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Nic writes…
As Rich noted in the last blog, the first part of our trip in the Philippines got off to a bad start, but improved infinitely once we escaped Manila. Thankfully, our luck continued for the rest of our stay and we can barely remember the capital anymore. From Coron, we flew to Bohol to see the chocolate hills and tarsiers. Leaving Coron was an interesting experience. Firstly, the airport had a power cut so our boarding cards and luggage labels were written out by hand. Secondly, as we were flying on a small prop plane, we each had a hold baggage allowance of 10kg plus 7kg for carry on. We have been travelling light, but typically our hold baggage has weighed c.13kg so we needed to shed/re-arrange some weight. We did what we could the night before without scales, but arranged it so we could get rid of more items at the airport if we needed to. When we got there, both bags weighed 11kg. We asked for a bin to remove some items, but were instead told to just put on more clothes until we got to 10kg! I'm not sure RyanAir would be so accommodating!
We spent one full day in Bohol, and hired a car to make visiting the tarsiers and chocolate hills easier. Tarsiers are very small, very cute, have the biggest eyes (relatively) of any primate and can only be found in a few places in the world. They are therefore a massive tourist attraction. Unfortunately there are many places on the island that keep tarsiers in small cages for touristto pay to see. These living conditions stress out the tarsiers, who then commit suicide. Thankfully there is an established sanctuary for tourists to visit, although sightings are not always guaranteed. Luckily on the day of our visit, there were four visible and we got great pictures of one that was resting in the lower branches of a tree.
We then set off to see the chocolate hills. Disappointingly, these are not hills made out of chocolate (just think how awesome that would be though….). Instead they are a vast swathe of small, round hills formed millions of years ago from coral and limestone deposits. In the dry season the grass on the hills turns brown, hence the name the chocolate hills. Although they always feature in all the guidebooks' "must see" lists, they are fairly renowned for being underwhelming. It was certainly lovely scenery to drive through though (and get horribly lost in).
After Bohol, we travelled to Donsol to swim with whale sharks. This was our second attempt to see whale sharks, having failed miserably in Mozambique. Like every tourist attraction run by the government in the Philippines (based on our experience of two), the ticketing process was comically inefficient. We got to the dock at 6.45am, having been told to be there by 7am and we didn't get out on the water until 8am (we later learned that the boats never leave before 8am). However, we were the first boat to leave, and thankfully it was a calm, sunny morning (with us was one guy who had, the day before, spent three miserable hours failing to spot any whale sharks in rough seas and cold rain). On our boat was a 'spotter' who was perched on top of a wooden pole, a little like a lookout in a crow's nest. We sat poised on the side of the boat, flippers and snorkels at the ready, and on his call, jumped and swam in whatever direction he pointed. Underwater visibility was fairly poor, due to all the plankton in the water but this is also what attracts the whale sharks, so we can't complain too much. After a very brief search, a fin was spotted, and the boat manoeuvred towards the expected path of the shark. We jumped in, and swam as fast as we could, still half-expecting to miss the shark. The first glimpse was quite surreal, the first thing we noticed was a spotted pattern in the water, and due to the huge size, it took a bit of looking around to fully make out the outline of the whole fish! Whale sharks are incredibly graceful and gentle, but their immense size makes them seem much slower than they really are, so keeping up with their cruising speed is not easy! Luckily, we seemed to swim into clearer water, and got some really good views. This shark was roughly 9m long, which is huge (certainly way too big to fit into a single frame on the camera!), but less than half the size of the biggest. There were a few more sightings during the morning, but the first one was by far the best as our boat was the only one close enough and so there were only 4 other people in the water at the time. Although the rules state that there should only be 6 people around any one whale shark, the frenzied adrenaline of tourists make this a little hard to control once more boats turn up, and later in the morning it got a bit crazy. The early morning and waiting around had certainly been worth it!
We had planned to spend 5 nights in Donsol to give ourselves plenty of chances to see the whale sharks, but as we were successful on our first attempt, we decided to change our plans and spend our last 3 nights on the island of Malapascua. Malapascua is a very small island in the Visayas that is famous for beautiful beaches and a rock outcrop called Monad Shoal, one of very few sites in the world where thresher sharks regularly come up from their usual home 200-300m below the surface. We heard so many great things about the island from other travellers in the Philippines that we knew it would be a great way to finish our time there. Although it was a bit of a trek to reach, we are so glad we changed our plans. We had a great day diving, including a sunrise dive to see the thresher shark (the shark's tail is very long and used to kill it's prey via a quick 'threshing' motion) and a couple of other reef dives where we saw sea snakes, and a really cool mantis shrimp (a very alien like creature that creates underwater vacuums to deliver a very powerful 'punch' which has been known to break aquarium glass (and, much to Rich's concern, waterproof camera housings!)).
We learnt from our dive master that Malapascua was hit badly during typhoon Yolanda in October 2013. Apparently, whilst the storm only lasted 4 hours, homes and resorts were flattened, boats were strewn all over the island and even some of the coral reefs were destroyed (this was particularly noticeable during the Monad Shoal dive). Although a lot of the resorts have been rebuilt, we noticed that there were still areas, mostly local homes, that looked like they had not been touched since the storm.
I didn't really know what to expect of the Philippines, and wasn't nearly as excited as Rich, but I loved it (except the time spent around Manila) and would definitely recommend it as a holiday destination (as long as you don't spend too long in Manila…). However, Rich was correct in his last blog entry, Botswana is still to be beaten!
After we left the Philippines, we flew to Singapore. This wasn't our original plan, but I read an article about the night safari at Singapore Zoo and desperately wanted to go. We spent our first day following the typical tourist trail by visiting a trampoline park(!) I haven't messed about on a trampoline for years, so as soon as I read about the park (admittedly in an article covering what to do with kids in Singapore) I decided that's what we should do. We only bounced around for an hour, but it was so much fun! We did however feel the effects in our legs for several days (we're not as young as we used to be)!
Our second day was spent much more sensibly visiting the Gardens by the Bay, Raffles and the night safari. The night safari was great and, again, I am so pleased we changed our plans to visit. We decided to take a private tour as it was the day before Valentines day (and we heard the queues can ruin it) so we enjoyed being shown around by a wildlife expert, skipping the queues and an all you can eat buffet (guess what Rich enjoyed the most). We even got to feed a couple of Asian elephants!
In hindsight, I am very glad we treated ourselves the day before Valentines day as we spent the actual day travelling between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. To make the journey worse, our bus got a puncture and we spent a couple of hours by the side of the road waiting for a new tyre (rather than getting one sent out, it is much easier to wait for the next bus and steal their spare…if they don't have a spare, you just wait for the bus after that etc). Oh well.
Our visit to KL has been even less cultural than our visit to Singapore and we have spent a significant amount of time in shopping malls to take advantage of the air con (it's really humid here). Whilst in one mall, we came across a game called 'Escape Rooms' where you have 45 minutes to solve a number of puzzles and 'escape' from the rooms. We decided to give it a go as we like puzzle solving. We chose a hard level as, after all, we are both actuaries and clearly pretty intelligent….oh how wrong we could be! We did not escape the room in 45 minutes and, to make things worse, when we were 'rescued' by the team, we were informed that there had been another two rooms to get through! Our confidence battered a little bit, we decided to go back the next day and try an easier level. Thankfully we 'escaped' and our self-esteem has recovered a little.
Although we haven't done anything too touristy in KL, it has been really nice just wandering around. It is Chinese New Year on Thursday and so there are lots of decorations and general excitement. Sadly, we are not going to be in Asia for the New Year.
Tonight we fly to Australia to start the final third of our trip. We are flying first class on Air Asia due to what we can only assume to be a glitch with their website when we bought the tickets. At the time our tickets were £20 more expensive than standard and we get (almost) flat beds (we still have to buy our meals)! Looking at ticket prices now, first class is 4 times the price (even if you look at dates far into the future). We aren't complaining!
I am looking forward to reaching Australia as, although Asia has been a lot of fun and the food on the most part has been amazing, I am tired of the way tourists are typically treated in particularly touristy areas. There are some very persistent, bordering on aggressive, sales techniques and, as a sweeping generalisation, we have been lied to quite a lot (e.g. the bus will leave in 5 minutes, there are no jellyfish in the water).This gets incredibly frustrating after long periods of time. The people are lovely and I believe most of them mean well (and just trying to make a living), but you start doubting everything you are told! Although, this has been notably less of a problem in the areas that are less developed.
One other reason to be excited about Australia is that I get to see my parents! They are just about to start their own tour of Australia and New Zealand and we will meet up with them at the end of the week in Melbourne, and then again in Auckland. They will be bringing over some essential supplies too (of course I am more excited to see them than receive the goods, honest)!
So, to finish this section of our trip, as we did when we finished the Africa section, we have set out below our 'top ten moments' of the last 3 months.
- Visiting Coron Island in the Philippines, in particular diving in Barracuda Lake.
- Reaching Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal.
- Cycling through the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.
- Wreck diving in Coron, the Philippines.
- Swimming with Whale Sharks in Donsol, the Philippines.
- Going on a safari walk in Chitwan National Park, Nepal.
- Coming across the Mantis Shrimp on our dive in Malapascua, the Philippines.
- Cruising Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.
- Chilling out on Malapascua Island, the Philippines.
- Night Safari at Singapore Zoo, Singapore.
We have also uploaded some new videos to our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzfKBTLzaDnKsvCekdEWYuw
Anyway, we'd better get ourselves packed up to leave Asia - can't believe we have reached this point already! Not sure I'm going to be ready to come home in 3 months.
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