đĩđ Philippines, Part #1 đĩđ
| From | To | Mode | Duration | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
đđ° Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) | đĩđ Mactan-Cebu International Airport | Plane | 02:55 | ÂŖ405.44 |
đĩđ Mactan-Cebu International Airport | đĩđ South Bus Terminal | Taxi | 00:40 | ÂŖ5.98 |
đĩđ South Bus Terminal, Cebu | đĩđ Moalboal | Bus | 03:00 | ÂŖ6.25 |
đĩđ Moalboal | đĩđ South Bus Terminal, Cebu | Bus | 02:55 | ÂŖ6.25 |
đĩđ South Bus Terminal, Cebu | đĩđ Pier 1, Cebu | Taxi | 00:10 | ÂŖ1.93 |
đĩđ Pier 1, Cebu | đĩđ Tagbilaran Ferry Terminal, Bohol | Ferry | 02:45 | ÂŖ23.92 |
đĩđ Tagbilaran Ferry Terminal, Bohol | đĩđ Panglao, Bohol | Taxi | 00:27 | ÂŖ8.97 |
An airport panic
How would you handle this one?
It’s there in black & white on gov.uk, and we’d even spoken about it the week before. But it didn’t come flooding back until the check-in lady at the airport asked:
“And please can I see your outbound tickets, in order for you to satisfy Filipino entry requirements?”
Crap crap crap, knew we’d forgotten something. In order to enter the Philippines you must prove you’ve already booked to exit within 30 days. Check-in lady adds:
“Despite you being in the check-in queue for over an hour, check-in closes imminently so you’ll need to show me a valid outbound ticket within 5 minutes or you’re not getting on the plane. Your tickets are nonrefundable by the way.”
It would be ÂŖ400 down the drain if we couldn’t produce the goods.
I handled it by panicking and generally being a bit inept. Laura came into her own. She opened up the “Asia travel plans spreadsheet”, and checked our anticipated exit date.
Figuring Manila to Kuala Lumpur would be a cheap route she guesstimated a date for which that flight may useful, and hit the search sites.
3 minutes remain and check-in Lady’s eyebrows are nearly on the ceiling.
How do you follow this through? Do you go for the bottom of the barrel carriers, aware that they may pile on mandatory extras before checkout? Or do you go for a high-brow airline, staking more money but with greater likelihood of cancellation options?
No time to think. We picked one, and went through the checkout process. The listed price had doubled by the end, but there was no time to look why. I whacked in my credit card details and submitted. An email arrives:
“Thank you for your order, your booking will be confirmed by the airline within the next 24 hours.”
Crap! Still no ticket, they had our money, and time was up.
We feebly showed check-in lady the email, which proved very little about our Filipino exit plans. Both frustratingly and thankfully, she accepted it without looking and we scuttled off to security.
Fortunately we will be able to make use of the hastily booked flight. It definitely wasn’t the best deal, but that’s the cost of re-enforcing the lesson that you should always double check entry requirements.
Moalboal
The rest of our time in the Philippines was, thankfully, much much much less stressful. First stop was Moalboal. It was among our favourite spots on the trip thus far. It was our Goldilocks level of touristy: plenty of infrastructure and experiences, but not overrun with jacked up prices.
Turtles
Our prime objective was to see a turtle đĸ. Let’s allow the photos speak for themselves:
They were absolutely incredible to see, and time stood still when we swam with them.
A quote from Laura:
It was literally the second best day of my life
There are guides who tow groups of life-jacketed tourists on a rope whilst they search the shoreline for turtles. That’s not what we wanted our first encounter to be, so opted to snorkel out independently in search.
We got lucky, and had a decent amount of time alone with the turtles before the guided groups swooped in en mass.
Sardine run
Another major attraction in Moalboal is the sardine run. It evaded our attention during the first couple of days, as we were very focused on hanging out with turtles. We got glimpses. It kinda looked cool, but nothing jaw dropping.
One evening at a bar a local said that if you want to see the sardine run in all its glory, you’ve got to get there before 6am. We took his word for it, and set our alarm clocks accordingly.
It was breathtaking:
Definitely worth the early awakening. It ended dramatically, with the shoal vanishing into thin water. We eyed a big fish, and figured it perhaps spooked them.
Canyoneering
We also continued the theme of Laura wanting to jump off things, and me chickening out đ.
Laura signed up for a day of canyoneering: jumping off ledges interspersed with bobbing down rivers.
It looked extremely intrepid:
The only challenge I faced was whether I’d be judged for ordering yet another coffee whilst I sorted out photos.
Bohol
We continued our beach binge on Bohol. It was fun chilling on the beaches, but snorkelling options were limited.
Beaches
White beach
White beach, a short walk from our hostel, was quiet and stunning:
We enjoyed a bit of a stroll down it, followed by a few cocktails:
Alona beach
10 minutes tricycle ride away, and much more touristy. Again, we enjoyed relaxing with some cocktails:
Chocolate hills
We wanted to go see the chocolate hills whilst on Bohol, our reasoning not being the most conventional:
- It was Easter weekend, so we thought Chocolate Hills pretty apt
- Laura did a primary school project on them, which she was keen to see come to life
And that they did:
Tarsiers
Despite it being one of the island’s main attraction, there was no obvious way for us to see the Chocolate Hills independently without spending an extortionate amount of money.
We booked on a cheap group tour instead, which meant we also got to meet some Tarsiers:
- They’re adorable and cool:
- their eyes can be larger than their brain
- they can rotate their heads 180° in each direction
- they’re very happy sleeping whilst clinging onto a tree
Cheap group tours in South East Asia often have a main feature combined with several filler activities that you pay extra for on the day. The tour company makes commission on the entrance fees, which brings down the headline cost of the tour.
We’ve found that the extra filler activities often involve visiting animals in captivity, so a few times we’ve booked onto a tour for the headline event and amused ourselves during the filler stops.
We really wanted to see Tarsiers, but at a place they were well looked after.
- They’re among the most endangered primates in the world
- If you put them in a cage, they can become suicidal
- If you wake them up too much, they can become suicidal. And they’re nocturnal.
So it’s important to pick a good sanctuary if you want to see them. There were 3 sanctuaries on the island. The tour guide drove past the sanctuary with a positive reputation for welfare, and made a beeline for the one where they lived in cages âšī¸.
Most of the tour group went in, but a small resistance refrained and told him why. He then offered to drive us dissenters to another sanctuary, which we agreed to after checking reviews.
It seemed fairly clear that the environment was good, they were happily sleeping in a large forested area, and there were lots of signs and staff warning tourists of the impact sound and camera flashes could have on the Tarsiers.
However, some guides were getting right up close to take photos for some tourists - which may have awoken them âšī¸. Had we not seen the actions of these guides, we would have left with the impression that they were getting the care they needed in a protected habitat.
We’re not sure if we did the right thing by visiting the sanctuary:
- We did get to leave feedback that we value welfare when visiting animals
- Was that feedback nullified by other tourists not giving a hoot, so it would be best to abstain from cheap group tours in general (or the cruel filler activities at a minimum?)
We’ve landed on thinking the latter is best for the rest of our trip.
Wrapping up
Our time in the Philippines was incredible. Snorkeling with turtles was one of the best things we’ve ever done, and we made loads of memories that we’ll cherish.
This covers the first 11 days of our Filipino funtimes, join in the next post for more tropical island adventures :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: