall because we had heard the shopping in the Phillippines was really good and cheap. It wasn't as cheap as I would have hoped but they did have cute clothes that we could actually try on. There we felt a lot safer but they had police at the entrances of the malls checking for guns in our handbags. We ate a Phillippino buffet at the mall which was interesting. The food there was kinda bland but it was still good. We just went back to the hostel after that because we didn't want to be outside.

Tricycle thing which served as taxi

Street in Manila

Day 3: We left in the afternoon for the island of Palawan. This was much better. Although the Manilla airport is kind of crappy. When we got to Palawan they were all asking if we had a hotel or if we wanted them to drive us to one. I think the tourism there was really competitive. We ended up riding in a tricycle thingy with this guy who took us to a hostel we had in our travel guide. He was really nice to us and very accommodating. Our hotel here was cleaner and the beds more comfortable which was good. They didn't have mosquito nets though but they brought in spray for us and we sprayed the room. There were also geckos everywhere. They were pretty funny and the running joke the whole time was that we would take one home in our bags on accident and then get kicked out of the dorms for having pets. We ate supper at this chicken place that looked a little more local than we were expecting. The place we were going to go to was closed. The food was delicious though and we ate meal, drinks, and dessert for about $10. I had an amazing strawberry bubble tea and chicken teriyaki. 

Fish feeding at Snake Island

Day 4: We went island hoping at Honda bay. This was really cool because they took you to each island and told us what we should see and what we should do. The first island we went to was starfish island. It was soooo cool. There were starfish everywhere and the water was so clear and warm. We could see the bottom as the boat was coming up to the island. We were the only ones on this island and it was really quiet. Then after that we went to snake island (only called that due to the shape). There they had us buy bread ahead of time and we fed the fish and took tons of fish pictures. We saw all sorts of fish of all colors. They also fed us home cooked food on this island. We had some delicious pork, tuna, shrimps, and not so delicious fish (everyone else liked it). The philipino men with us ate with their fingers even the rice. A lot of the people there did that. After lunch we went to the last island where we got to snorkel some more and it was also very pretty. After that we got back we had talked to the tour lady about wanting to go to Sebang and El Nido and she set it all up and helped us with everything. I'm not sure if its just the philipino way to be this accommodating or if they really wanted us to come with them everywhere. They took us to the ATM, airport for our tickets back to Manilla, tour agency, place to get into the underground river and then home. Then we went out for supper at the place they said had the only night life in Puerto Princesa. It didn't have much night life. It was probably about the size of Jefferson or maybe a little bigger of a town so it fell asleep early.

Outside the boat for island hoping

Underground River in Sebang

View on the way to El Nido

Day 5: We got up early to take a van to Sebang and the Underground river. This was crazy because the roads were really bad. Most of them were gravel with so many pot holes the driver slowed way down and swerved to miss them. Most of the paved roads were missing lanes in places from mud slides and stuff since it was the rainy season. I was motion sick so I just slept the whole way there. Once we got there we got on a boat to go to the island where the actual underground river was. These two Americans walked up to us on the way and they went with us on the boat. They were really nice. One was from Philadelphia and the other from Ohio maybe and they were in China working. The underground river wasn't as exciting as we were hoping. It pretty much just included a really long cave in a boat. Also the tour guide was very difficult to understand due to his heavy philipino accent. When we got done with the river we went on a monkey trail. We didn't see any monkeys but we did see a pretty cool/big lizard. When we got done here we drove the way to El Nido which was close to 4 or 5 hours. On the way we stopped in Roxas so that the driver could eat and I was hungry so I also ate. He was so nice he was letting me try his food and he bought my food too. The unfortunate thing was I wasn't keen on what he had. I got the privilege of trying what I think was some sort of fatty beef and another dish of intestines with black sauce.  I wasn't quite as hungry after that. When we got to El Nido we found a really cool hotel which probably could have been cheaper but it was very nice. We had two rooms, a bathroom and a balcony. The only problem was there is no electricity in El Nido from 6 am to 2 pm and its quite warm there. So we had to get up good time in the morning because we were soooo hot. After we got settled we went and ate supper at Ric Sons which was just down the beach. This was an experience. They had a band playing the whole time which was cool. There was also a party that came in after a little while with 6 philipina girls and 1 old man and what we think was a philipino man dressed as a girl. The last one was quite entertaining the whole time with a very eccentric personality. We also had a male nurse from Switzerland came up and talked to us. He was a very interesting character and we ended up seeing him everywhere the rest of the time. There was also a waiter who walked up to our table and asked us where we were from when we told him Germany and USA he said that Germans were big people and Americans were fat. Maybe he was a bit rude or maybe he has a skewed view.

The beach by our hotel

Day 6: We wanted to just relax and not do anything so we decided to not go on an island tour. We had seen a beach that looked really nice on the way but was a little ways away so we told one of the tricycle guys to take us there. He tried to tell us there wasn't anything there but we didn't listen. Next thing we know a buddy of his is trying to take us to another island and drop us off for some "beautiful beach". We kindly declined and took a tricycle back into town. When we got to the beach the swiss guy was there and he suggested for us to go to the Art Cafe which was delicious. He came with but he wasn't very good company because he just read his magazine the whole time. We were wondering why he bothered to join us. He was also really rude always talking in German instead of English. Then we just laid on the beach all day and swam. It was really nice to relax even if the beach wasn't that exciting. That night we went to the coolest restaurant ever. It was also on the beach and they had delicious food. They also had this really cool place to sit which looked a little bit like a boat and was out over the tide. We were kind of getting a little wet but it was really fun.

The Alternative (the coolest restaurant)

Day 7: We decided to do an island hoping tour after our fail the day before. This was a really cool island tour where we got to see 5 islands. The first island was a small lagoon which had fish that bit when we stepped on the sand because they were laying in it. The guide led us to a little cave where we could sit and hang out in. The scenery was also really beautiful with huge cliffs jetting up above us on either side. Under the water there were reefs. The next island we stayed at to eat. We didn't snorkel here much but relaxed and laid on the beach. We also found a hermit crab just wandering on the beach which we took a video of. After eating Caro and I hung in the water talking to two of our guides and an old dutch man. The old dutch man was there with his young philipina girlfriend. The tour guides were trying to teach us tagalog (philipino) but it wasn't working all that well. Caro was picking it up but me not so much. I just got something about mahalay being beautiful because they say beautiful morning and beautiful night for good morning and good night. That night we went out to eat that night and just hung out.

Day 8: We wanted to just relax again so we just spent the day on the beach near our hotel. We didn't want to get up to early but unfortunately we didn't have much of a choice because it was sooooo hot there. They didn't have electricity from 6am to 2pm so we were burning up without fans in the morning. When we were on the beach in the afternoon it started to pour rain on us. That was a big bummer so we just went back to the hotel and lounged. I got a long ways in my book Emma by Jane Austen and the other girls got good naps in. While they were still napping Martina and I went to swim for a little while before it was time to get ready for supper. We went to a place on the beach again and sat on the beach. This was fun because as the tide was coming in it got our feet wet and Julia and I started to fall backwards. The joke of the night was to not fall over when the waves swept the sand out from under the chair.

Notice the palms and the rain :(

Day 9: This was our last day so we really wanted to make it great. Well....we tried. We booked for a boat to take us to an island just to stay for the day (a credible source). This seemed like a great idea and it really was beautiful. We had a few highlights such as seeing a ton of Hermit crabs and real monkeys. The monkeys were quite interesting and kind of hard to find. The only problem was that an hour into being on the island it started to rain on us cats and dogs. There were no people on this island but us and this other couple so we had nowhere to get out of the rain. This didn't seem like that big of a deal except that we had all of our passports and stuff with us so it was getting wet too. Not to mention it was quite cold. Thankfully we had gotten the guys number ahead of time and so he came back to pick us up. He was quite nice to us and we laughed the whole way back about how funny it was that it was raining so hard. After this we just stayed in the room and hung out while it rained most of the day. That night we went to a restaurant called Sea slugs but I didn't have to eat seafood thank god. I had delicious chicken adobo (Philippino chicken).

We were so cold! But it was really funny.

Day 10: Just traveled all day home. It was a 5.5 hr drive back to Puerto Princesa from El Nido. Then about an hour to Manila from Puerto Princesa on a plane and 4 hours back on a plane to Seoul. We came back exasted from traveling all day but the trip was amazing.

Exhausted!

Overall: We saw some very beautiful things and took some amazing pictures. The culture felt a lot closer to home and almost like a Latin American country. The people were very accommodating and really nice. There were dogs everywhere and they were all either pregnant or had puppies. I've never seen so many dogs without collars in one place. Being in a small town was amazing to. Our driver on the way did the one finger wave which I thought was so cool. The people in the towns also felt like small town people willing to help in anyway and never that busy. I felt totally safe on the island of Palawan and thought it was beautiful. I loved all of the wildlife everywhere and got to see stuff that I thought I would only see in zoos and books.