Sunday, June 22, 2008

Travel update

Well after crashing on the beach for a whole day Peter decided that we have to once again do something meaningful (pfui!) so we started the Advanced Open Water diving course. It took five dives a lot of fun and fishes and here we are certified! Cheers Sander! In the meantime we were almost blown away by Fengsheng typhoon which hit the Philippines and the news. On our island it was only grade one but it caused massive amounts of rain, extremely strong wind, which made the house we lived in the give strange sounds, some power cuts and no internet for two days. But you can still dive during typhoon as we learned. Well, we have no desire to find out how the other grades feel like... It also caused a delay in our "schedule" as we were supposed to be already in Manila with Sladja :) but we will be there only tomorrow when flights resume.
So after finishing the dive course we rented a motorbike to see some of the bigger island of Bohol. It was a great drive through green rice paddies, small villages and incredibly friendly people. Our first stop was at a sanctuary for Tarsiers (we didn't think it was important but it was one of the two sights on the island). In the forest we saw the cutest little things with big popped-out eyes clinging to the tree branches. They are from some forgotten branch of the evolution tree, not really monkeys but similar and are so incredibly small and cute and can turn their head 180 degrees :) I realise it does not sound that exciting but have a look at the picture below.

We had lunch at a local market in a Eatery, a place with a few pots where the food has been cooked for the day and booming karaoke. It once again confirmed our lack of enthusiasm for Filipino kitchen.

Then once again through rice fields and forest off to the famous (at least around here) Chocolate Hills. Its not really clear how they were formed but there they are a thousand or so humps, which unfortunately are not made of chocolate :(. I liked the place very much but Peter is not very sure about the hills :)

So today is our last day (for now) at the beach, we head back to Manila tomorrow and then most likely to the island of Palawan.
The Spanish-type churches, dear colonial heritage


Same with La Virgen

Rice paddies

Loboc river terraces

The cutest little tarsier :)

The view from one of the Chocolate hills


The view of one of the Chocolate hills


Peter at the prospect of chocolate :)


Please choose!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

How good to stop off and set out again

How good to stop off and set out again,
How good to settle like that without being turbid,
Yesterday has passed; your sayings have passed with it,
How good to find a new saying for a new day
Ancient Sufi poetry

With this proverb in my head we left Istanbul. How good to set out again! How good to open the guide book for the place you are heading to and from unfamiliar, strange and distant reading to make an adventure and a friend! To fill it with experiences, faces, emotions and life!

And as if we never left we are back in South East Asia. It’s a bit strange to think back one and half years ago (I myself find it hard to realise this, while I write it!) when we first arrived in stinky sweaty and exciting Bangkok in January 2007 not really sure what to expect, whether we packed right, how is all this going to work out. Our arrival in Manila was very very different, now we knew it will be hot and humid, that even if we forgot something chances are we can buy whatever we need, and cheaper ;) we knew people will be friendly and helpful, there will be good food and exciting scenery.

The stop over in Qatar was an adventure in its own with the prospect of spending 14 hours at the airport taking a lucky turn and leading us to a comfortable hotel bed a very interesting drive through a new millennium city coming right from the dessert and a white heat I had never experienced before.

Manila was hot and humid a strange mixture of American culture and Asian under-development. A combination of a Spanish colonial heritage manifesting itself in beautiful churches, some old casas a few remaining plazas and the ubiquitous Catholic Church. This was followed by the attempted “benevolent assimilation” by the Americans, which ended officially in 1902 but continued for many years after and left a significant impact in the way the country and the business are run, the food the language and the way of life. Life mostly revolves around the air-conditioned shopping Mall and you can find all kinds of American pop-culture around (including ice cream with marshmallows!!!). But the people remained Asian, they are friendly, ready to help you (one even offered to borrow us money!!!!) and smile those big smiles carrying the warmth of the sun the instant you look at them ☺

We set forth to the beach, but it was going to take a while. From Manila we headed down towards the famous Taal Lake and Volcano. It was a beautiful hike in the burning sun (after with some difficulty we managed to shake off the horses, guides and kids) that took us to the crater of the still active volcano, smoking its anger away.
In the evening a massive rainstorm reminded us what rainy season in the tropics is all about with hundreds of thousands of litters of rain poured on us.

We travelled the next couple of hundred km. in a tricycle, jeepney (the coolest piece of driving machinery that uses some cars left after WWII by the Americans) and a bus to a town called Legazpi. On the way the scenery was just amazing, the sea was showing itself with a wonderful coast line covered in palms, beaches, islands and islets in between hills and mountains covered in palm trees with idyllic but very poor life passing by us.

From Legazpi (which is nothing very spectacular as most towns in the Philippines go) we headed to the small fishing village of Donsol, where we enjoyed a wonderful sunset and unfortunately not much more, as the beach there is noting special and the reason for going there was seeing the whale sharks but they had already left ☹

So from there we continued further south where we were told there would be a ferry to the next island, Masbate. The two-hour ride was great with beautiful small islands lone beaches and fishermen. Masbate did not impress us with its beach facilities, although the scenery was once again world-class in its beauty, so we decided to move on to the next island of Cebu. There are approximately 7 000 islands in the Philippines so ferryboats and island hopping is very popular and rather inevitable.

Somehow it turned out that getting information was more difficult than we expected and we ended up on a ferry boat that was going to take us overnight a few hundred km further than we planned, but what could we do, we were already on the boat and whether one island or another for us did not make that big of a difference ;) so we ended up in Cebu city and from there took another ferry and another tricycle to finally end on the small island of Panglao, near Bohol on Alona beach with Genesis divers. All this took about five days hundreds of kilometers, more hundreds of sea miles more different modes of transport and all this in the sweltering tropical heat! We were happy to crash on the beach, where we will be lazing until tomorrow, when we have to start doing serious work once again as we start the Advanced Open Water diving course!
Doha, the older part of the city, which the Emir wants to destroy and build new glassy buildings

New Doha - under construction

Cheers from Manila

Welcome!

It's been a while since we had coke in a plastic bag :)
Taal Volcano and Lake

The many-hour bus ride

Mt. Mayon - an active volcano

Having fun in a tricycle
Our Donsol hut

The ferry ride to Masbate

The overnight ferry ride to Cebu

Our "home" on Alona beach, the top room is where you can find us

And our view :)

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Together again!

Well I am back in Turkey for a while now - and yes I did a lot of stuff :) But until now I was focusing on the food whenever I was not running or biking around. I hope I will be able to put up some pictures soon.

Since yesterday Yva and I are united again here in Istanbul. We again stay with our fabulous friends Nevra and Irem. In two days we will head for the Philippines - so the quest for happiness continues on the other side of the globe.