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The Philippines. In a word, brilliant. That is how I would describe our three weeks in the Philippines. Now let be very clear about the fact that I am possibly qualified to comment on about ten to fifteen out of over seven thousand islands. Suffice to say that three weeks was entirely innadequate to explore The Philippines. We actually only managed to see three of the major islands being Cebu, Luzon (capital city Manila) and Palawan. We'd heard great things about Palawan and were not let down.
Our original plan was to catch up with my parents for a week in Cebu. Praise my mothers fears of typhoon season because hindsight says that it would have been a massive error. Not because of typhoons but because what we saw of Cebu City was a crowed, sprawling mass of old buildings, seemingly older vehicles and a shocking and depressing amount of polution, poverty and homelessness. This just confirmed for me what I already believed; that city/urban poverty is so much more confronting and harsh than rural poverty particularly in developing nations where support structures simply do not exist. At least there is typically a strong sense of community and therefore some informal support in rural areas. Two nights and a full day wandering the city were enough for us and we decided to head north to a small island called Malapascua. Once again I was reminded how good a thing it was that my folks were not coming to this city to see us for a week. There would have been little to do. Perhaps we could have gone south to Oslob to check out the Whale Sharks that the town is known for. Although i'm told that it is such a contrived experience due to daily feedings to bring them in plus the hundreds of other people in the water that all the adventure and excitement you'd expect and hope for is lost.
Malapascua is an island known for diving and for the presence of one species in particular. It is home to the uncommon but extremely elegant and beautiful Thresher Shark. Like most people, it is also the reason for Clare and I visiting. If you don't know what it looks like do a google search. As much of a treat as it was to see this animal it was sadly no shock to be diving the same site as at least one hundred other people. Moving in, holding the rope so as not to encroach on the sharks cleaning station then filing out so others could move in was more reminiscent of a museum visit than any other dive i've ever been on. Fortunately the island and the rest of our experience was beautiful in every way. Except the accomodation. Our fault for being such cheap arses. After four days we got the boat then the bus back to Cebu City to catch our flight across to Palawan.
We flew into the capital Puerto Princessa and made our way by "tri shaw like vehicle" to what seemed like the middle of nowhere. It was actually in the middle of a naval base. We were couchsurfing at a place called the Bamboo Nest. The place actually looked exactly like the images the name conjours in your mind. Tree houses made of bamboo. Most of the nice ones were rented out via Airbnb and the guy also keeps a couple of rooms available for couchsurfers. We met a few Philippinos and foreigners here some of whom proved to be a great contact a couple of weeks later. Our plan was to head north after a night or two but when Clare got sick that blew out a couple of extra days. At some point here lets say 'fate' intervened. As we were starting to pack to move on the next day Johnothan the owner comes in and says that Whale Sharks have been spotted just outside Puerto Princessa Bay and would we like to join tomorrows tour to try to see them. You should have seen Clare's face. Four days of pain and sickness was forgotten instantly. Forget Oslob, two boats went out with eight people each and even then in slightly different directions. We got to swim with at least four Whale Sharks but the highlight for me was when we lost one only to find ourselves swimming with a school of Manta Rays and a couple of other Giant Manta Rays. These things have a wing span of up to about six metres and are spectacular to watch in the water. Our final sighting was of an adolescent Whale Shark about eight metres long that literally swam in amongst our group as we snorkelled. What an experience. We would have done it again the following day if we didn't have such a limited time in the Philippines.
We moved north to the dive town of El Nido with the primary focus of finding a boat to take us through the islands further north to Coron on our way up to Manila to fly to Indonesia. We missed the five day tour by a day. Safe to say this is because we chose the Whale Sharks.No regrets. A couple of days later we found a three day cruise around the islands of the Bacuit Archipelago starting and finishing in El Nido. This gave us a spare day in which we booked ourselves in to do a Freediving course. Clare and I have always spent a tone of time at beaches, swimming, surfing, snorkelling and diving. We're both pretty competent in the water and usually swimming down to four, five or six metres is a pretty good breath hold. By the end of a one day course know we can now dive on a single breath to 15 - 20 metres. Great timing considering over the next few days we did about five hours a day snorkelling in some of the clearest water either of us has ever had the pleaseure of snorkelling in. There are numerous uninhabited islands in the archipelago, hidden beaches, secret lagoons and reefs just begging to be explored by tourists. And they are. The good thing about being on the cruise and sleeping on the islands without returning to town each night is that you can get to the best and most popular spots each morning before the hundreds of 'Sea Cows' do. That's the name the crew of our boat give to the hundreds of usually Chinese tourists, among others, that can't swim and either bob around in the bright orange life jackets or tread all over the coral reef while they take their pictures with their Iphones in those plastic waterproof pouches. It's a comical sight, one which we could only find amusement in as we left the site as they lumbered and stumbled and bobbed about in the water. Had we been arriving at the same time we'd have been absolutely irate. At the end of the trip having negotiated cash payments in a town with no ATMs (that provided 24 hours of unnecessary angst) we found a ferry heading north to Coron, our last destination before the capital city of Manila and our last chance to dive the Philippines.
We had heard good things about the diving in particular from Coron. There are apparently a number of brilliant wreck dives to do on World War II era Japanese naval vessels of all shapes and sizes. However, it was my time to get sick. Literally laid out on my back for three days and nights. How good to have the support of Clare bringing me chicken soup and mango shakes as it was about all I had the energy for. Three days in an airconditioned bedroom was sufficient time to recover then it was off to Manila.
After all the stories about how tough a city Manila is, how crowded, how dirty, how impoverished the masses are we had a completely different experience. We saw all of that in our first few days in Cebu City but this time we hooked ourselves up with another couch surf in the CBD and expat region of the city. We stayed in a serviced apartment with a great Spanish woman who we hardly saw, we had the pool to use and best of all, a Philippino couple we met in Puerto Princessa to show us around. We saw some of the go to bars one night then they took us out of town to a volcano with a lake in the middle where we spent the day eating and driving around taking it all in. The four hour trip back in their car, a Jeepney (the local mini bus type transport) and a taxi to cover about 65km gave us enough of a chance to see other parts of the city. We can't thank Michael and Michelle enough for showing us around. Thanks to the two of you and our host Merry we had a much better experience and have much greater memories of Manila than anyone i've ever spoken to. We hope to see you all again some time in the future. After all, we still have over seven thousand more Philippino islands to explore. Three weeks to explore the Philippines! Ha, don't make me laugh. Not even enough time to have developed an understanding of any national indiosyncracies worth writing about. We'll have to come back.
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Mark John Brett it's Mark not Michael haha. We'd love to see you guys again. Stay safe and enjoy your tours guys. Regard from me and Michelle