The Visayas
10 - 17 June 2009
Hi again, Ben here in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, just getting my act together and writing about the rest of our Filipino adventure.
In the last episode, we were in Manila searching for yellow folders and poker games (none were found). What we did find was traffic, nice food, rain and a very interesting city to wander around in. Since we had a deadline because we had to book an onward flight out of here for immigration, we decided to skip the 66 hour return ferry ride to Cebu and took a $30 1 hour flight instead. Here is a bottle of rice wine next to a beer bottle. The rice wine we carried all the way from Banaue, a pick-me-up for the long bus ride to Manila.
Cebu was the old capital of the Philippines and is much further south in The Visayas. It is a good launching point for many of the other islands in the area which we were after. We spent the night there and got a ferry the next morning to Tagbilaran on the island of Bohol. Security on the ferry was tight. There was a giant X-ray machine (I think the operator was asleep). There was a man with a drum stick poking around in our bags as well (I don't think he was looking) and there was even a sniffer dog! (I think he was stolen from the pound)
We stayed in Alona Beach, a short tricycle ride from Tagbilaran and had some beach time. Taren was getting massaged by a lady within about 3 minutes of laying down. The water is warm and very salty here, so m
uch so that when I went diving I had to carry almost double the weight I usually do to stay down. The beaches are nice enough, but they are no better than any Adelaide suburban beach.
10 - 17 June 2009
Hi again, Ben here in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, just getting my act together and writing about the rest of our Filipino adventure.
In the last episode, we were in Manila searching for yellow folders and poker games (none were found). What we did find was traffic, nice food, rain and a very interesting city to wander around in. Since we had a deadline because we had to book an onward flight out of here for immigration, we decided to skip the 66 hour return ferry ride to Cebu and took a $30 1 hour flight instead. Here is a bottle of rice wine next to a beer bottle. The rice wine we carried all the way from Banaue, a pick-me-up for the long bus ride to Manila.
Cebu was the old capital of the Philippines and is much further south in The Visayas. It is a good launching point for many of the other islands in the area which we were after. We spent the night there and got a ferry the next morning to Tagbilaran on the island of Bohol. Security on the ferry was tight. There was a giant X-ray machine (I think the operator was asleep). There was a man with a drum stick poking around in our bags as well (I don't think he was looking) and there was even a sniffer dog! (I think he was stolen from the pound)
We stayed in Alona Beach, a short tricycle ride from Tagbilaran and had some beach time. Taren was getting massaged by a lady within about 3 minutes of laying down. The water is warm and very salty here, so m
uch so that when I went diving I had to carry almost double the weight I usually do to stay down. The beaches are nice enough, but they are no better than any Adelaide suburban beach. The cute little furry fellas are called Tarsiers, called the world's smallest monkey they are actually a nocturnal member of the lemur family. While I went diving, Taren went of a trip to the Tarsier sanctuary. They look a bit like Gollum I think. You could fit two in the palm of your hand!
I went on a couple of dives here and saw some amazing coral and a lot of your typical tropical fish. There was a big school of jackfish swimming in a tornado formation, lionfish, clownfish etc etc. but the highlight was all the colourful corals. The dive trip was me and a family of 7 Americans from North Carolina, one of the women had a brand new digital camera she wanted to use. And boy did she use it...to give herself an excuse to kneel all over the beautiful colourful corals (and even a lionfish! Yes she knelt on a fish!) and knock at least 5 big chunks off, decades of growth. And that was just when I was looking! I felt like throwing her overboard on the way back, but she probably would have just stepped on something else, so I let her stay on the boat.
After Alona Beach we had one of those travelling days: 40 minute tricycle ride to Tagbilaran dock, 1 3/4 hour ferry trip to Cebu City, 10 minute taxi ride to the bus station, 4 hour bus ride to Maya on the north tip of Cebu island, 30 minute banca (a local-style boat) to Malapascua Island and then a 20 minute walk or so to BB's Guesthouse, where we deservedly had a King beer.
Malapascua is a small island with no cars (just motorbikes) only 2 km by 1 km in size. There were some nicer beaches here, in the main part of the island there was the 'tourist' beach, which was nice enough, and then the 'local' beach, which was covered in rubbish. I don't know why they can't just have a little bit more pride in their island and clean the whole thing up! Here is a picture of a man training up his chicken for cock fighting we presume. They list the two national sports here as basketball and cock fighting in the Lonely Planet.
I did a couple more dives here, saw a 4m Thresher shark (quite a rare shark I hear) on a dive at 6am, then later that day went on a second dive where I saw a whole buch of cool stuff: 4 frogfish
(a fish that can walk and swim, dating back to prehistoric times - pictured) pipefish, pygmy seahorses and spotted shrimp, no turtles unfortunately, and no clumsy divers destroying everything either. 
Taren and I spent 3 nights here, one of which saw Taren get bitten by a mosquito (more about that in the next post).
This was a nice little quiet island, I'm sure it gets a bit busier in the high season. They say it will be the next Boracay, which is an island closer to Manila with more tourism and a party scene.
Later on we flew back to Manila and got caught in a real downpour, ankle deep water over road intersections, bags getting soaked. The next day I think we went to the movies (saw Drag Me To Hell - it was good), and at about 11pm the got on a plane to Ho Chi Minh City, where I write this post from.
Thanks for reading, see you next post!
Ben
I went on a couple of dives here and saw some amazing coral and a lot of your typical tropical fish. There was a big school of jackfish swimming in a tornado formation, lionfish, clownfish etc etc. but the highlight was all the colourful corals. The dive trip was me and a family of 7 Americans from North Carolina, one of the women had a brand new digital camera she wanted to use. And boy did she use it...to give herself an excuse to kneel all over the beautiful colourful corals (and even a lionfish! Yes she knelt on a fish!) and knock at least 5 big chunks off, decades of growth. And that was just when I was looking! I felt like throwing her overboard on the way back, but she probably would have just stepped on something else, so I let her stay on the boat.
After Alona Beach we had one of those travelling days: 40 minute tricycle ride to Tagbilaran dock, 1 3/4 hour ferry trip to Cebu City, 10 minute taxi ride to the bus station, 4 hour bus ride to Maya on the north tip of Cebu island, 30 minute banca (a local-style boat) to Malapascua Island and then a 20 minute walk or so to BB's Guesthouse, where we deservedly had a King beer.
Malapascua is a small island with no cars (just motorbikes) only 2 km by 1 km in size. There were some nicer beaches here, in the main part of the island there was the 'tourist' beach, which was nice enough, and then the 'local' beach, which was covered in rubbish. I don't know why they can't just have a little bit more pride in their island and clean the whole thing up! Here is a picture of a man training up his chicken for cock fighting we presume. They list the two national sports here as basketball and cock fighting in the Lonely Planet.
I did a couple more dives here, saw a 4m Thresher shark (quite a rare shark I hear) on a dive at 6am, then later that day went on a second dive where I saw a whole buch of cool stuff: 4 frogfish
(a fish that can walk and swim, dating back to prehistoric times - pictured) pipefish, pygmy seahorses and spotted shrimp, no turtles unfortunately, and no clumsy divers destroying everything either. 
Taren and I spent 3 nights here, one of which saw Taren get bitten by a mosquito (more about that in the next post).
This was a nice little quiet island, I'm sure it gets a bit busier in the high season. They say it will be the next Boracay, which is an island closer to Manila with more tourism and a party scene.Later on we flew back to Manila and got caught in a real downpour, ankle deep water over road intersections, bags getting soaked. The next day I think we went to the movies (saw Drag Me To Hell - it was good), and at about 11pm the got on a plane to Ho Chi Minh City, where I write this post from.
Thanks for reading, see you next post!
Ben
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNice work on the underwater shots. Makes me really want to do some diving next I go overseas. What's special about diving at 6am? Is it feeding time or do the morning shades of light encourage more sealife to come out of the woodwork?
ReplyDeleteHi Tony. I'd love to say that I took those underwater shots, but they're lifted from Google Pictures! Haha, you sprung me! The early start for the thresher sharks was because it was feeding time, you're quite right. They also are less likely to come out around the full moon, something to do with the tides I guess, or maybe they're scared of werewolf fish.
ReplyDeleteBen