Surfs Up

We had our breakfast at a small street stall at the end of our road before heading out. We grabbed our bodyboards and made our way to the beach.

The surf was good and we enjoyed being bashed around in the waves. We had to make our own leashes as the boards had none. We found some rubber, we had a little string on our mosquito net and used a couple of hairbands to add to the odd invention. The leashes however worked OK.

After surfing we cleaned off the sand in the shower before going for lunch. We tried a small cafe with a smiley man and his wife. In fact we recognised it. We even found an photo of the man that we had taken last time we were here!

We took a stroll along the beach in the afternoon and tried walking to Seminyak. After we reached the Legian area we decided to turn back as it was a long way 'home' and getting hot! We watched the sunset and explored a food festival behind the shopping centre. We headed off to look for a restaurant for dinner as we were getting hungry. We found a little local eating place and started a conversation with the owner about what we would like.

The restaurant had a few people in it. Some tourists, some locals but they all seemed to be helping in food preparation. We pointed to a couple of dishes on the wall and the lady owner said that she could make these for us. She also kept saying she had fish and would we like some. We declined and she went off to prepare our meals. When she arrived with our food, she pointed out some fried bananas and other vegetables on the table. She said we could eat these too as they are free and for guests at the party. We thought that was very kind and enjoyed a few with our meal. We were enjoying the food when the lady asked once again if we would like some fish. She said  I have a lot for the party, try some. We said we would expecting a little sample. She gave us a huge fish to eat! When we went to pay we were expecting a rather higher bill. We thought we may be charged loads for the huge fish but ... no, instead what we got was a party invite.

So, we stayed in the restaurant. We were given beer, birthday cake, fish, clams, prawns and these larger shell fish that were were really nice. We even got to try true local coconut wine, which we were assured didn't contain ethanol. Apparently, it often does and then becomes a deadly concoction! We chatted to many people, the hairdresser from next door, the local surf instructor, the tattoo parlour guy who was decorated in a lot of tatoos and the birthday boy who was a French business man with a successful automation business and a very friendly chap. A fantastic night but we left as some of the girls had changed their outfits and now looked ready to hit the town.

The generosity, kindness and hospitality of people we are meeting around the world is truly amazing! Thank you.

A whole day of walking

What do you do when you arrive in Bali? You go shopping to buy surfboards of course.

Our first day in Bali was spent trying to figure out the best option. Do we rent or do we buy?

First we walked to the beach to see what we could find to rent. Renting for an hour or the day wasn't that cheap. We decided to check out prices if we were to buy our own. We walked to the huge Carrefour supermarket and they had some inflatable boards for kids. They were ok but not perfect. We walked back to Kuta and tried the surf shops down Poppies. There were a few surfboards at reasonable prices but still it was a lot to pay to buy 2. One of the surf shops had 2 bodyboards for sale. They were secondhand but the condition was OK. We negotiated pn the price for 2 and walked away as the new owners!

We had walked quite a way so went back, ate and fell asleep. 

Bye Bye Philippines

We made an early start. First we ate some bread and bananas before walking to the main road to hail a jeepney. Quite quickly an empty jeepney picked us up and we were on our way to Cebu (Mactan) airport. In fact we stopped at Marina Mall and had a look around before we walked the final kilometer to the terminal.

We changed our last few Pesos back to dollars but we had issues using the Air Asia app to check in so had arrived early to get formalities sorted. The app seemed to issue boarding passes for 3 flights but not 4. There were no queues at the desk and the boarding passes were printed. The lady told us at our connection in Manila we needed to pay £10 airport tax each. We looked on in horror as we had to pay in Pesos and had just cashed our last ones in.

We sat down and contemplated what do do. Christine had read that the tax was likely to be included in our ticket price, so we double checked at another check-in counter. Sure enough it was, the first lady had given us duff information! Relieved, we headed to our departure gate.

The flight went well but now we had to deal with the world's most hated airport - Manila! We had to transfer terminals. It sounds straight forward but the terminals are spread out. We knew that you had to travel on the roads outside the airport on either the free shuttle bus or pay for a taxi. The issue here being we had a 4 hour connection and traffic can be horrendous taking literally 'forever' to reach the terminal. We checked the free shuttle, which travels between the terminals frequently. It appears not that frequently because there was over an hour wait! The lady at the shuttle desk however told us of a loop bus outside that we could catch. We thought we would give it a try.

Every 20 minutes the loop bus travels between terminals and costs 20 pesos. We waited a short time but were starting to get a little apprehensive as it hadn't arrived. We were about to run and negotiate a taxi when ... around the corner it appeared. Phew! Traffic was grid locked, however it did move occasionally and we arrived in good time.

The next issue was to enter the terminal. Normally you just walk through the big automatic doors. Not here, you join the queue and have to have your bags scanned. The queue was long and contained people flying and also well wishers queueing to collect or wave off their loved ones, not exactly what we needed right now! We waited patiently in line and luckily it did move fairly fast. At last, we were inside the Terminal 3 building.

We had heard this is where chaos really begins. In fact we had received an email stating that we needed to arrive in the terminal 4 hours before our flight. We had 4 hours to get off the first plane, catch the bus and enter the building, so we were worried. Inside we made our way to departures on the third floor and joined the queue for immigration. It was a lot smaller than expected and we were through in no time. Next we moved on to the bag scanner. Just a short queue again and we passed through quickly. We stood discussing our relief before finding our gate. We now had a long wait but we had made it!

The flight from Manila went through the night with no hiccups. It arrived in Bali at just after 11pm.  As we have only hand luggage we made it out of the airport quicky and started our short'ish' walk to our hotel. The first thing that stunned us was the number of people holding name boards waiting to collect people for the hotels. There was a lot, hundreds! Next, it was the taxi touts. There were hundreds of these too and everyone insisted we needed their services. We carried on walking with our repeated 'no thank you message' blaring out. Another issue followed. The road on the map had a huge fence in front of it that ran for miles. We had to find our way around it but eventually we did. We decided to follow a route that we knew, we passed through a few short, dark back alleys but then hit the main road. We found a small Circle K convenience store that had hot water for noodles. We bought a few packets and devoured them, as we were pretty hungry as we had only had a few snacks since breakfast. We sat outside eating and chatted to a friendly face from the beautiful Raja Ampat islands before continuing our mission - find the hotel before they go to sleep!

We turned off the main road at Bubba Gumps, a restuarant we remembered from our last trip here, and headed down a smaller lane. It became darker and darker, the buildings disappeared too. This wasn't right! We checked the map, we got out our torch and looked around. Demolition! We were in a building site. Everything from our last time here was either in ruin or it had been razed to the ground. In fact, the environment now looked rather apocalyptic and not somewhere you want to be standing at midnight! We stopped to think and spotted a possible cut through. If we continued across the rubble there was a break in the fence to the road we were looking for. We went for it, made it through the gap, were greeted by local growling dogs but carried on up the street in the right direction.

Eventually we made it and were greeted by the hotel staff. We were issued our room key and went to bed in the same room we had last time! Of course sleep evaded us for a while as we had slept on both plane journeys. Luckily this place had a TV a load of movie channels and that's what we watched before falling asleep! 

Mactan (Lapu Lapu)

We enjoyed Pork Tocino for breakfast at the hotel, which was pretty good and not expensive. Our job for today was to explore Mactan and see what we could find. We spent the morning walking along the main road. We visited lots of Korean shops and ate lots of ice creams! 

At the first beach the charge was 50 pesos to enter. We found it fairly unusual to pay to go to the beach so continued on. The next beach we came to was in a locals area. It was not really a beach but access to the sea. It was in a rather seedy area with lots of graffiti. We decided not to take a dip here. Finally we came to another small public beach. This one had sand and was opposite a small island. It was only 10 pesos to enter so we paid up.

Darryl went for a swim and swam across to the small island. The water was shallow but there was a strong current running between the island and the mainland. There was also nothing to see except a sandy bottom and lots of broken glass on the seabed.

After a quick dry off we left and bought an ice candy from a hole in the wall. As most of the shops have bars, this is the best description. The lady was very friendly and told us how she made the ice candy with lots of evaporated milk and other sweet things! She also told us not to go back to the beach at night as it is dangerous. We trusted her judgement!

We left, got lost and found ourselves leaving the grafitti lined walls and appearing at a brand new and very modern housing estate. It certainly wasn't expected. The security guards pointed us in the right direction back to the main road. We stopped for lunch at a little stall. It appears the lady artificially increased the prices for the western tourists but the meal for the 2 of us was still very cheap indeed.

On the main road we took a Jeepney the last few kilometers to the Mactan Shrine. The shrine consisted of a couple of interesting statues, one of Lapu Lapu, an chieftain and one to commemorate the Battle of Mactan, with a background of mangroves and islands. Lots of stages and stalls were being set up for a big festival in a few days to celebrate the victory of the Battle of Mactan with a reenactment of the battle. Unfortunately, we will be leaving tomorrow.

A jeepney took us half way to the hotel and dropped us off at the shopping centre. We stocked up on snacks for tomorrow's journey. and changed our last pesos to dollars. Back at the hotel we packed our bags before eating dinner at our local BBQ stall!

Time to leave

We had some good times here in Dauin and some interesting experiences.

It was Easter (holy week) which is the biggest holiday in the Philippines. We sat and ate hand shaved mango ice whilst a religious service continued in the stadium. The church was undergoing restoration or expansion, so it was closed. As people filtered out of the stadium, a candle light procession began around Dauin. Jesus and Mary being carried in glass ceremonial cases.

Easter sunday was busy at the beach with families enjoying the sea and huge picnics. A stage was set up and a great singer entertained us for the afternoon with some classic songs in both English and Visayan. Later in the day he was replaced by various DJs. 

A huge golden ball appeared over the horizon and slowly rose into. the night sky. The colour was amazing but began to fade as it gained altitude and took on the usual diamond white colour of the moon. The DJs played on until late in the night with their 'thumping tunes'. It was quite unusual to have, what was just like a rave, with a family audience! The curfew siren cleared some of the younger members of the crowd at 10pm. We left too as we were semi deafened by then! Others didn't and some locals slept in their tents at the beach.

In the morning the beach was being cleared up. It was a mess and littered with rubbish. Mostly Tanduay bottles!

Darryl spend the last day on a special snorkeling trip. He caught a jeepney 6km out of town. There was no room inside so he had to hang off the back local style. The snorkeling on the pier was really special with loads of colourful sponges and sea fans. Totally different to the reef.

Our last 2 nights were spent eating at the divemaster trainees communal dinner. The first night a guy from Tahiti prepared an amazing raw fish dish which he said was their national dish. The following evening the meal was Tomyam soup prepared by Tommy from Thailand. He owns a prawn farm in the Philippines and ordered enormous prawns to be delivered from his farm. Once again it was delicious!

After an early breakfast, a few sad farewells, particularly to the two beautiful alsatians and the new puppy who had just joined the team, a quick walk to the main road, a jeepney to Dumaguete, a short pause in Jolibee, a run for the bus and Dauin was behind us. The bus took us on the ferry, drove us 6 hours to Cebu via Oslob (whaleshark city, where they are fed to draw them in unnaturally for tourists to see) to the southern bus terminal in Cebu City.

We waited for just over half an hour for the next airport bus. We sat in grid locked traffic a while, totally normal for Cebu City, before jumping out just before the airport. We flagged down a jeepney that whisked us off to the other side of Lapu Lapu to our hotel. We explored the area where lots of poorer people live, mixed in with very high end resorts. We ate at a BBQ street stall whilst we watched the locals buying secondhand shoes at a stall across the road before falling into bed after a whole day of travelling.

Apo Island Paradise

We have spent the last week on Apo Island, a small island off the coast of Negros Oriental. It is known for its underwater coral gardens and turtle sanctuary, where 5 different varieties can be seen! There is electricity here but only from 6pm to 10pm.

We were dropped on the island by a dive boat ran by Harold's Mansion. It travelled from Dauin so saved us a short journey to catch the regular boat from Malatapay. We even got to meet Harold the owner who was much younger than we expected. First of all we boarded the wrong boat and quickly changed to the one next door. We expected just a lift across to the island but onboard were treated to breakfast too!

We were booked to stay at Mario's homestay but they had no record of the confirmation email they sent. However, they arranged for us to stay next door at Ling Ling, which was great!

What did we do? We ate local snacks, snorkeled, watched the sunset and relaxed in this small island community. The water is 27 degrees but if you get a little chilly, you just lie on the coral beach and bask for 10 minutes on the warm coral fragments..

We saw so many turtles, wonderful coloured corals, colourful fish of every variety and many different nudibranch.

We not only experienced mother nature at her best as the coral gardens are beautiful but the local people here made our time perfect. They are so friendly, smiley and welcoming. Darryl clumsily swam into a small stationary outrigger canoe whilst snorkelling. He saw it was there but the underwater scenery distracted him and he cut his head (a tiny scratch). Back at the beach a local spotted his injury and took him to his garden where he pulled a few leaves off the medicine tree and stuck them to Darryl's snorkeling wound. It healed really well!

Mario is referred to as the Father of the island. He is involved with most things that go on and is a legend amongst the islanders. The first time we met him was at the Elementary school's first ever reunion. The event was happening in the basketball court, so we went to take a look. We sat at the side watching smartly dressed people arrive and when we asked what was happening, we were kindly invited to sit with batch 1996. Each year was represented by the class from that year. It ranged from back in the 70's to the current year. There were guest speakers, Mario being one of them, and dancing by each class followed by a disco. This we joined in. We were pretty bad so the locals helped us with a few dance moves like the cha, cha, cha and the eagle! An incredible night where we witnessed Phillipine hospitality at its best.

Usually during the day tour boats arrived from the mainland. The people visit the marine sanctuary with a snorkel guide and then head back to the mainland in the afternoon. Many can't swim so are dragged around holding a rubber ring and wearing buoyancy aids. Before 9am and after 3pm the island is all ours. We shared it with the locals and a handful other tourists staying on Apo. Also staying are the Plongeurs du Monde. They are a French charity training 6 local teenagers for free to become divemasters in the hope they will be given a job at the dive school. We have spent sometime in the company of these people. What a lovely group! They have been coming here for a few years and helped us with some invaluable tips. We hope we can stay in touch especially as 2 of them come to Swanage at Christmas.

Every night the sunsets on Apo are incredible. The sky turns the deepest red and orange. Beautiful...plus there is always a group of locals at the beach playing music on their guitar and singing.

We found a local stall selling burgers. They were cheap, we ate a lot however, there was an interesting pricing concept which we understood but it appeared the locals didn't. We tried to explain and they said they understood but ...  they really didn't!

Friday night was movie night. We enjoyed The Black Panther nestled amongst the locals. We took our own chocolate bars but popcorn was handed around during the movie which was projected onto a white sheet.

Saturday it had been arranged for us to visit the island's elementary school. We were shown around by the headteacher who explained how everything worked. It was an interesting experience. No electricity, blackboards ... but a lovely environment for the children. We spent the afternoon walking through a small village on the other side  of the island and stumbled across a group of men. We watched as a lot of money changed hands as they gambled on the cock fight. We made a hasty exit as soon as we realised exactly what was going on.

As we walked back to our homestay we followed a crowd of local people carrying a cross from shrine to shrine around the island. They were singing and saying prayers as they went. It is now Holy Week, the biggest holiday in the Philippines.

Saturday was karaoke night. We and the Plongeurs du Monde group headed to find the spot. It was not hard as the island is so small and the locals play everything so loud. We think it is probably to drown out the barking dogs or crazy cockerels. One local girl did most of the singing. She sang a faultless Whitney Houston and hit every 'unhitable' high note. An awesome performance. She was truly amazing! Darryl had no chance of topping this but was helped by everyone in a rendition of Take Me Home Country Road. This time no police were called (as we are sure there are none on the island) but the karaoke room emptied pretty fast. It could have been the singing or the fact the electricity was about to go off at 10pm.

Sunday morning was Palm Sunday. Plongeurs du Monde had arranged palm crosses for us and we were going to be shown the island's church which sits on top of the island with magnificent views all around. We had our crosses blessed by the priest and took part in the service. It was mostly in Visayan but we understood some of the occasional English parts. The choir were sporting their smart new t-shirts that a sponsor had kindly donated to them.

Sunday was snack day. We had our usual fried chicken and sugar coated bananas but also bubble 'coffee', tempura, hot dogs, fried fish balls and a few other treats including coconut ice pops.

Later that day, we spotted the local fisherman walking through the village carrying a huge red snapper and giant trevally fish.

In a week we had explored every corner of the island and had enjoyed so many interesting experiences. We arranged a ride back to Dauin with the HM boat captain and boarded the tiny outrigger canoe to take us to the big boat. We said goodbye to Apo Island. Dauin here we come.

On the boat back we helped a couple from Cebu city celebrate their first anniversary!

A Relaxing Retreat

A week spent snorkeling off the beach, shopping at the market and lazing in the sun. We have seen some interesting things on the reef and in the 'muck'. Muck being the volcanic black sand that hides unusual, hard to find critters. From tiny frog fish to enormous barracudas, beautiful mantis shrimps to massive groupers. Wow!

We have added photos to this link showing some of the things we have seen.

See photos here or go to

www.vengara.co.uk

We have met many interesting people here. Some are taking dive courses, others are underwater photographers loaded up with very expensive equipment. There was an incredible range of languages spoken and some people could speak all of them!

A fairly unusual experience in Dauin was the curfew siren. At 9.45pm, an air raid siren sounds as a warning to all under 17s. At 10pm, all the under 17s have to be tucked up tight at home or face a night in the cells at the Dauin police station.

We also enjoyed the local food here but couldn't resist the odd pizza! 

Last night we heard music coming from the beach so went to investigate. We located the christening party and were invited in. We were made to feel very welcome by the local people, who allowed us to share their food and drinks. We ate goats brain, beef cheeks and some tasty beans. We were persuaded to get up and have a go at karaoke. We performed a few songs and became more confident as the evening wore on. At about 11pm we were singing Angels by Robbie Williams when the blue flashing lights arrived!

The police had been called because ...

1. Our singing was terrible.

2. Everything is supposed to go quiet at 10pm.

The locals assured us all was well but we needed to turn the karaoke machine down a little. As the party came to an end we went in search of noodles. The locals guided us to the market area but everything was closed except one tiny stall. No noodles in sight but the stall did have Balot! This is a local delicacy and not to everyone's taste. A developing duck embryo is eaten from the shell with a pinch of salt and drop of vinegar! Pretty good especially when eaten in the dark so you can't see what you are eating!

On our last day in Dauin, after we had been snorkelling, a local family invited us to join their small beach party. They very kindly allowed us to try their homemade coconut wine and bitter mangoes.

Next stop ... Apo Island!