Solo Travelling with Family and Friends

I have a little catching up to do... sorry, this is a looooong one!

Chronologically, I left Moalboal, Philippines on October 5th to head to Cebu City to meet my cousin, Emma, who was flying in from Singapore.  We met for the first time that I can recall at around 11pm in our hotel room.  I'm sure we met previously when I was a toddler in diapers visiting family in Australia, but we had a lot of catching up to do!  We got to know eachother while travelling from Cebu City to the island of Bohol where we spent 5 days before returning to Cebu City in time for "THE EARTHQUAKE" (see previous blog post) and a long trip to Bangkok where we bided two rainy days shopping before it was time for Emma's vacation to end and for her to return home to Melbourne.  In Bohol we spent one day relaxing, one day on a tour to all the island hot spots including; the Chocolate Hills, the Tarsier Sanctuary, a Butterfly Reserve, a lunch cruise up the Loboc River, the historic Baclayon Church, a statue commemorating the Blood Compact, and the small Hinagdanan cave.  We spent one day on a snorkeling trip to nearby Balicasag Island, and we spent our last day relaxing before heading  back to Cebu City. 

The Chocolate hills are a very impressive geological formation of hundreds of nearly identical, symmetrical, conical hills which were formed when ancient limestone reefs were uplift and eroded through time.  The tarsiers are very weird looking tiny primates who are in danger of extinction.  Emma hates monkeys but Tarsiers are so unlike monkeys in appearance she agreed to go.  She didn't hate them but we both agreed that Tarsiers are pretty hopeless creatures.  We were told that the caretakers at the sanctuary build shelters around them so that they aren't in the direct sun and wind and rain, and that they will commit suicide by bashing their heads against trees if they become stressed.  They are often mistaken for rats by cats so they need to be in a fenced in enclosure.  All in all, evolution may naturally eliminate these helpless little guys because they don't seem to have many useful adaptive strategies!  The butterfly reserve was a brief stop and not particularly interesting but great for photo ops.  The lunch cruise up the Loboc River was really pretty, the buffet lunch was pretty good and I was entertained by the Filippino kids dancing and singing energetically on floating rafts beside the river (Emma was not a fan).  The historic Baclayon church is the best preserved oldest church in the Philippines... or it was... before the earthquake which nearly leveled it!  It was very interesting to have seen the church intact only days before the destruction caused by the earthquake.  The Blood Compact statue was on a very scenic lookout and the statue depicts a ritual in 1565, when Spanish explorer, Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi and Datu Sikatuna, the chieftan of Bohol sealed a treaty by pouring their blood into a cup containing wine and drank the mixture.  Gross.  Hinagdanan cave is beautiful with a crystal clear lake at the bottom.  We got there quite late and wished we had swimwear and more daylight to fully enjoy the cave. 

Chocolate Hill

Tarsier

Tarsier Tourists

Loboc River

These little boys were dancing their hearts out!

Butterfly attack!

 

Baclayon Church

 

Our snorkeling trip was on a very hot sunny day.  The island is beautiful with ridiculously blue water, white sand, and palm-fringed beaches.  We snorkeled in the snorkeling area which had nice corals, lots of fish, and a lovely wall that dropped off into the deep.  After a little lunch, Emma and I went snorkeling where there weren't any other snorkelers and we saw at least 4 turtles.  Lovely.  Unfortunately we had a few typical traveler challenges including our private tour turning into a tour with 3 other guests when we showed up in the morning, no refreshments (not even water) for the long hot day, limited instruction on where to go and what to do, an add-on that wasn't properly disclosed to us prior to the trip where we got paddled in a tiny boat for about 25m to the snorkeling area (which we could have easily walked on the beach!).  Later our guide told us that that boat ride cost an extra 200 pesos ($5)... silly.  Not worth arguing about but frustrating when tours nickel and dime you and hide costs and add on ridiculous things.  It happens A LOT in Asia, tiny little scams that leave a bad taste in your mouth a dollar at a time.  We didn't let it impact us much... we just refused to pay that part and enjoyed the rest of the trip which included a sighting of a small pod of 3 dolphins on the trip back to Bohol and a lovely sand spit island called Virgin Island which we stopped on briefly for some pictures and to drink a fresh green coconut :)

Emma

 

Balicasag Island

My previous blog post goes into details about the earthquake that struck and our travel to Bangkok so check that out to fill in this blank.

Emma and I spent two rainy days shopping in Bangkok, eating wonderful food, using the public transit, and getting decadent spa treatments!  We went for a drink and ended up eating some seafood on the rooftop bar at the Banyan Tree Hotel - Vertigo Moon Bar.  The view was really incredible!  I really enjoyed getting to know Emma better and spending some time with her.  I can't wait to see her again near the Christmas holidays and to get to know more family in Australia then (flight booked from Bangkok to Sydney on December 19th).

I chilled for 2 days in Bangkok by myself which I used to tour Wat Pho (Temple of the reclining Buddha) and to relax.  I took public transit to Wat Pho, toured around, then went for a walk along the Chao Phraya river.  I decided to take the public transit boat also and had a great view of the river and the banks of the river as I did... and it only cost me 12 baht (40 cents!).  I had a great sense of achievement navigating this Asian city by myself using local transit and seeing some sights on the way.  I rewarded myself with an amazing massage with a hot herbal compress which smelled of lemongrass, followed by a beer, some pork noodle soup, and some people watching on Soi 11 where converted vans become pop up bars and small plastic tables and chairs line the street in the evening to create a makeshift food market. 


Pop up bars :)

After my two days as a solo traveler, Sheena and her husband Chris, friends of mine from Calgary arrived in Bangkok.  I met up with them and we went to the huge Chatuchak weekend market.  There was tons of cool stuff there but my travel plans sadly prevent me from buying anything right now... just more stuff to lug around.  It was still cool to wander around and see the wares.  The next day, we went on a full-day private tour with Tom, a knowledgeable and friendly Thai fellow.  Tom took us to Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon (the Golden Buddha) which is a small temple which houses the worlds largest solid gold statue, Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and the Grand Palace, on a river cruise up the Chao Phraya river by longtail boat, then to Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn), then to Wat Pho which was a repeat for me but the reclining Buddha is so spectacular to see I didn't mind at all. 

Solid Gold Buddha

Temple of the Emerald Buddha

Grand Palace

Longtail tour up the Chao Praya river with Chris and Sheena, tourguide Tom in back

 

Wat Arun

Climbing back down Wat Arun... so steep!

Reclining Buddha - smile 5m wide :)

Reclining Buddha's feet.  mother of pearl inlays on the soles of his feet

 

Sheena, Chris, and I had a refreshing dip in their hotel pool before heading out in the evening for a dinner cruise on the river.  Guidebooks I had read said that this would be a "magical experience, not to be missed".  pfft.  Although the temples and palace looked very nice lit up at night, it really terrible.  Sheena, Chris, and I spent the evening making faces at eachother over the ridiculous people on the boat.  It was very touristy and the only people on the boat were the types of middle-aged white tourists who frequent all inclusive resorts, want to eat hamburgers and French fries no matter where they are in the world, love buffet meals, and dance awkwardly as soon as music comes on.  It was like being at a wedding where you don't know many people and all the aunties and uncles start dancing.  The highlight for us was one of the traditional Thai dancers who had a very spaced out look for her whole dance.  We called her "dead eyes" and were fully entertained by her robotic dance moves and her fake smile.  Sheena and Chris moved on to Phuket to continue their vacation the next day and I did some walking around, went to a movie (About Time - SO GOOD - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!) then hopped on the night train to Chumphon so I could get to the island of Koh Tao the next day. 

The beginning of the terrible dinner cruise

Dead Eyes

The Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha at night - very pretty

Travel from Bangkok to Koh Tao cost 1500 baht ($50) for a first class, air conditioned, sleeper berth which travelled from 7:30pm from Bangkok to Chumphon and arrived at 6am in the morning, a bus transfer to the pier, and a ferry from Chumphon to Koh Tao.  I arrived at around 9am and my friend, Raf, met me at the pier to help me get my bags to the bungalow.  The sleeper berth held two people in a bottom bunk and a top bunk and was very comfortable.  There was a bathroom with a small sink an a squatter toilet at the end of the train car and a small sink in the berth.  A train employee knocked on the door in the morning to tell us we were close to our stop so we could get organized to get off the train.  Actually, my wake up call came at 4:30am but the train didn't arrive until 6:30am... I guess we were 2 hours late...still not sure why they didn't just wake us up later then?

Night train! whoo whoo

1st class sleeper train.  the back of the seat folds up to create the top bunk.

 

It was great to see Raf again, he was an instructor in Indonesia, and he suggested I join him for a cavern and cave diving course and some fun diving in Koh Tao.  So I did!  We have been able to go diving for 3 days (6 dives) and get more practice using twin tanks, decompression cylinders, and planning decompression dives.  We even did a long day trip to a distant wreck called the Torpedo Wreck with a boat full of only tech divers.  There was so much cool equipment on that boat!!!  So neat!  The wreck was beautiful with really great visibility down to 44m where a halocline created cloudy, low visibility waters below and clear blue waters above.  There were huge schools of fusiliers, baraccuda, jacks, Trevally, and other schooling fish above and around the wreck and giant Groupers inside the wreck as well as some really cute Flabellina nudibranchs (white with blue tipped protruberences) at the prow of the ship.  I saw a large Tuna entangled in some old fishing net that was caught on the wreck and was able to cut it free using my dive knife and a line cutter that I borrowed from Craig (the Cavern and Cave diving instructor who I was diving with).  The tuna swam away... now I can eat more delicious tuna sashimi guilt free knowing that I made sure that Tuna didn't die for nothing (tee hee).

Getting ready for some diving with the guys from Bans Tech in Koh Tao

Glad to grab a few more beers with my favorite Belgian Military man, Raf!

Raf and I started our cavern/cave course today with classroom theory and some exercises.  We put on our aluminum backplates and harnesses with regulators zipped tied to the back and "went through the motions" of how to tie lines, hook on directional and non-directional line markers, share air, signal eachother, move through a cavern or cave using touch contact in case visibility decreases to a point where you can't see.  It was really cool seeing how everything will work on land before going underwater where it is difficult to ask questions!  We will spend tomorrow setting up our equipment, loading the truck, and then we take the overnight ferry to Surat Thani from which point we will drive to Kao Sok National Park to start the cavern and intro to cave course!
 

Earthquake!

Chronology be damned!

All of my other experiences in the Philippines paled in comparison to being shook for nearly a minute by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake which hit Bohol at around 8:15am October 15th.  So, I will write about this now and I will take some time to fill in details of my trip to Bohol and subsequent arrival and 6 days in Bangkok in a few days.  

When the earthquake hit, I was just finishing having a shower in my hotel room on the third floor of the Diamond Suites and Residences Hotel in Cebu City... less than 80 km away from the epicentre of the quake!  Having experienced one smaller, shorter quake in Indonesia in June I knew immediately what was going on.  I called out to my cousin, Emma, "is this an earthquake?" which, interestingly, are the exact same words I said the first time I felt an earthquake.  I got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, opened the bathroom door and told Emma to stand in the doorway with me.  The room was shaking and rocking significantly and there were small bits of plaster dropping down from the walls and ceiling and all the lights went out for a moment.  The shaking stopped after about a minute and the lights flickered back on.  Emma was really freaked out and just wanted to get out of the building. She went out in the hallway to ask people if they were ok and to ask what we should do.  I got dressed and wanted to pack my bags.  It was nearly 8:30 and we had a flight to catch at 11:30 so I wanted to be at the airport within an hour.  Emma sensibly was anxious to go outside and get off the third floor.  I felt a bit more anxious myself when I looked out the window to see a crowd of people on the street looking up at our hotel and pointing!  We ran down the stairs and outside.  There were bits of broken tiles and cement here and there and a large concrete wall on the roof of the hotel was cracked and looked ready to fall.  

We decided to get our bags, check out, and make our way to the airport.  Checkout went smoothly and the hotel staff helped us flag down a cab to the airport.  We got news for our taxi driver on the way informing us of 4 fatalities in Cebu City, and that parts of the roof of the airport terminal had collapsed.  At one point the taxi had to drive across a long bridge to get to Lapu Lapu city/Mactan Island where the airport is.  This made me really nervous.  I didn't want to be anywhere near that bridge if an aftershock hit!  We made it to the airport around 9:30am and got dropped off but the terminal was closed while they checked the structure for damage.  We waited outside with our bags until about 10 and then went inside with the rest of the crowd and began the long process of lining up.  While we were queued up we could see piles of plaster and broken ceiling tiles, broken tiles, and broken cement in places around the airport where damage had occurred.  We had to walk to a different terminal because one of the runways was cracked during the quake and could no longer be used, we had to have all our luggage hand-searched since there were no x-ray machines, then we had to collect manually made luggage tags and boarding passes before finally clombing onto the plane at about 1pm.  We didn't take off until 2pm so we missed our connecting flight in Manilla which left at 2:15pm for Bangkok.  Once we arrived in Manilla, we were placed on the next flight to Bangkok which left at around 7pm.  We arrived in Bangkok very travel weary (except Emma was jacked on the adrenaline still I think!) and my bag was missing.  We waited another 20min and it turned up so we finally headed to our hotel and checked in at around midnight...nearly 16 hours since our alarming wake up call!  Emma was still feeling jumpy so we walked to a nearby pub for two beers before hitting the hay...phew!

Tragically, this earthquake has resulted in 185 fatalities to date and 9 people are still missing.  Aftershocks are still occurring in the area, some up to magnitudes over 5, which threaten already weakened structures.  A number of historic churches (one was nearly 400 years old!) were damaged or totally destroyed by the quake and a lot of people lost their homes.  The whole experience was brought closer to home because a few of the churches that were damaged or destroyed, we had toured and photographed only days before.  Very sad for those living there and very scary for us to experience.  Timing is everything, Emma and I were on the island of Bohol for 5 days staying about 40km from the epicenter but we were lucky enough to have left by ferry at 4:30pm, only 16 hours prior to the earthquake.  Had we not already left Bohol, we surely would have had a much scarier experience.  Ironically, our seat numbers on the ferry from Bohol were both in row 13.

Where the quake was

Where we were

Where we could have been (eep)

San Pedro Church in Loboc

The bell tower in Loboc

Baclayon Church - considered one of the oldest church in the Philippines and the best preserved (before the earthquake)

Loon's "Our Lady of Light" Church... completely destroyed

Definitely not to make light of the situation but.... another site we toured in Bohol was a Tarsier Sanctuary.  Tarsiers are the smallest known primate in the world weighing only 80-160g and measuring only 7.5-16cm tall.  Other interesting facts: These strange looking critters have enormous eyes, can rotate their heads 180 degrees (compared to humans mere 90 degrees), and their third finger (tarsus bone) is longer than their whole upper arm which gives them their name.  They are endangered and it is no wonder!  They are hopeless!  The ones we saw at the sanctuary had leaves around them formed into a sunshade.  I asked if the shelters were pre-built and then the Tarsiers utilized them during the day since they are nocturnal....nope...the staff at the sanctuary build shelters around the Tarsiers each day to protect them from wind, sun, and rain... HOPELESS!  Also, we were cautioned to use low voices and not to use camera flashes because Tarsiers easily become stressed and have been known to become suicidal due to stress.  Apparently they will beat their little heads against a tree branch until they die!  I had to laugh when I found this postcard yesterday and thought...

"Oh No!  The earthquake probably stressed the Tarsiers out...I wonder if they have all killed themselves by now!"

  

River Climbing, Canyoning, and Hot Springs Soaking in Cebu, Philippines

I am battered, bruised, stiff, sore, and scraped after two back-to-back days of adventure tours with "Planet Action Adventure", a tour company based out of Moalboal.  Despite my superficial "injuries" I thoroughly enjoyed both tours, saw some amazing scenery, got my heartrate up, spiked my adrenaline, and had a blast!

The first tour that I did on October 6th was River Climbing at Matutinao River.  The tour started at the base of the beautiful Kawasan waterfalls and then we followed the river upstream to a canyon where we entered the water in the shadows of the tall cliffs, swam through clear blue pools, fought against rapids, and climbed many small (and not so small!) waterfalls.  There were a couple opportunities to climb up the cliff walls, and jump back into the water from up to about 7m above.  The tour culminated with a BBQ lunch at the edge of the jungle.  Two young Canadian guys from Toronto; Jeff and Kevin, were on the tour and we had tons of fun!

Matutinao River

 Kawasan Falls

 

Kawasan Falls

Me Jane

 

Mario and Jimmy, our guides at the top of a little waterfall that was ridiculously hard to climb.  I made it to where Jimmy is standing and then slipped and fell back down and had to climb it all over again.  When I got to the top again.  I slipped and nearly repeated all over but I was dragged unceremoniously out before I could slide all the way down again.

 

I scraped my knees... still smiling though ;)

I'm staying at the Moalboal Backpackers Lodge in a private double room (shared bathroom) for 480 Pesos ($11.50 CAD) per night.  There is also a dorm with bunks (250 pesos/night = $6 CAD) or private rooms with private bathrooms for 580 pesos ($14/night).  It's a social place with beer and cards out on the upstairs bamboo patio/hangout area or out in front each evening and the second night I was here they celebrated having their 3333'th guest by hosting a free feast of local Philippine dishes with Chicken Adobo, BBQ Bangus Fish (national fish - milkfish, bony but delicious), noodles with prawns, Mongo bean soup (more like stew and delicious!  It was like lentils cooked in coconut milk with other seasonings), Mixed vegetables, BBQ pork, chicken, satay skewers, and free beer or pop!  Really nice of them and one of the best meals I've had in Asia so far!

Tilson, the owner in front of the sign and some of the guests in the foreground.

The next tour, which I did on October 7th was Canyoning at Montaneza Falls.  The Montaneza river threads it's way through a narrow canyon.  We climbed to the top of the canyon, had a quick lesson in rapelling and then we set off to the top of the river and spent the next 4 hours climbing and jumping down rapids and rapelling (absailing?) down a series of 5 waterfalls.  One of the waterfalls was 30m high and almost the last 15m were under an overhang so you had to dangle by your harness and let yourself down using the rope.  At the end of the tour, we walked out of the ravine into a riverbed where a natural hot spring, Mainit Hot Springs, entered the river and three pools were build beside/in the river to collect the spring water.  The hottest pool was a scalding 50 degrees Celsius!  We were able to have a soak on the way out to another delicious BBQ lunch and I snuck a very peaceful soak in my own private pool after lunch since there was only one local man and two others from the tour in the water and there are three pools.  I used my soak to reflect on the beauty of the canyon surrounded by lush jungle vegetation (some enormous leaves near the water were over 10 feet tall!), the sound of the waterfalls and rapids, a few raindrops falling, and some large and lazy butterflies fluttering by.  Kevin and Jeff did this tour too and we were joined by Max and Izzie, a young couple from Germany.  I liked this tour even more than the first one I did!

Volcanic peaks of Cebu

Philippines national animal, Water Buffalo

Izzie absailing the first waterfall

The crew from left; Kevin, Jeff, Izzie, Max, Me

Jimmy, one of our guides

Jeff about to absail one of the waterfalls

natural massage!

this photo is taken from above looking down on the waterfall featured in the next photo

Yup, I rapelled down that waterfall.  See the rope on the left side of the falls?

As a geologist I couldn't resist this photo op.

Such amazing scenery

Jeff taking a leap

Kevin's leap

I LOVED these hot springs... wonderful!

still smiling :)

50 degree C natural hot springs with alleged healing waters.  We will see if my skinned knees succumb to the power of the healing waters.