Panglao Island, The Philippines

After Boracay we caught a ferry to Iloilo where we spent a night in a Pensionne. It was owned by Carmen, a Filipina widow. Her husband had been a General in the army and had died 3 years ago of Alzheimer's disease. As his pension was not enough to live on she rented out the 8 bedrooms in her house and usually had backpackers and travelling salesmen stay in them.

Her daughter was a scrabble fanatic and travelled Asia attending competitions and all her awards were displayed in the room.

From Iloilo we caught a ferry to Cebu City. The journey should have taken 12 hours but actually took 14 hours. We booked an economy class bunk which was on an open deck. It did have a plastic cover for the sides if it rained but it didn't. We managed to get a reasonable night's sleep and were woken by roosters crowing at about 4am. Some of the passengers were had their fighting cocks in cardboard boxes beside their beds!

When we arrived in Cebu City we were met by hordes of people in bamboo outrigger boats begging for money. They had large sacks attached to poles so they could catch the money as it was thrown from the decks above.

Cebu City is not dissimilar to Manila City so we were not interested in staying any longer than we needed, so booked into a quiet pensionne in the sleazy uptown part of the city. There were a lot more people on the streets begging here than we had seen in Manila.

From Cebu we caught a fast ferry to Bohol Island and then a rusty old bus without windows to the small island of Panglao which is joined to Bohol by a bridge.

Christmas dinner

Panglao has a small white sandy beach area called Alona Beach with lots of resort style hotels lining the beach. There are also the usual outdoor restaurants and bamboo bars. We are staying just off the beach in a quiet (Swiss-Filipino run) resort in a self- catering cottage with air-con and TV. We have managed to get some groceries and cooked for the first time since leaving NZ!!

Swiss and Filipino friends!

For Christmas day we ate a Filipino style buffet on the beach. The buffet included a whole pig that had been cooked on a spit (Lil had seen it earlier being dehaired in the yard across the street), whole fish in sweet and sour sauce, fried chicken and lemon, beef stew, grilled oysters and some desserts made from rice, coconut and corn.

The restaurant also put on a show of traditional dances from several of the islands and invited the guests to try to dance between the bamboo sticks without catching their legs as the dancers banged them together. It was too dark to get any decent photos which was a shame. It had rained earlier in the day and on the night the moon came out and the sky filled with stars!

A typical Sari sari store where you can buy one of anything.

Boracay Island, The Philippines

Boracay is a popular tourist destination in The Philippines so it is crowded with tourists from all over the world. With the recent 'coup' in Manila there are not as many tourist about as the locals would like so we were able to negotiate a discount on our accommodation. We are staying in a 'resort' which is on the beach and set in a beautiful garden with all classes of accommodation options. It is an older place and we are in a rustic chalet made with bamboo and a thatched roof. It is not too hot at this time of the year so we just have a fan and a cold water shower. It is also a wee stroll away from the 'action' part of town!

A lizard in a cage at our hotel.

Boracay Beach is a beautiful white beach resort area with tourquoise water and palm trees. It is what you think of as an exotic place for a vacation. There are all kinds of restaurants and hotels lining the beach; some made of thatch with sand floors and others polished marble with beautiful furnishings so you can take your pick to match your taste and wallet. The food varies from lechon- suckling pig to Korean, Japanese, French, Swiss, Austrian, German, Spanish, Mexican, Cuban and even Greek.

During the day there are the usual scuba trips as well as parapenting, banana boat rides, sailing on outriggers, sunset sails, kite surfing, wind surfing and island hopping trips. At night there are buffets beachside and outdoor live bands thumping their music from sunset to late as well as karaoke bars and laser light shows with some places open 24 hours.

All day people are trying to sell pearls, Rolex watches, shell jewellery, sunglasses, fruit and they also tout for all the restaurants and adventure tourism shops. You can't move without someone touting something!

Many of the places are covered with Christmas lights and Christmas music plays incessantly. There was a parade of what looked like Christmas decorations: mostly made from natural materials or recycled garbage.

These sandcastles decorate the beach and for a fee you can have them personalise the scene and you can photograph it! They are very creative about making money here.

There are a noticeable number of Muslims in this area and it is common to find shrines like these that Catholics have erected.

Panay Island, The Philippines

We managed to get a comfortable bus from San Juan to Clark on the outskirts of Manila. We did not want to spend any more time than necessary in Manila and Clark is where we will need to go to fly to Sabbah in Malaysia to our next destination.

Clark was an American base and is just another crowded Filipino city full of westerners with bars and restaurants: another place we didn't want to spend too much time at either.

Bancas that take you from bay to bay with their bamboo outriggers.

After one night in Clark we headed south to catch a ferry to Panay Island. The ferry landed at Puerto Galera and we caught a jeepney to Sabang which is a popular place for divers to visit the many ship wrecks off the coast. Sabang is jammed onto a small stretch of beach with hotels, bars and dive shops all crammed along the water's edge. We decided to walk about 20 minutes further along the coast to a bay called Little Laguna because it did not have the noisy bars with live bands or 24 hour go-go dancers. Many people of all ages do tours that include a companion and so the place is full of old, fat, ugly men with pretty young Filipino girls. John and I felt out of place!

John celebrated his 60th birthday here in Little Laguna at a small bar restaurant next door to our accommodation. It was very strange not being able to do this with friends and family so we will have to have a belated party when we return home in 2009!

We both had head colds and were happy to lounge around in Little Laguna and do day trips to some of the other beaches as we do not scuba dive. The beach at Little Laguna was not clean and it was too rocky for swimming with lots of broken coral littering the beach from the recent 3 typhoons.
Lechon or suckling pig sold on the streets ready to take away.

San Juan, The Philippines

San Juan is a small surfing and fishing village and it was a lovely quiet spot away from jeepneys, tricycles, and peddlars! We stayed at a guesthouse/restaurant run by Jan from Bremen, Germany and his Filopina wife. The menu had mostly German dishes and we enjoyed homemade bread and sausages.

The very small seaside village has many Germans and we noticed that streets had signs and it looked quite orderly compared with other nearby places.

We are trying very hard not to spend any more time in Manila as it is such a chaotic city.

Laoag, The Philippines

Laoag's sinking bell tower.
The tower was built so that a man on a horse could enter the gateway under the tower but it has sunk so far that you need to stoop to go through the doorway.

Laoag's city hall building.

Laoag was a tobacco town and we had to go there to extend our visa at the immigration office.

Vigan, The Philippines

Vigan at night

Vigan was a Spanish trading town and many of the old buildings are still in tact having survived earthquakes and bombs. The town has been recognised as a World Heritage Site and so there is money to help preserve the old town. It was pretty quiet while we were there and there were hardly any tourists about.

By day!

We stayed in a renovated Spanish style hotel with beautiful highly polished floor tiled floors, archways, and elaborate plaster ceilings. The windows were wooden sliders with shells inside the trellis work to let the light in. They also let in the mosquitoes and the rain!

The Philippines is not a popular tourist destination like other parts of Asia but there are thousands of men who visit the place looking for sex or to find a young wife. There are many restaurants or guesthouses that are run by ex-pats and their wives.

While in Vigan we were able to watch TV and see the 'coup' taking place at the Manila Peninsula Hotel. These things keep the tourists away as well.

We visited the old home of one of Vigan's senators (Crisologo) who was assassinated in the local cathedral. They even had the police photos of him sprawled between the pews covered in blood and had the clothes he was wearing at the time on display. The killer was never found and the family has a message in the house stating that they do not want to avenge the killing!
You can ride around the old city by kalesa/calesa: horse and cart.
The cathedral is built with a wide base to prevent it collapsing during earthquakes and the bell tower has been built a few metres away so that it cannot fall onto the cathedral.

The proud owner of a brand new tricycle joins the queue waiting for customers. The chickens are cooked and still in the shell!