The Best For Last?

So here we finally are! My last blog post for 2012 South East Asia trip! Who knew I would make it to the end! I DIDN’T! I thought I would maybe make it to Koh Phanang’s Full Moon Party (which was on my birthday for the month of July!) and then have my heart explode. This would be mainly due to excitement and fun and less because of all the diseases I contracted and the amount of hard drugs I was experimenting with. But wouldn’t you know I survived and not only did I just survive I over came my inability to read and write and I produced a blog post for each amazing country I went to! I’ll be able to look back at these posts in years and recall memories and stories that my dyslexic brains had already long forgotten! I’m sure I’ll also ask the age-old question “Did Derek Juno write these posts or a ridilin popping eight year old? No matter. I hope some of you enjoy these ramblings and I will be doing a short version of them from time to time for the next half a year while traveling around Ozzy land and the New Zealand! So stay tuned. But let us not forget about THE PHILIPPINES!

Out of all the countries the Philippines was the one I had the highest expectations for. Every backpacker I met told me of its gargantuan beauty, its amazing people, and all about the amazing adventures one can have when they travel the Philippines. So I was very excited that I saved “the best” for last and after Indonesia Courtney, Carson, Steve, and I were on our way to this amazing land of beaches!

We flew from Kuta Bali to Singapore, had a two-hour lay over, and then went to board our plane that would take us to Manila. This is the beginning of having a whole metric shit ton of bad luck dropping on our heads while in this beautiful yet frustrating country haha. We arrived at the Asia Air check-in desk to check our luggage. Steve and Carson went up to the counter first and were told they would not be allowed in to the country unless they bought return tickets out of the country first (something Court and I had told them to do a few weeks prior haha)! So they started freaking out and ran over to a booking counter to buy tickets out of the country so they could use their tickets for the plane going into the country that was departing in about forty-five minutes! I remember thinking to myself “My god I am so happy that didn’t happen to us and that Court and I are always so prepared and organized” hahaha. So Court and I walked up to the counter and I give the woman the print out of our ticket and we joked about silly Steve and Carson and then she gave us some impossible and extremely bad news. She told me that I had purchased a ticket for Courtney but not for myself… I explained that this was in fact impossible and that I booked two tickets for us a few weeks ago and that I had also put my name down first for a ticket and then added Courtney’s. She checked the system again but assured me I had no ticket for this plane! I realized this would all have to be resolved later so I RAN over to the ticket purchasing counter where Steve and Carson were sadly dishing out a ton of cash to pay for a ticket that would fly them out of the Philippines. I explained what happened while they were waiting and then I explained my story again to the EXTREMELY nice lady behind this new counter. She went right to work to help me but informed me that the prices of flights that are just about to leave go up sometimes, and that was what happened here. When I bought Courts flight it was about $70 and now the price for a seat on this plane was $180! I asked her to scan the prices for the next few days but they were all equally as expensive. So I said I would take the one leaving in thirty minutes haha. She said “okay but we only take cash and you only have about ten minutes maximum to buy this ticket.” She told me where the closet ATM was and I SPRINTED off after it. I took out a ton of Singapore money and then ran back. I got the ticket and then was directed back to the check-in line where I was forced to buy baggage at, yep you guessed it, an extremely high price. We all booked it through security together and just barely made it onto the plane!

We arrived that afternoon at an airport outside of Manila and needed to get on a bus that would make the two-hour trip into Manila. So I went up to a tourist booth to ask where the bus station was. The woman working there asked me if we just arrived off a plane. I said yes and she said “Well you are able to get a free ride on our luxury bus into Manila then!” Now it was at this point in my travels where comments or situations like this insulted me! I had been backpacking around South East Asia for over half a year. I was a seasoned veteran and HATED being treated like just another Gringo who just got off the plane. I wish I had a patch on my arm that signified my backpacking experience so that no one would waste my time or try the same old dumb cons and tricks on me. Unfortunately I didn’t have this patch and I just had to keep dishing out my classic Derek Juno line that I used when bartering or in a similar situation, which was: “haha are you kidding me?!?!? I have been here for over six month! NO WAY!” (make sure your laugh is a friendly laugh and that you smile! An occasional pat on the shoulder also works wonders). So when this lady told me we could get a FREE two-hour bus ride to Manila let’s just say I was a bit skeptical! When you’re backpacking, if it sounds to good to be true IT IS!!! RUN!!! RUN!!! I started grilling her with questions like why it was free? Where would we be dropped off? Who is the maker of McDonalds? I was sure there was a catch somewhere and wanted to just go to the local bus station, but Steve and Carson said they had a good feeling about it and wanted to stay and check it out haha. So we did. They made us wait about forty-five minutes but then this REALLY nice bus pulled up and I talked to the driver and he told me he was taking us to Manila and that it was free! The lady from the tourist booth who told me about the bus was in love with Steve, and her two co-workers were trying to convince Steve that she would be a good wife for him. So Steve used his silver tongue and charm to see if we would be dropped off in some back ally and then fed crystal meth and then forced to work the dark and shady streets of Manila as street-walkers. But they said no, it was just a way to get rich tourists to check in to Resort World in Manila, where the bus would be dropping us off. We all laughed pretty hard at the fact that they thought we were rich tourists and then enjoyed this EXTREMELY comfortable bus that was empty except for us and came with water, DVD players, and air conditioning! It dropped us in downtown Manila and then we took a ten-minute taxi ride to our hostel haha! Thus, this turned out to be an exception to my rule! Sometimes it isn’t to good to be true and awesome random things happen!

For the two days we stayed in Manila we stayed at Friendly Guest House. It was really… friendly! Good sized dorm-rooms, a big TV with an external hard-drive full of movies, and they provided cookies and two big bottles of rum for free every night! This last point made us especially happy the first night we got there. It had been a pretty stressful day, so for us to walk into the upstairs common room and see two big bottles of rum sitting there just waiting to be drank was quite exciting! We all cried a bit… and then got pretty drunk!

Manila was what I thought it would be… a big dirty city. At night the streets turn into a world of sex and indulgence. There are sex shows and strip joints everywhere and tons and tons of little food stalls sporting their wares. Almost all the people in the Philippines that live in cities can speak pretty good English because English and Filipino are the official languages for the Philippines. This made traveling around and finding locations easier than the average South East Asia country.

 After polishing off these two complimentary bottles of rum with our new friends at the hostel we all hit a street stall and got street BBQ. The food in the Philippines is HEAVILY meat based. If you like vegetables or are a vegetarian haha good luck. Food was also a lot more expensive than I thought it would be. In my humble opinion the Philippines had the worst food for some of the highest prices compared to other South East Asian countries. We all hung around the food stalls for a while, drinking and making new friends, then we all zombied off to our dorm beds. The next day we did what all tourists do in big dirty cities. We sought out the nearest mall and mall ratted it up. We bought some books, some Krispy Kreme donuts, hit an arcade for a solid hour, and then watched Taken 2!  

That night we all drank at our hostel and made some more friends! Court and I drank a bit but didn’t want to go to a club that everyone else was going to so we decided to just take a walk around the downtown and explore a bit… BAD IDEA! Now throughout my whole seven months of traveling in South East Asia I never felt that it was a bad idea for me to be walking around in a certain area except once and that was this situation. After about ten minutes of walking around I was getting very sketchy vibes from the locals all over the streets and it felt super unsafe. There were tons of people gambling in the streets and tons of people staring us down. We got followed for a bit but eventually got back to the main strip close to our hostel and then got home. It was an unnerving memory for sure.

The next day we had to header to the airport because we were flying to the famed island of Palawan! You only get three weeks with the Philippines tourist visa instead of a month (which most other countries give you) so we wanted to go to one island and spend a lot of time there rather than flying and boating all over the place and scrambling to see everything. Our ride to the airport was a HUGE debacle! Our taxi driver, who assured us that he knew where we needed to go, took us to the wrong airport (the airport he took us to was farther away so his bill was be higher!). Then another taxi driver, who said he would take us to the right airport, said it was about thirty minutes away – but we only have fifteen minutes to get to the check in counter! Turns out that he lied to us; the airport we needed to get to was max ten minutes away. This taxi driver also REFUSED to start the meter, passing us a sheet of paper stating that our journey from airport C to airport B would cost us something INSANE like $25 (this is a HUGE amount in Southeast Asia)! I LOST MY SHIT! I started screaming at the bastard and told him I would rather miss my plane than stay in a cab that was trying to con tourists in a moment of need! A ten-minute ride in the Philippines costs something like $3 max, so he was being a huge ass. Fortunately he apologized after I’d yelled for a while, and took us to the airport we needed to go to. We paid him around $3 and then sprinted into the airport and JUST barely caught our airplane.

Now my lovely girlfriend Courtney had had her credit card compromised as soon as she arrived in South East Asia so she’d been using a temporary debit card, but that card was due to expire while we were in the Philippines. We told her bank to send her new credit card to a nice hotel that we were planning on staying at while in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. We gave the card ample time to arrive, so it should have been waiting for us when we got to the hotel but unfortunately it wasn’t. We stayed in Puerto for two extra days waiting for this damn card before deciding that we had to come back to Puerto to catch our flight back to Manila anyway, so we would just get it in a few weeks time when we returned. Until then, I would just bankroll Court. If I was EXPRESSING this story through the classic medium of film, it would be dark and lightning would be coming down like crazy when I explain this credit card shit in order to foreshadow that THESE PLANS DID NOT WORK OUT THE WAY WE THOUGHT THEY WOULD!!!!

Story Time: “Threesomes are cool sometimes… but not all the time!”

But I digress. We made a great Filipino friend named Gringo at the hostel Steve and Carson were staying at. He was an extremely talented Filipino painter traveling around his beautiful country. He told us all of a great little bar not too far from where we were staying. So we all headed there that night and let’s just say things got a bit out of control. The night was off to a great start! Gringo was teaching us magic tricks, how to speak a bit of Filipino, and most importantly, all about the two main beers in the Philippines: Sam Miguel (SM) and Red Horse. Apparently only girls drink SM because it’s ONLY 5% while REAL MEN drink Red Horse because it was something like 8%. Both were fantastic beers and we all sampled quite a few of both as the night went on.  At some point amongst the singing, laughing and dancing we met three extremely rich Filipina girls haha. Now this is where shit starts to get weird. They were “whooo” girls for sure but kept buying us all rounds so we of course looked past their consistent whooing. We finished up at the bar we were at and wanted to keep the party going so we went to a near by reggae club. We got there and one of these Filipina girls started flirting like CRAZY with me while at the same time telling me how beautiful my girlfriend was haha. She kept laughing, hugging me, and trying to kiss me on the neck. I grabbed Court and put her between us thinking that would stop her advances but I was wrong haha. Yes my friends you guessed it this little Filipina girl was hell bent on a threesome with Court and I haha. The chick was obviously crazy and insanely drunk so we kept trying to pawn her off on people. But Steve and Carson wanted the threesome to happen so bad, so they were no use. Her friends were off talking to some other friends we made and Gringo had popped some kind of hallucinogen and was dead to the world haha. At one point I left to grab another drink and when I came back she was sitting on Courtney’s lap trying to make out with her haha. Courtney was doing the head dodge and yelling for help haha. We eventually had to tell her we weren’t interested in order to get away from her. This sent her into a crying fit, which was hilarious because she was trying to talk while heavily crying haha… you had to be there. Court and I eventually made it home but as for Gringo, Steve and, Carson I think they all slept in a ditch on the side of the road that night. You will have to ask them. It was one hell of an entertaining night haha.

After three days in Puerto Princessa we really had seen as much of the town as possible and we didn’t want to wait around for this card so like I said before we decided we would press on and grab the card on our way back haha. One of the seven wonders of the world is just north of Puerto Princessa and it’s the Subterranean Underground Cave! So instead of paying a ridiculous tourist prince for a tour we jumped on a local bus for $2 and drove four hours up the coast. We went to the Undergrand River Office and bought tickets for $7 each and checked this warlock out. What happens is you put some really cool hard hats on and you jump into a boat with your group and a guide and he navigates this boat through a kilometer or two of cave! There are tons of really cool formations that people have tricked themselves into thinking look like religious figure haha but also other formations that really do look like random stuff like a T REX HEAD!!!!. It was a cool thing to experience but not as life changing as people described it as.

 The entrance to the Underground River

 

Do you see T-Rex?

I think this was the "bee hive"

 This was the "big carrot"

After the tour we grabbed some lunch and spread out to try and find another local bus heading to  Tay Tay a town just south of El Nido (which is where we were planning on staying for a week). The next bus didn’t come till the next morning so we hired a car that took us a few towns over where we caught a bus up to Tay Tay. I was told to stay in Tay Tay by my friens James Carr and Jon Hiebert who had stayed at a placed called Casea Rosa Which sits on the top of a hill over looking the town and serves the best homemade bread and mojitos EVER! I actually can't say for certain that the bread is even that good because when I woke up in the morning to have some I learned to my horror Steve and Country had eaten the last OF THE FAMOUS HOME MADE BREAD! Some friends! I am so glad we stopped here because the little town of Tay Tay is so cool! Not only was this hostel such a beautiful place to stay but the town has a great little bakery and such a cool old Spanish Fort! Here are some pics of our tour around Tay Tay.

The view from out room.

Casa Rosa!

The Spanish Fort.

 

 

 Our photo shoot begins!

After our jaunt around TayTay we jumped on a bus to El Nido we talked our way onto the bus for less then it actually was and then the other local passengers found out how much we paid and WERE PISSED! But no one was castrated or killed to my knowledge and we all made it to BEAUTIFUL El Nido!

El Nido, Palawan

El Nido is the most northerly town at the top of the island of Palawan. It is well know for it’s island hopping tours and AMAZING beaches that surrounds this beautiful little town. I think if there are two suggestions I can give people going to El Nido it’s to eat breakfast EVERYDAY at the El Nido bakery! Everything there is dirt cheap and INSANELY GOOD! I was particularly fond of the twisted cinnamon and sugar doughnuts they sell there for something like 20 cents! My second suggestion would be to organize your own multi-day island hopping tour! There are tons of day tours everywhere but we set up our own custom tour through the brother-in-law of the owners of the home stay we were staying at. relaxing on your own paradise island over night is soooooo awesome and it’s way better staying out over night and in the late afternoon on these amazing islands rather than going back into town. It was a really cool experience and I am stoked it all worked out!

The town of El Nido is all clustered around the El Nido Bay. The beach itself has tons of restaurants and bars all spread along the whole bay. Court became really good friends with a girl that worked at OG’s which served DELICIOUS apple fritters with anything you order. I believe OG’s had the best beer prices as well! At night there are tons of happy hour specials so do a bit of walking and shopping around before you commit to one. 

 

That's the town of El Nido! 

  

We stayed at an amazingly beautiful and cheap little homestay called Lugadia (Cottages) Homestay. It’s a 20 pesos ride into town from this little piece of paradise. It is well worth the cost of a few rides in and out of town each day. You get your own little raised hut with a nice little deck right beside the ocean. It was also the cheapest accommodation we heard of.Here are some pics of it and around the area. 

Right outside our bungalow

Our bungalow.

Lugadia!!

Story Time: DUDE YOU JUST MADE OUT WITH A DUDE!!!

Our favourite club in town was the Reggae Bar and if you go late enough it usually gets bumpin! One night Court, Steve, Sunny, Carson, and a few other backpackers we had met in town all went down to the beach and polished off some $3 bottles of rum and then headed over to good old Reggae Bar. It was pretty full and the band this night was awesome! So we were all drinking and dancing and having a really good time! Court was getting pretty hot so she sat down and started talking to some locals at a near by table and I kept dancing. Pretty quickly a… individual danced over to me and said hello and started dancing with me. This individual was a very tall duder dressed as woman haha. It was reggae rock music so it was pretty chill dancing but pretty quickly this individual started getting pretty close and very handsy haha. I told him that I was already unfortunately spoken for and pointed out my girlfriend. He looked sad and then hugged me and sent me on my way haha. I went over to sit beside court to tell her she better open her eyes or else I am going to be snatched up pretty quick. But when I went to show her the heshe hahaha I was flabbergasted to see my friend dancing with him haha. I got up to go on the dance floor to let him know he was dancing with a dude but I was too late! They had already started a pretty drunk dance floor make out haaaha. I got over to him on the dance floor and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and gave me the most proud drunk smirk I have ever seen and said “Hey”. It wasn’t a “Hey, what’s up man?” though it was more of a “Hey, look at this hotty I am making out with!” He was still dancing quite close with this individual and so I started to think, how could I tell him in code that he was dancing, and had just made out, with a duder. After a few seconds of searching through the foggy backwards labyrinth that is a young dyslexic’s man’s brain I had the perfect sequence of words that would subtly yet simply let him know the truth of his new dancing partner. I yell out to him “HEY MAN… MAYBE HE’S NOT A GIRL?”. Hahaha Obviously my full proof yet simple code took effect immediately and my friend took a look at his new male dance partner, then looked back at me and gave me an extremely sad look, and then went and sat down ahha. A night to remember indeed!

Story Time: Stranded In The Middle Of Nowhere

There are the most amazing beaches I have ever seen within one to two hours drive away. Necpan Beach was my favourite and even though we had a little run of bad luck getting there and back I would still suggest everyone to make the journey and try and find it. Steve, Sunny (a girl we met one night at the Reggae Bar), Court and I rented two motorbikes between us and headed out on the two hour drive at around 9am. Steve and Sunny stopped at a waterfall so it was left for Court and I to press on and see this magical beach. About ten minutes before we got to the beach our bike started to putter and then died! A local that was driving by stopped and tried to fix the bike for us. He unfortunately couldn’t, but he did let us know that he thought that there was some water in the gas tank and that’s what was fucking everything up. We pushed the bike to the beach and enjoyed the beach for an hour but the whole time we were thinking “How the hell are we going to get home?!?!?” We ended up asking a bunch of locals to help us and they tried to fix the bike but they were unsuccessful. Next we took the bike to a near by resort rental house thing and the care taker there was a hobby mechanic. He went all out and went to work on our bike. Lucky I took the name and number of the lady we rented the bikes from and had called her three times throughout the day. Only once did she pick up and it was near the end of the day. I explained to her how her bike broke down on us and we are stranded out in Necpan. After I explained everything she either hung up on me or the line went dead. So Court and I were two hours away from civilization with hardly any money, water, or food. Because it was the weekend there weren’t any buses from neighboring towns or villages going by so it looked like we were screwed. At about 4pm these two guys arrived at the resort house with a backpack full of tools and relieved our new caretaker friend. They had been sent by the woman in El Nido to fix the bike! We were stoked but after another hour and a half they couldn’t fix it and were getting quite mad. It was around 6pm now and we still had no idea how we were going to get home! Luckily! A tour of Russians drove by and we hailed them down and asked if we could jump in the back of the truck and catch a ride back into town. They said sure and saved us! 

The beginning! look how happy I am! 

Bike down!

Nepan beach!

BIKE STILL DOWN!

Court and I were pretty rattled all day and because we were out in the sun all day stressing hard we were spent! We got back into town and went to the shop where we rented the bikes from and asked if we could get our money back because the bike only worked for an hour and a bit then died on us and stranded us in the middle of no where. Thus, I thought it would be a no brainer to get our $15 back. Unfortunately, I was wrong haha. The owner of the store was not there so they told us to come back in an hour. So we went and had a beer then came back. She still wasn’t there so they told us to come back in another hour. We went and grabbed dinner and another few beers and then came back. The owner was still not there and they told us again to come back in an hour. I was PISSED. I told them that I would wait and the owner better get over here soon! After about thirty minutes of waiting the owner finally showed up. I assumed because of all the shit they put us through that day the owner would be super apologetic and pleasant to deal with haha.

What followed was literally the most ridiculously and frustrating conversation I have ever had with any other human being!!!! She came right up to me and started blaming me for breaking the bike! The guys she sent out came to the conclusion that there was water in the gas tank and she was accusing me of putting it in there (even though the bike came fully gassed up!). She also said that because I didn’t bring the bike back before 6pm I had to pay for another day AND that I had to pay for the gas to fill the bike back up AND for the time and gas of the two guys that came out to fix the bike haha. I was literally blown away that she was not only not going to give me my money back but that she wanted me to pay extra for things that either made no sense or were her fault! I was furious. I don’t get that mad too often and if you have ever met me I would hope you think of me as a pretty reasonable and nice guy haha but in this situation I was not! I flipped out and tried to explain to her why each of her reasons made NO SENSE AT ALL and that I wasn’t leaving without my money. We argued and yelled at each other for a solid twenty minutes and then I just grabbed the money out of her hands and said “You should be ashamed of yourself!” She swore at me and tried to get the money back but that was not going to happen. It was a crazy frustrating day but one to remember at the very least.

Our Custom Island Hopping Tour

Our tour was two days one night and it was awesome. We would have made it three days and two nights but we did the tours near the end of our time in El Nido and we were trying to get over to Coron quickly to do some rec diving. There are three options for tours. Tour A, B, and C. We did tour A our first day then went to two extra islands our captain knew of then spent the night in tents at the last one. We then did tour B the next day and then returned home to Lugadia beach homestay. Throughout the tours you visit some of the most beautiful beaches and islands I have ever seen. You go to private little lagoons and swimming holes and go snorkeling, and you also go adventuring around on islands and check out little caves and can do a bit of rock climbing. The Lunches on these tours were AMAZING!!! We got amazingly fresh fried fish, fried calamari, chicken adobo, with fruit, rice, and salad! The food was delicious! Some of the best meals I had in the Philippines. It was a grand two days and I think it only cost us all $30 each per day day! Here are some pics of our tour!

  

Pointing on a moving vehicle! 

 

Push ups!

Our guide (left) and our captain (right)! Bosses!

These are the kind of boats you go out on.

A secret lagoon we got to go snorkel around in! Just after this picture was taken Steve got attacked a 5 inch rogue fish haha. 

Lunch island! My favourite island ;).

Badass!

Our own paradise island!

Amazing dinner!

My rock climbing adventure!

 Snake Island

Some tired sailors haha.

After spending a week in El Nido we started looking into booking a boat out of El Nido and over to Coron. There is unfortunately only one company that provides this trip so it is a pretty expensive boat ride and as we learned the hard way you should really book in advance. When we tried to book the next three days were booked solid. This meant we had to stay in El Nido for three more days then leave to Coron. This sounded fine but unfortunately on the third day a huge monsoon hit our shores and no boats dared to travel the next two days.  Thus, we were delayed five days, which only left us three days for Coron. This almost didn’t seem worth it, but I was pretty hell bent on getting to this amazing little island.

Early on the first day after the monsoon had subsided we went to the docks to jump on our boat. We talked to the lady running everything at the dock and told her she had to 100% guarantee us there would be a boat leaving from Coron to come back to El Nido in three days so we could make it back to El Nido then bus back to Puerto

 and then fly back to Manila. If she wasn’t 100% sure we would make it back we really couldn’t afford to chance it. She promised us a boat would be leaving and she gave me all her contact information so we decided, “yep, let’s do this!” We walked out to the docks and we were a bit scared to see how rough the seas still were! Even more terrifying was the small and sad state of the boat that was suppose to take us seven hours through rough seas to Coron! Court and I talked about just turning around and staying in El Nido. WE WERE SO TORN ON WHAT TO DO! But in the end we jumped on the small little boat with Steve and Carson and started praying haha. It’s a good thing we were praying too because that ride was ROUGH!

This seven-hour ride turned into a ten hour boat ride from hell haha. Waves were splashing into the seating area the whole time and soaking people. The boat was PACKED! You had hardly any room to sit or put your possessions. Women were praying and crying haha. It was a bit scary. You couldn’t read, you couldn’t lie down, and most couldn’t eat! You just had to sit there getting smashed by roller after roller hoping the boat would just keep going and that the waves would tire. Eventually while the sun was setting we made it to Coron! It was one of the most beautiful sights!

We all got off the boat so shook up and walked a few kilometers to town to try and find accommodations. We had come to Coron to dive so we were looking for a diving package that included nice accommodations. The main diving outfit in town (WHICH LOOKED SICK!) was booked solid so we ended up signing up with a Japanese diving resort called Amphibico! We got three dives and three days of accommodations for a really cheap price (after bartering hard for thirty minutes haha).

These three days in Coron were well worth our life threatening passage however! Our first full day in Coron consisted of three dives. The first dive was the best rec dive I am sure I will ever do! We dove down to a sunken World War Two battleship! The ship had been sunk by the Japanese and you could tell! There were huge blast holes in the side of the ship. We got down to its depth and then swam along its hall till we got to its stern. We entered the ship here, which is insanely dangerous because you are suppose to have your Rec Specialization before you go into any rec. If someone was to kick up too much sand then you can easily become blind and unable to communicate or navigate out of the ship! But because this was a battleship and the rooms we went into were huge and most had ways out it was ok. We went to a ton of different rooms. We visited the prison section of the boat that had jail cells and the boiler room! It reminded me a lot of the scene from Titanic where the camera is slowly going through the ship after it had sunk and it’s all ghost like. I loved that dive!

Our second dive of the day was only about fifteen minutes away. We dove down to a Japanese supply ship that was sunk by the Americans in WW2 as well. There were TONS of scorpion and lion fish everywhere, which was cool and a bit unnerving. The front part of the deck and been bombed so it had collapsed in on itself so you could swim into the hall of the boat from there. We then all came up and had an amazing lunch and let some of the Nitrogen leave our bodies.

Our third and last dive of the day was at a fresh water lake about fifteen minutes from town. We jumped off the boat and had to swim onto land and then walk with all our gear down a board walk path to the lake. This dive was so cool! The top part of this lake is kind of cool and refreshing then after about three or four meters down the lake gets EXTREMELY hot because of volcanic vents! We all jumped into the lake and then descended and it was nuts. I remember going down then BAM I had passed through some invisible wall of intense heat! We played around with this heat density change for a while by having half our bodies in the cool water and the other half in the super hot water haha it was fun. We then all descended as a group to the very bottom of the lake and when we all got to the bottom a huge barracuda swam past us. Apparently, this was the only barracuda that lives in the lake and it’s rare to see him so we were all stoked. We then started swimming along the bottom in this extremely hot water through some angel like sand formations. I felt like I was in Avatar, it was sooo cool! For the rest of the dive we went along the wall of the lake and saw a bunch of little fish and a ton of little shrimp. The shrimp would walk onto your hand if you put your palm out flat for them. Then you could tease them by wiggling your other hands fingers at them and then they would try to fight your fingers. Court and I were buddied up for the first time on this dive as well. We got some underwater make out session going on haha it was a really fun and memorable dive!

We all swam back to the boat where we were all presented with beers and a high-five! We all reminisced about the day’s awesome dives and drove back to town in the golden light of the setting sun! Court, Steve, and I grabbed some cold brews and Carson and then walked out onto the dock that stretched out from Amphibico to watch the rest of the sunset! That night we went to the top floor of our dive resort which houses an amazing little Japanese Restaurant! We gorged ourselves on Japanese food and told Carson all about our awesome day. Carson isn’t much of a swimmer and thus didn’t dive with us but he was hell bent on looking into a nature reserve island that had giraffes and other exotic animals from Africa on it. Unfortunately, he found out it was pretty far away and it would take a few days to get to, explore, and then come back. A few days we did not have so we all agreed to do a snorkeling island hopping tour the next day.

This tour was awesome! The snorkeling we did on this tour was the best of my life! We saw soooooo much! The most variety and bright coral I had ever seen, a bans sea snake (the most poisonous snake in the world!), box fish, puffer fish, turtles, sting rays, and a bunch of fish I had never seen before! Carson saw almost all of this with us, which was awesome and he really started to get comfortable in the water. We also went to a really beautiful fresh water lake (not the same one we dove in). I did some really fun free diving here and some cliff jumping. It was an awesome day! We did meet an awesome American named Adam and so after the tour we came back to town and all raced up to the town lookout to see the sunset on the whole town! Here are some picture:

 

Canada and Amerrrr-ica coming together!

Coron!

 

After the sun had set we all walked down from the look out and hit the village market. We downed some choco muchos (which are the best chocolate bar I have had outside of North America! Here is a picture of one! If you ever seen this! BUY IT! It will only be around 20 cents so shit… BUY FIVE!

After eating a bunch of delicious treats I took the opportunity to try the Philippine delicacy known as Balut. Balut haha is a fermented chicken fetus. So picture eating a hard boiled egg but the normal squishy egg is a baby chicken with beak and all haha. It smells bad and looks worse but when your eating it if you can get past the crunchy bits it does taste very similar to a hard boiled egg. After this mental feat of strength we drank well into the night and then Court headed back to the comforts of our really nice accomidation at Amphibico leaving Carson and Steve to there own devices.

A Bad Note To Leave On

We had fun on Coron. We dove, we snorkeled, and now it was time to leave. Court and I rocked up to the harbor forty-five minutes before our boat was scheduled to leave. We presented our ticket and unfortunately got some… inconvenient news. When we gave them our ticket the lady shook her head and said “No boat to El Nido today. Come back tomorrow”. I told her she must be wrong because we were assured there was a boat leaving today we already paid for the ticket and we needed to get back to El Nido that day! She said the same thing to me haha. I asked to speak to someone else and after fifteen minutes of asking I got a security guard haha. He explained to me the boat wasn’t running today for some reason haha. I explained to him our problem and that we NEEDED to get back to El Nido that day so that I could catch the bus we already paid for the next day and the plane we already paid for the that next night. There was NOTHING we could do and it blew me away. These harbours aren’t government-subsidized business or publicly owned services. They are just random groups of people with boats selling tickets to tourists. Just because I had this ticket from El Nido didn’t mean I could get money back from anyone in Coron! I gave the security guard some money so I could use his phone so I could call the lady who guaranteed us that there would be a boat running that day back to El Nido. After calling three times she picked up and I explained to her what happened haha. She apologized and said she could wire some of my money back to me haha. That’s the very best they could do. She asked to speak to the security guard who helped me get in touch with her. She got him to go to the post office where she mailed me 70% of Court and my ticket refund haha. She said I would only get 70% back because she had to pay the security guard to help me and that the wire cost money as well haha. It was a joke I couldn’t believe it. Now it looked liked we were going to miss our bus and plane that we had already paid for!

Luckily there was an airport on Coron and we knew Steve and Carson were on a plane going back to Manila in the late afternoon. Court and I rushed back into town and talked to all the airline store fronts. We finally talked to one that could get us on the same plane as Steve and Carson to Manila. Unfortunately, Court had to book two more flights. She needed one flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa so she could grab her debit credit card and then another plane back to Manila haha. So we forfeited our bus and plane tickets from El Nido to Puerto and Puerto to Manila and had to buy a new plane ticket from Coron to Manila (then Court had to buy two more haha). In total I paid around $70 for tickets I didn’t use and $200 for this new tickets! I was pissed but it was the only way I could make my flight out of the Philippines to Singapore so it had to be done. That day was a mess! Court and I were running around all day trying to figure everything out it was brutal. Then when we arrived in Manila she had to go back to Puerto for a dumb little piece of plastic! On the positive side of things we got to spend more time with Steve and Carson! Here is a picture of Steve Massey wearing my mask and snorkel the whole length of our forty five minute flight from Coron to Manila haha. Awesome! 

I had one day in Manila by myself (Steve and Carson flew out of the Philippines to Singapore a day early from a different airport). Funny enough our new American friend Adam just left Coron as well and was staying at the same hostel as me. So we decided to go shopping for normal people cloths because we were both headed to Australia pretty soon. We used the local transport of multiple jeepnies (WW2 jeeps that have been converted into buses) and went to the shopping district! I got “Levis” jeans and “Puma” shoes all for $7 haha. We got followed twice while walking around but never got jumped! It was a successful day! 

That night I went and met Court at the airport as she was due to arrive back from getting her card. We had dinner at a street meat stall a few blocks from the airport. She then had to jump onto a plane to Vietnam. Her plan was to go check out all the countries I had already been to before we met in Thailand (so Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). I wouldn’t see her for three months until she came to meet me in Melbourne. It was sad but we said our goodbyes and she was off. Three hours later I jumped onto a plane to Singapore where Carson and Steve and I intended to spend Halloween together with some of my friends from UVic Business!

 

So that was my time in the Philippines! See what I meant about bad luck? It is an extremely beautiful country but I feel the travel and transportation infrastructure is not set up for normal backpacking. You need a lot more time than three weeks to travel in the Philippine but the visa you get is only three weeks so it’s a tough one. I can see more hardcore and experienced travelers finding the slow and local way of traveling appealing and enjoyable but when you only have three weeks to do it, it just becomes very frustrating and expensive. Since my trip a lot of people have told me they’re interested in exploring the Philippines and wanted to know what I thought of it. I said it is one of the most naturally beautiful countries I have ever been too! The snorkeling was amazing along with the beaches but the food wasn’t very impressive! It was expensive to travel and backpack around (in comparison to other SEA countries). The locals were also super frustrating to deal with haha. I did run into a lot of annoying situations and bad luck so maybe I am just jaded. I will go back to the Philippines one day! I feel I should give it a second chance. I did really love El Nido and Coron once I got there it was just getting there and away that was shitty haha. I definitely did not think it was the best country I visited even though a lot of people told me it would be. Still a great time though!