Americana in the Philippines

One of the fun things about stopping back in Manila on our way back to the mainland was catching up with my former roommate (France), Jeff. I think I mentioned before that he is teaching in Shanghai at one of the universities. He signed on for a 2nd year. We had intended to do some sightseeing together, but unfortunately we had some pretty bad weather (typhoon weather!) so we ended up heading back to Robinson's Mall. We first enjoyed a meal at TGI Fridays.

 After Friday's we went to the bookstore in the mall. It was fun looking around and actually having the majority of books and magazines in English! And the Christmas decorations were already out. Really? It's the first week of October!

 But, they also had out the Halloween decorations. Which, surprisingly enough, I haven't really seen at all in China. Wal-Mart by me has a small end cap of some masks/wings, but that is basically it. I like how this is called the "creepy corner".

As we continued to wander the mall, we spotted a Wendy's. I don't really even like Wendy's that much, but we stopped in and got Frosties. I got a root beer float. I really don't like those much either, but it just sounded good and they don't have root beer readily available in China. Or Wendy's.

After perusing the mall a bit (and buying lots of reeces peanut butter cups--don't judge me!), we decided to go see a movie. We were going to be all cultural and see a Filipino movie... but, they were in Tagalong with no subtitles. So we settled for a different movie. Great way to end the week's vacation :)

Manila Philippines Temple

On our way back from Boracay via Kalibo, we stopped back in Manila for the night. When we arrived at the airport, we decided to go straight to the Manila Temple to take some pictures before checking into our hostel. It was kind of an interested start. Apparently in Manila there are the white taxis and the yellow taxis. Yellow taxis start their fares at 70 pesos, and white taxis start at 40 pesos. As we were waiting at the airport for a taxi, we must have seen at least half a dozen unoccupied ones drive by. We asked the men who were coordinating the line and they said "You're in line for a yellow taxi" When asked what the difference was, he just said they had different starting rates... weird. We ended up getting a white taxi while the others continued to stand in line. Maybe they knew something we didn't? Who knows? 

So we get in the taxi and tell the driver where we want to go. He drives for about 2-3 minutes, then pulls over and tells us he is out of gas. He hails another taxi for us and we switch our things over. Then, we ask the other driver to start the meter and he tells us our original driver told him we'd pay 1000 pesos. We said no, we will pay the metered rate. Then he asked us where we lived, and we said China... he reluctantly agreed. We explained we wanted to go take pictures at the first address, then get dropped off at the hostel. He kept saying they are very far very far. We insisted and he drove. A few minutes into the drive he asked if we were Mormon because we were going the the Mormon Temple (we hadn't told him that, we just showed the address). I told him I was, and he said "Oh, that's good" then he started telling us stories about the poverty in Manila and to make sure we keep the windows rolled up and the doors locked because it is common for young kids to come up to taxis and try to rob people at knife point. Uh, thanks taxi man. Luckily we drove mainly on the freeway to our destinations. 

The Manila Temple is gated and fenced in. The security guard almost didn't let us drive into the compound because I didn't have a temple recommend. After a few minutes of waiting for him to communicate with someone on the radio, he let us in. It was about to rain, but I managed to snap a few shots while Ashley stayed in the taxi so he wouldn't leave us behind. 

 

 Because I was so close I couldn't get the whole picture without cutting off the top.

As we were leaving, I noticed there was an MTC (Missionary Training Center) across the street. Too bad we were driving too fast to get a picture.

Fish Spa!

One of the things Ashley and I had booked for this trip was a day at the spa. Not any spa, though. My Fish Spa. It's one of those places where you stick your feet in a fish pool and they eat off the dead skin. Sounds appetizing, right? :) It is said to naturally exfoliate skin, relieve the tension in your feet, promote blood circulation and help release stress. I don't know if all those claims are actually true, but it was fun to try. It tickles a little bit at first, but really feels like a cat's sandpaper tongue is licking your feet. This particular place had two different types of fish. One pool had little fish and one had bigger fish. I tried both, and liked the bigger ones better. 

 

 The spa also had a hot tub looking pool that you could sit in. We didn't try that one.

Here's a closer look at the fish on my feet. After spending 30 minutes with the fish, we had a 60 minute body massage followed by a 30 minute facial massage. Ashley and I were both glad we saved this for our last day... otherwise, we would have been back every. single. day. It was really enjoyable. All for 1100 pesos (about $24). They were practically giving it away!

Helmet Diving

Here's the boat we took out to the platform.

I've always wanted to try helmet diving--I've seen it advertised on cruise line excursions for a few years now, but it is always so stinkin' expensive for 15-30 minutes under the sea (heheh get the Disney reference there? I thought so.) When I saw it advertised in Boracay for 400 pesos, I knew we had to try it. We were able to bargain with one of the ladies on the beach and got it down to 250 pesos (roughly $6)--a steal! They were practically giving it away! We were hooked--or at least, I was. Ashley again was a trooper and decided that this trip would be full of new experiences.

We were kind of shocked when we got to the meeting point and we were the only ones on the boat out to helmet dive. Little did we know that there'd be a massive amount of people on a floating platform also waiting to go. After waiting around for 45 minutes or so, it was our turn to be briefed.

Waiting to be briefed

The "pressurized" helmets

The man explained that the helmets weigh 35 kilos (over 70 lbs) and that they are pressurized. He also said that you can move your head side to side, but don't look down or else water will fill your helmet. Uh, that's a little scary. He taught us a few hand signals to communicate with the divers underwater in case we needed any assistance. Then, we put on some rubber shoes and got ready to go under. Ashley went first (I was shocked! I wanted to wait and see other people first). You climb off the platform a few steps down a ladder and the assistant places your helmet on you and the diver grabs you and takes you to the ocean floor. One thing he didn't mention that would have calmed my nerves a little is that the helmets are connected to a line of oxygen at all times... maybe that's what he meant by pressurized? Once you are underwater, the helmets only weigh about 2 lbs. Surprisingly, it is very hard to stand under water. Your body wants to keep floating around all willy nilly. Ashley described it best when she said that basically we were paying the company to put 70+ lbs of cement on our heads to walk on the ocean floor. Well said, Ashley.

The package also included several pictures and a video of us actually underwater. I look kind of scared and funny under there, but I thought you might enjoy seeing it. The "photographer" kept making hand signals at us so I wasn't sure if he was recording or taking a picture or what exactly he wanted us to do. Good times.

Notice the water level in the helmets? The helmets aren't like suctioned off from the water. It's like putting a bucket upside down into water. The water stays out to a certain extent. I was a bit terrified to move too much because I didn't want to drown. Notice the hands on the top of our helmets? The diver was holding us down so we didn't float too much. I imagine walking on the ocean floor is comparable to walking on the moon--kind of a weightless feeling.

Never a dull moment :)

Relaxing

One of the main things we wanted out of this holiday was a chance to relax. What better place to relax than on a private beach in the middle of nowhere.

 

Here's a fun panoramic of Ashley on the beach.

 This is just a shot of the streets of Boracay driving by in a trike. Kind of like most beach towns, maybe a little more rundown except in the touristy areas.

 We asked our driver to take a picture of us inside the trike. So basically it is a motorcycle attached to a side car. In the front it seats two people, and four more in the back (where Ashley is sitting). We could both squeeze in side by side on one of the benches, but I wouldn't recommend it because you have to be hunched over anyway :)

 In front of our resort sign.

 Here's a couple shots of me on the private beach. Just beyond the greenery is the hole in the rock formation from the last post.

 One of the souvenirs that's famous here is giant flip flops. Notice the Angry Birds one. Those aren't even the biggest ones I saw. They had all sorts of shaped flip flops--everything you can possibly imagine, and even some inappropriately shaped ones. I'll leave that up to your imagination.

 As we were walking through the water, Ashley spotted this blue starfish. Naturally we had to pick it up for a photo op.

And no beach vacation is complete without a little written message in the sand. Unfortunately, being on a private beach means there aren't really many people around to take pictures for you. We had to settle on taking turns :) And no, that isn't a heart in the top right corner, that is Mickey Mouse.

Snorkeling, Island Hopping, & Good Eats

Day two in Boracay was spent exploring the island by land and by sea. We woke up the next morning and made it down to D*Mall area. We had pre-arranged an island hopping package through Groupon. It was nice to have something planned but we had no idea how easy it would be to set something up on site. It lasted about three hours.We really didn't have any details about the trip until we were experiencing it. We started at Boat Station 2, boarded the boat with three other people, and then headed over to Crocodile Island for some snorkeling. After snorkeling, we got back on the boat and headed further toward Ilig-Iligan Beach. We were given the option to explore the beach area or snorkel. We decided to explore the beach area.

Here's just a little map where I've pointed out the places we explored. After we asked where we were, I was surprised to learn that "island hopping" really just meant exploring Boracay by boat. Fail.

The top picture is the boat we boarded. Notice the guy standing in the water? That's how you get on--you just walk out in the water and climb this little wooden board that they call a ladder. I'm glad I didn't trip and fall into the water :) The other pictures are of Ashley and I on the boat, and our group. The girl sitting next to me is from China and the other couple is from Malaysia.

Ashley was a real trooper on this outing--I didn't realize she had never been snorkeling before and despite difficulties with the sub-par equipment, she was able to figure it out. While we were in the water snorkeling, our guides gave us food to feed the fish so they'd swim close to us. We saw several schools of fish, starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers amongst other sealife. We also saw several men with entrepreneurial spirits--they paddled up to the boats of tourists in canoes selling all sorts of things--ice cream, drinks, snacks. Right out in the middle of the ocean. It started to rain during our snorkeling bit--luckily we were already soaked so it didn't matter too much. Once we got back on the boat, the "sea ranger" came around to collect a fee for snorkeling. We kept asking what the fee was for (we thought it was possibly for using their snorkeling equipment) but couldn't get a straight answer. Finally, each person on the boat ended up paying the fee even though we were all confused as to why we weren't told of it up front. I think it was 20 pesos each (.50 cents) but it is the principle my friends :)

 Funny story. We saw this cool hole in the rock formation and thought it was so pretty. Later on that night, we were in the infinity pool at our resort overlooking the ocean and noticed this view again. Turns out, the "island hopping" was really exploring New Coast which is the side of the island by our resort. Our resort's private beach is literally on the other side of this rock!

 Ocean view.

 Parasailing! One day I will try this :)

 Little shack where we enjoyed the views and a cold soda.

 Every day the locals build these giant sand castles and put out a little tip jar so tourists will tip them to take a picture with the castle. We fell for it :) Well worth our $1.

Off to Boracay via Caticlan

Did I mention Boracay is a super tiny island and a bit remote? And it doesn't have an airport. The closest one is on an adjacent island--the Caticlan airport. From there, you must take a trike to the ferry, and then a ferry to the island, and then another trike to your final destination. Sound exhausting? It is. Luckily, there is beautiful scenery to enjoy along the way. Like cows & goats, grazing on the grass along the runway. Yup, the airport is one of those tiny airports. Only small planes can land there. And you get to walk up the stairs on the tarmac to board and disembark from the plane.

Just to give a bit of perspective, I started at the blue marker, down to the yellow, then the green, finally the red. Basically, you can't even see Boracay on a map. The Philippines is a collection of islands, somewhere over 7000 islands. I made a closer map to show.  There's a starfish on Boracay in the map below :)

This is the plane we boarded at the Manila airport headed towards Caticlan. So small. I had to laugh when after I checked in for the flight, the attendant asked all passengers to head over to the body weight counter. That's right. Not only do they weigh the luggage for this flight, they weigh you. Luckily, you step on a scale and the numbers aren't visible on the passenger side, only the attendant side. Then of course I get seated by this massive guy on the flight. He was joking about the plane being so small, and I mentioned I thought it was funny they weighed everyone. And he looks at me and says Oh, I must have missed that part. He wasn't joking.

 The flight takes roughly an hour, over water and tiny islands. It was raining when we landed. Here's a shot of right outside the airport. The airport in Caticlan is so tiny there is not waiting area. You walk through security and then you walk on the plane. No vending machines, no gift shops. All of those are at little shacks outside the airport.

 

One of the Piers (Ashley's photo)

We used a company to arrange all of our transportation from the airports to our resorts. It was well worth the money to not worry about getting from point A to point B, C, D :) I was too busy enjoying the views to take pictures of the ride to the ferry, and the ferry ride itself. Ashley and I had both packed light--she had a purse and backpack, and I had a purse and small rolling suitcase. I was thinking the ferry would be like a normal ferry--you go out on a pier and then walk on. Not so much. The pier was made of bamboo tied together and very uneven. I was too concerned with not falling in the ocean to take a picture. Then, on the Boracay side, the boat just basically pulls right up to the sandy beach. No pier. They put the little ladder down, and you climb down (in a bit of water/sand) and then walk up the beach with all your life's possessions. Sounds amazing, right? ;) Fortunately for me, there were lots of porters willing to carry my bag up to the "road". That is definitely a loose term. Tipping in the Philippines is expected (unlike China--it was a hard change!) but the standard tip for a bag is 20 pesos (and not Mexican pesos--different currency, same word). 20 pesos is roughly 50 cents. I think I can handle that. From what I saw, there was only one main road on the island. Our transportation company loaded us and a few others onto a vehicle that was basically a golf cart with 4 rows of seats. We drove and drove and drove, dropping passengers off along the way until we finally made it to our resort--Fairways and Blue Water. Yes, we paid for a resort. We learned our lesson over Chinese New Year--that many days in a shared hostel is too much. This resort was gorgeous--2 infinity pools, countless "villas" and a private beach. Here's a couple photos of our room:

 I stole the following few pictures from Ashley--she was better at capturing the full beauty of the resort than I. We stayed in one of the rooms in this villa:

 The view from our room--it's on a golf course!

 The infinity pool overlooking the private beach.

Ashley and I at dinner the first night.

When we finally settled in we were super hungry. Our resort offers shuttles down to the main strip every hour on the hour. We had just missed one of the shuttles, and the resort charges an outrageous fee for "special trips". Little did we know we could get a trike just outside for $1.50... so we ended up eating at the resort restaurant. It sits on a hill overlooking the pool and the ocean. So pretty :)

Manila bound!

Every year, China celebrates National Holiday (Golden Week). It is a week-long event to allow families the opportunity to get together and to promote domestic tourism. Read: Tens of Millions (literally) of people traveling at the same time=chaos in China. So, naturally, Ashley and I fled the country. By fled I really mean left on our own free will. I started my journey in Nanjing, then on to Hong Kong for a layover (Ashley and I met up here) and then on to Manila. It took a taxi, two planes, and another taxi to get to our hostel in Manila, and that wasn't even all of the travel. 

 

 First, our layover in Hong Kong. It was about 5 hours, but we were excited to lay over there as there is good food. I got this delicious bacon and mozzarella sandwich and some doritos. As we were walking back to our gate, we stumbled upon this:

That's right, Popeyes Chicken. I wasn't really hungry, but I also couldn't pass up the opportunity. So I got a biscuit and honey, and some red beans and rice. It tasted just like it should.

Then we caught our flight to Manila. Since it was an international flight (so was the one to Hong Kong), we were on a massive plane that had the little TVs at each seat. Kinda cool. It was about a two hour flight. Once we got to Manila, we were pleased that everyone spoke some degree of English. It was refreshing. We hopped in a taxi and made our way to our hostel--Where2Next. Even though it was night when we arrived, and the area looked a little seedy, Ashley and I ventured out to find dinner. And we found American jackpot. TGI Fridays, Starbucks, Wendys, Krispy Creme and a slew of other places offering western foods. We ate dinner and then headed back to the hostel for a good nights sleep as we had more traveling ahead of us the next day.

Aside from the child beggars and prostitutes on the streets, we quite liked our hostel. And it was cool to see all the jeepneys transporting people around town.  A different kind of public transportation.