Some interesting observations about the Philippines

Some interesting observations about the Philippines...

1. You almost never have to buy bottled water. Hotels and guest houses normally have water coolers with good cool filtered water that you can help yourself to. Restaurants will always serve a glass or two of good water with a meal, regardless of whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner. We also managed to take water on most flights without an issue.
2. Knives as cutlery are rare. Most meals are served with fork and spoon.
3. Salt and pepper, and even soy sauce are rare. If there is salt on the table, it is almost impossible to get any out, as it is so humid. If I came again to the Philippines I would bring some small packets of salt with me, as the food is almost always under-seasoned.
4. Sometimes, instead of soy sauce as an accompaniment, spiced vinegar is served. Which usually has chili, garlic and other aromatics in it.
5. Many restaurants will insist that you take off your shoes before coming in. It is quite amusing seeing waiters and patrons alike walking around barefoot or in socks in a restaurant.
6. English is extremely widely spoken, and the people have a great grasp of the language, so you can converse with almost anyone. This makes traveling very enjoyable. Interestingly the locals will still speak to each other in Tagalog or one of the other languages or dialects.
7. People in the Philippines are GENUINELY friendly, and vary from shy to outgoing, but we never felt anyone trying to scam or take advantage of us. I’m sure in the big cities this is always a risk, but we felt comfortable chatting to locals without worrying they had ulterior motives.
8. Rice is served with EVERY meal, including breakfast, and this usually takes the form of either steamed or fried rice. We have seen shops selling over 6 varieties of rice, all at different prices, but all seem to take the form of a fairly short grained, sticky rice.
9. Breakfast is interesting! Most places will give you an option of Philippino breakfast, which is definitely worth trying! You get Tocilog (Pork Tocino), Dasilog (danggit/fried fish), tapsilog (beef tapa), etc - always served with Sinangag (Garlic Fried Rice) and Itlog (Egg) - this makes up the 'silog' part of the name!
10. Every greeting is a slightly high pitched “hello maa’aam” or “hello siiir”. I got tired of being called ma’am but laughed when I found out that the Pinoy ladies even call each other ma’am!
11. If you have the fortune or misfortune of flying Cebu pacific airways, you will discover three things about them: 1. They play awesome music before takeoff and after landing (mostly latest US pop hits); 2. They always have a competition onboard where you can win prizes (if you fly enough times you get to know the answers too!); 3. They are almost always delayed.
12. Pinoy food is very varied but we did find it had a lot of pork! A Jewish guy we met on the dive boat struggled a bit with this. We also found ourselves eating a lot of fish, especially fresh tuna which was great.
13. Public transport consists of two main offerings: 1. Tricycles or “trikes” which are basically a sidecar on a motorcycle, offering between 3-6 seats at a squeeze, and 2. Jeepneys, converted US military Jeeps that are known for their bright colors, kitch decorations and crowded seating.
14. Taxis are available in the cities and may or may not be willing to use their meter. We got stuck in Intramuros (Manila) one evening when a taxi refused to negotiate with us to take us to Pasay as he didn’t want to face the traffic. We thought we’d easily find another taxi but ended up waiting close to 30 minutes. By then we realized we didn’t have much bargaining power...
15. We found Uber worked well in the cities, especially Cebu, but can’t always be relied on (that night we were stuck in intramuros even Uber didn’t save us).
16. Traffic in the cities is hell. Any time of the day. We spent over an hour getting from Pasay to Intramuros in Manila, a trip of 10km! We also missed a ferry from Cebu to Bohol, as a result of traffic in Cebu city. And lastly missed the sunset from Cebus highest viewpoint, but that was also cos the Uber driver got lost!

We tried out Qatar airways complimentary Doha city tour and this is what happened...

Qatar airways now offers a free tour of Doha if you have a layover in the airport of more than 5 hours. 4 tours a day are offered at different times, specifics can be found on Qatar’s website: https://www.qatarairways.com/en/offers/doha-city-tour.html

We had a layover of around 18 hours on New Year’s Eve so decided to take the tour and then have dinner in the city before heading home. Unfortunately the plan didn’t quite work out how we expected. We landed at 5:00am and wanted to take the first tour, at 8:00am so we would have time afterwards, but unfortunately they insisted we could only join the 16:00 tour, due to the time of our onward flight... so that meant 6 hours of sitting around the airport killing time. Doha airport does at least have a good quiet lounge for this and a large food court. We started with Turkish coffees to try and wake up.

Eventually we showed up at 2:30, the meeting time for the tour, and everyone had to go through passport control, this took almost an hour, then we were herded through the airport and told to sit again and wait. It felt more like a tour of the airport than the city. Finally we were on the bus just before 4:00.

The tour had over thirty people, on a bus with driver and guide, both from Nepal. The guide spoke great English and gave us some interesting facts about the country and city. First stop was the dhow harbour and museum of Islamic art. This was a great place for photos of both the old and new city, the museum (we didn’t get to go in) and the pearl monument. The old wooden dhows were beautiful. We only had 10 minutes here.

We then drove a bit through the new city, which consists entirely of enormous glass clad high rise buildings, government offices and 5 star hotels. This part feels a bit soulless but is still impressive!

Next was a 30 minute drive to the pearl of Doha, a man made island consisting of upmarket residences, shops, restaurants and commercial space. This is where the rich hang out: every designer shop you can think of is here, along with Ferrari, Rolls Royce and Bentley showrooms and many others. The boats parked in the marina are insane!! Each one must be worth a million dollars or more. We also only had ten minutes here for photos as the guide said there would be traffic on the way back.

Finally we headed back to the old town and souq. This was my favorite part of the tour, we were given 45 minutes to walk around, shop, grab a coffee or just explore. The souq feels older and a bit more authentic, although it is still very touristy and is lined with souvenir shops and restaurants. In the early evening it is lovely - bustling and energetic, nicely lit up.

The tour then returned to the airport after about 2 hours 45 minutes. We stayed on to go for dinner at Nobu - a restaurant with an amazing view of the city.

In summary, the tour was a nice diversion from the boredom of the airport, a good option if you have a long layover and time to kill. It doesn’t really give much of a feel for the city, if you want that you would be better to leave the airport immediately, and consider taking the hop on hop off bus instead. The city tour desk at the airport also offered us an add on option of a desert tour in a monster truck for US$69 but we didn’t take that.

The city tour operates on a first come first served basis, and you have no choice of which time you get allocated, so don’t plan for the tour and then feel disappointed if it doesn’t work out. To leave the airport, most countries are granted visa on arrival, but it did seem like they wanted a hotel to be booked before letting you do this. For a cheap to midrange option I can recommend the Ramada encore, it’s nice, and is much more reasonable than the five star hotels the city is famous for!

Bohol Adventure

Sunshine greeted us as we made our way out for a stroll along the beach. It was almost surreal, it had been days since we had last seen the sun, it seemed like all it ever did was rain in the Philippines. To see it in full sunshine was a glimpse at what it could be like at its best. We wandered down the white beach with the sea gently lapping the shore. Dive boats and island hopping tours were departing for the day. At the south end we hit a rocky outcrop and turned around walking all the way to the northern end of the beach, ogling the more luxurious resorts like the Henan as we passed by.

After our walk we enjoyed breakfast of pancakes and bacon, and then met up with our driver for the day named Victor. He had a great sense of humor and was soon cracking jokes. He explained that his English was still under construction as it had been damaged during the last earthquake, and he was the largest member of his tarsier family.

Later on, jokes aside, he told us more about his actual earthquake experience, how he had been working as a driver at the time and could not contact his family, a wife and two kids. He had rushed home and found it completely destroyed but fortunately his family was unharmed having managed to flee the dwelling in the nick of time. The family had to camp out under a plastic tarp and struggled to get food, tourism dried up and Victor battled to provide for his family and rebuild their lives. In spite of it all he kept his sense of humor and positivity. The account drove home how resilient the Filipino people are to misfortune and an inspiration to those of us who have to deal with only first world problems.

The island of Panglao, just off Bohol, is predominantly orientated towards tourism and is a relatively quiet place without a major town. An international airport on the island is nearing completion which may bring big changes in future. We left the island via one of the two bridges and drove through Tagbiliran on our way into the interior of Bohol. The town gave way to rolling hills and emerald green rice paddies filling the valleys. We stopped for photos and took in the peaceful surroundings.

After about an hour's drive and a short walk to the summit, we reached the chocolate hills viewpoint. The sky had turned overcast during the course of the morning and it looked likely that it would rain soon. A small information board explained a bit about the origin of the chocolate hills, which were actually verdant green at this time of year and turned brown during the dry season. The terrain of Bohol had been undersea many thousands of years ago and was covered with coral. Then the land rose from the sea and started to erode due to rainfall which formed channels and leaving behind the small round hills. The tops of the chocolate hills are covered only with grass without any trees. The resulting hill landscape is truly unique. We vied for space along with other tourists to take pictures of the hills, it was overcrowded. It was difficult to capture the scale of the area and the shear number of hills without including some random grinning selfie stick wielding travelers all snapping away for that killer profile pic. One or two really adventurous souls ignored the signposts and climbed over railings to get away from the crowd and get the perfect shot. The rain rolled in just as we made our way down from the viewpoint.

The next stop was the tarsier conservation area. Armed with umbrellas we strode out into the jungle path and didn't actually know what to look for. Fortunately some tarsier attendants were standing pointing out where the little critters were perched, huddled under palm leaves to keep the rain off. The tarsiers were all asleep but occasionally would open their disproportionately large eyes for a moment before falling asleep again. Tarsiers are nocturnal and primarily eat insects. Tiny hands and a long tail stood out from the bundle of fur and gripped the branch. There were about 6 tarsiers along the route, each no larger than a coffee cup. Tarsiers are extremely sensitive to their habitat, don't deal well with captivity, and are endangered. Fortunately the conservation area is having some success with increasing the population of tarsiers on Bohol. After we had finished the small circuit through the jungle and seen enough tarsiers, we spent a few minutes in the souvenir shop before rejoining Victor.

A short distance along the road Victor showed us the man made mahogany forest. There isn't much here except for the trees but its a tranquil place to stop.

Next up was the Loboc river cruise. We got on board one of the floating restaurants, basically a covered floating platform, and took our place at our allocated table. The buffet was already set up for lunch and we had an appetite and didn't waste any time helping ourselves. The selection was rather interesting, there were tiny little salty dried fish, a salad with a some unidentifiable ingredients but which looked tasty enough, rice, pork tocino, chicken, a stew which looked like it had meat but actually turned out to be a vegetable similar to artichoke. The meal was accompanied with a refreshing iced tea. The cruise made its way lazily up river and a Filipino performer started up playing a selection of popular and Christmas music. The town slipped away gradually and the river banks gave way to steep slopes covered with dense jungle vegetation. We snapped away happily with our cameras enjoying the good weather and relaxing cruise. At some point the boat stopped at platform next to the river and a group of ladies of mixed ages was singing and dancing to traditional music, everyone on the boat enjoyed the performance and tipped them before the cruise set off again. We enjoyed a desert of fruit and candied bananas. High above us we saw someone shoot across the gorge riding a zip line and decided that we wanted to do that later. The cruise turned around at a small waterfall and made its way back slowly to the start passing other floating restaurants.

Although it wasn't part of our original itinerary, Victor had no problem taking us to the zip line activity. We paid for a return trip, and hurried up to the start point and were soon out of breath. This zip line worked on the principle that you rode head first, super man style. In no time at all Nicki was in the harness and I stayed behind to take pictures and movies. Wish a quick push Nicki was sailing through the air straight over the gorge below and quickly reached the other side, and headed to the return station. I just managed to get down to the lower station in to see her hurtling back with a big grin on her face. Next it was my turn but it started raining so the zip line paused to wait for the rain to pass. It rained for some time and some of the people in the queue gave up and left, but we waited and eventually got a chance. The ride was a an absolute thrill, not so much scary as amazing, the views looking down on the the gorge were awesome. The part that was a bit scary was the sudden sharp brake that kicked in as I arrived on the other side of the gorge. My return trip was delayed by even more rain but the return trip was just as exhilarating.

After the zipline Victor drove us to a butterfly park which was adjacent to a python park, so you could see both attractions but we opted for the just the butterflies as it was getting late. The tour guide showed us some butterfly larvae munching on some leaves, then the pupae hanging in a specially constructed box where a butterfly had recently emerged. Next on the tour was the butterfly enclosure where we could see a couple of large and really beautiful butterflies. Some of the butterflies are found only on Bohol. At the end of the tour the guide showed us how we would look with butterfly wings, and took some photos with a butterfly in the foreground on a pane of glass and Nicki standing behind.

Afterwards we made a brief stop at a pier or wharf to admire the sunset and the Baclayan church which was damaged in the earthquake. Reconstruction started in 2013 and the church only re-opened this year.

Last on our tour was the blood compact memorial. This is to commemorate the peace treaty between Spanish explorer Miguel Legazpi and Datu Sikatuna the chieftain of Bohol. They drank a cup of each other's blood, or a least a drop mixed with wine, to seal the deal.

Victor dropped us off at the Lost Horizon hotel on Alona beach and we said our goodbyes and thanks for a wonderful day of sightseeing. We wrapped up our day with a delicious dinner at the beautiful Saffron restaurant in the Amorita resort. Kinilaw for starters, white marlin and chicken inisal with roast veggies, and ice cold San Migs to wash it all down, perfection.

Honda bay - an attempt at island hopping

The only reason we came to Puerto Princesa was to do the underground river tour. It has been awarded as one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world, alongside Table mountain, Iguassu falls, Ha long bay, the Amazon rainforest, Jeju island and Komodo Island.

Unfortunately the weather nailed us again and since it had rained all night, we weren’t able to do the tour. We were gutted. We asked what the alternative was and were told Honda bay. Apparently Puerto Princesa’s answer to Island hopping.

We departed around 7:30 and picked up a group of young Filipinos and an African America ex GI with a Filipino wife and her daughter. We stopped at a place where we had the option to rent snorkeling gear and water shoes, and buy bread to feed the fish.

The bus took about 30 minutes to reach the port, where our guide Rey got a boat for us. At this point the weather was just cloudy. Our bangka was called “angel of the sea”, we were all given life jackets and were told the coast guard was only allowing the boats to visit two islands: Luli and Cowrie Island. There are 17 islands in Honda bay, but many are privately owned or owned by the government. A typical island hopping trip will visit three islands, often giving the passengers a choice.

We headed to Luli Island in the hopes we could snorkel in the nearby Pambato Reef, but Rey said it was too dark... so we arrived at Luli and were told we had an hour. Luli is named for two words, meaning sinking and floating, apparently at high tide the island all but disappears completely under water. We took what we needed and explored the small island, at this point it was even sunny for a few minutes.

We checked out the swimming area, then walked to the mangroves growing in the shallows. We saw starfish, small tentacled creatures in holes (no idea what they actually were), and bigger holes surrounded by coral (no idea what creature made that either!). We then took the bread we had bought to feed the fish. In no time, dozens of fish we swarming around it, a little nervous to grab the bread from our hands, but very quick to go for it when we let it go. I think our untanned legs must have looked too much like bread to some of the fish, and they occasionally nipped us, leaving red marks!

There was a diving board and a beach at Luli so we swam, jumped and relaxed for a while, but soon the heavens opened and all the tourists on the beach went looking for cover. There wasn’t that much cover on the small island so everyone crammed into a large hut on stilts. I seriously wondered whether it could support all those people. For a while the angel of the sea was nowhere to be seen, but eventually it showed up and we ran on board, not that the boat provided any more cover from the rain than the hut did! Luckily Rey had been smart enough to rescue our bags and keep them under cover!

Next we headed to Cowrie island for lunch. It was still pretty much pouring with rain, but this Island was much bigger, much busier and had more cover. We found seats at the long tables and then stacked our plates with the buffet offering: typical Philippino fare of rice, pancit noodles, chicken, soup, water spinach and salad. Dessert was green jelly in a kind of milk...

We could see some activities available on the island: massages, Banana and jet ski rides, etc, but the most popular activity seemed to be drinking so we joined in and and had a beer. By that time we were pretty tired of being cold and wet, so we all found our boat and headed back to the port.

This is why you don’t travel to hurricane countries...

The Philippines experiences approximately 20 hurricanes a year, mostly in the months of August to Late November, but they have been arriving as late as Christmas recently. A hurricane, typhoon and cyclone are all basically the same thing, different names from different parts of the world.

Hurricane Urduja (named after a Philippine warrior princess) had made landfall in Eastern Samar, and as far as we could see, was heading straight for us in Palawan.

We woke up Saturday morning nervous but optimistic about our ferry to el Nido. A call to the ferry office confirmed it was on. A stop at the ferry office to pick up tickets confirmed it was on. Boarding at the port said it should be on. We actually got on the ferry, found window seats, checked for life jackets and were about to depart when the ferry was cancelled, literally five minutes before it left. It seems the Philippines has gotten very cautious of sea journeys in bad weather.

Hugely disappointed, we found a hotel in Coron Town (Acacia Garden inn, actually very nice) and plotted our next move. After much deliberation we decided a flight to Puerto Princesa would be the safest - if the ferry didn’t leave today, with the hurricane still far away, what was the chance it would leave the next day as it moved closer? Having decided and booked, we figured we might as well see the town.

Coron Town proper is a chaotic shambles of a tourist town with a real backpacker flavor. The main street is a jumble of little stores, basic accommodation, restaurants, and dive shops with some goats, chickens, dogs and playing children thrown into the mix. Tricycles, known as “trikes”, roar around the town, transporting tourists and locals alike. Trikes are similar to tuk tuks but more like motorbikes with a sidecar which can accommodate up to 6 people at a squeeze.

We headed in the late afternoon to the base of mount Tapyas, the highest point in Coron Town, and climbed the 700 steps to its summit, passing many stall owners selling the ubiquitous water proof bags every tourist in Coron invariably buys. There is no entrance fee for the climb. The views from the top were incredible despite the lingering pregnant clouds. To us the sea looked really calm so we had to question the decision to cancel the ferry... A large white cross at the summit was lit up, and under it, also in lights, the letters C-O-R-O-N. We looked over at Coron Island where the majority of beautiful sights in the area were situated (Coron Town is actually on Busuanga Island). Surprisingly we were just in time for a beautiful sunset, lighting the grey clouds pink, so we joined the throng of selfie taking tourists for our own snaps.

After a hot and sweaty walk, the thing to do is to head for the Maquinit Hot Springs, just out of town. We found a trike to take us for PHP400, and he said he would wait 1 hour for us there. Our trike looked like a little mobile disco, with red and blue flashing lights all over, I nicknamed it the disco trike. Our driver went flying through town and onto a very bumpy dirt road, where he didn’t slow down except to try and overtake bigger vehicles. At one point we hit a section of erosion pretty badly and I thought the trike might be stuck but he managed to get it out. Disco lights were temporarily discontinued...

20 minutes later we reached the springs and paid the PHP200 pp entrance fee. The place was really nicely done, with pretty christmassy lights all around and benches to sit at. There was a large hot pool with two smaller ones running waterfalls of steaming water into it. No showers or change rooms unfortunately. We tested the water and it was HOT! Probably 38-40 degrees. It felt great to relax in the pools and unwind our tired muscles and minds. A light rain started but it didn’t bother us at all since we were feeling rather warm...

After an hour the disco trike was still waiting for us and raced us back into town. We went looking for a restaurant called KT’s Sinugba as balay (weird name) which had gotten great reviews. Seems quite a few other tourists had the same idea so we waited a while for a table, but it was worth it. The place had a great chilled vibe and was playing reggae music. We tried a “buko” (coconut) with our beers. Dinner consisted of mee goreng (noodles) and sizzling pork sisig with a raw egg on top, both were delicious with a distinctly barbecue flavour.

The day ended a lot better than it had started and we went to sleep tired but happy.

The next day we headed to the airport to see if there was any chance of getting a flight out of Coron. There were normally at least 6 flights a day, across 3 airlines, one of which we had booked. The airline took our luggage and we waited in the tiny waiting lounge with hundreds of other hopeful tourists. One by one the announcements came through that each flight was “definitely cancelled”. The airline rebooked us for the next day, luckily we had already checked in online the day before and got a lower sequence number, as many people were moved to flights two days later. We found a new place to stay in Coron (the Acacia garden was sadly not available) and found a transfer to the town for the usual PHP150 pp (the transfer buses line up outside the airport so this was no problem).

We arrived at the Apartelle Gabrielle and checked in, a strange place built into a kind of apartment block, at least the WiFi worked in the room some of the time...

We grabbed lunch in town at Altrove, excellent pizzas, and ran into most of the people who had been at the airport with us. After a nap, we checked out the local bar scene to drown our sorrows, but happy hour wasn’t that happy... Fortunately they had beers for PHP40 (R11) so we had a few and then headed for dinner at Winnie’s restaurant. Here the local rum and coke was PHP50, around R14. The food was good: meat spring rolls, pancit noodles and veg curry.

The evening ended on a lighter note, as the owner, an ex-Swiss guy who had married a Filipino, came to chat to us. He was joined by Shamus, an Irish tourist and “Oo”, his Cambodian girlfriend. All had been drinking a lot and Oo proceeded to pass out on the couch opposite our table. We chatted a while and were also joined by Joe, another Irishman. They seemed to want to chat about anything except the hurricane, which was good for us!

The next day we headed back to the airport, fully expecting to be sent away and possibly rebooked two days later. The queue to get into the airport was huge and took probably an hour. At one point they started calling for passengers on air Asia, and we got an inkling that at least one flight might make it. Then Werner went to check and we were told we could go in due to the flight we were booked on. At check in they seemed optimistic - the flight from Manila had departed. That hadn’t happened the previous day... when the first flight landed in Coron Busuanga airport, everyone cheered and clapped. A second flight landed shortly after, it was our plane, we could hardly believe it! Finally we departed, about an hour late but so grateful to be getting out of Coron!

We flew Cebu Pacific, a local low cost airline with a bad reputation for being delayed. But there were two good things about this airline: 1. They always played awesome music before take off and after landing (Philippinos love American music) and 2. They always have a competition on board where you can win prizes answering questions. I actually won something on our second flight!

We landed in Manila and had a bit of a mission trying to transfer terminals, the free transfer was full so Cebu Pacific airways made a plan for us. We hurried since there was little time before the next flight, even being pushed through bag drop, but we didn’t need to as this flight was even more delayed. Nonetheless, we made it to Puerto Princesa and got a taxi to the purple fountain inn, a beautiful little hotel.

It was pouring with rain most of the time but we were grateful to be in a new place and to try and catch up our tour. We went for dinner at a restaurant recommended by the Finnish couple we had met at the Cashew grove, it was called Kalui. Like many restaurants in Palawan, they asked us to remove shoes before coming in. We waited a while but soon got a table. The decor was fantastic and the restaurant large. We decided on a calamansi (Philippine lime) ginger shake, buko (coconut) shake and the set meal for two. It was the best meal we had in the Philippines! It consisted of soup, seaweed with lime juice (looked gross but tasted quite nice!), tempura veg with a delicious sauce, grilled tuna, rice, sweet and sour prawns, and rolled fish. The rolled fish was the absolute highlight, they stuffed it with spinach, ginger, garlic and other aromatics, then rolled it up, tied it, breaded and fried it, and served with a curry coconut sauce. Totally amazing. They even gave us a small dessert of fruits with brown sugar served beautifully in a coconut! It was a great experience.