Philippines! ...Twice!
Part 1 - Marc-Andre (MA), Tim Murphy (TM), Rob DeAbreu and I in the Philippines!
Some of you who know Rob, may know that he's working at a school in Vietnam. He had the week off as well and we decided to meet up in the Philippines (Php). MA and TM (two friends of mine that I work with) and I had landed at Clark Int'l Airport on the island of Luzon and TM headed into the Cordillera Mountains straight away. As Rob could only arrive a day later, MA and I had a day to kill in/around the airport area.
The first thing to do was find a place to stay. This proved to be a little more difficult than expected. We couldn't find a place that didn't rent rooms hourly. And many of them had a three hour max on Friday/Saturday nights!!
After eventually finding a room, we rented motorbikes and, with a local "friend" Rodrigo, we decided to follow our plan to climb a volcano: Mount Pinatubo. Rodrigo really didn't know where he was going and we were still an hour away from the volcano by sunset. Rodrigo on his way out asked to "borrow" 500 Pesos. That soured the experience a bit.
The next day we hopped on our bikes and headed to the airport to pick up Rob. He got on the back of my bike and five minutes later we were pulled over by a cop who gave us a hard time because Rob wasn't wearing a helmet. MA and I hadn't thought of getting an extra helmet the day before when we had rented the bikes (we hadn't planned on using them to pick up Rob) and Rob lives in Hanoi - he is used to taking motorcycle taxis (none of which offer passenger helmets). After giving us a hard time for about 15 minutes, Rob sweet-talked him into letting us go. We are still unsure if he was a good cop or if he was just looking for a bribe.
The three of us got on a bus and headed north to the Cordilleras to meet up with TM. We arrived in Banaue at 4:30am, had breakfast, woke up TM, and headed to the village of Batad. Batad is a small, remote village with no roads in or out. The only way to get there is to trek for 2 hours. There are no cars, no motorcycles, no honking, no yelling, no screaming, no hustle-and-bustle of city life. And the people are amazing.
On our trek into the village we met a local group of girl guides and their teacher, Jenelyn. We had a lot of fun chatting with them and taking photos.
We only spent one night in Batad, but it was easily a highlight of our trip. Our accomodation was spectacular: we looked out over stunning rice terraces. While there, we trekked to a waterfall, walked through the rice terraces, had a traditional dinner made by our hostess, Mirza.
In the village we met a woman names Feliza, who showed us how to pound rice, explained the harvesting process, and let us have a go at the pounding.
Batad truly is a timeless place. It has a serene and peaceful feel, unlike any other place I have been. It is the type of place I'd like to go back to someday, spend an extended period of time there, really get to know the people and way of life.
We trekked out of Batad and made our way to the junction where we caught a jeep towards Banaue (Jeeps are the common mode of transport in the Php - they act as little mini buses, but there are no bus stops; They follow a certain route, and you just flag them down when you want to get on, and let the driver know when you want to get off). On the road to Banaue we met up with a landslide! We got out of the jeep and crossed the landslide on foot. This would not be the only time that we (to paraphrase Rob) toyed with our existence.
This is Rob's pic:
We made it back to Banaue and said bye to TM, who was catching a flight into the Visayas for some beach time on Boracay.
The next day MA, Rob and I caught a jeep to Sagada. This was a two hour ride (about 40km) that was stunning. We drove along a mountain ridge; Across from us, another; and in the valley between, the Chico River, rice paddies and little villages on its banks.
In Sagada we did some caving. We hired a guide and went into one cave on one side of a mountain, made our way a few hundred feet beneath the surface and a few hours later, came out on the other side. This was a great bit of fun: true caving! Our guide, Francis, had a kerosene lamp and lead the way. We would wander into a great cavern, look all around and believe we had reached a dead end; and then Francis would descend through a crack that would not fit both him and the lamp -so he had to carry it after him on his head. We slithered through tunnels on our bellies, got soaked by underground waterfalls, and forded an underground river. This was MA's favourite part: he crossed the river with his bag over his head and felt like a soldier in 'Nam (we all did, a little). Rob's "favourite" part was when he had to make his way along a little cliff inside one of the caves. MA and I have done a little rock climbing, but Rob, with no experience, doing it for the first time in a pitch-black cave was spread eagled on the rock, hugging it for dear life -much to the amusement of the rest of us. This was the second time on the trip that he was "standing on the brink of near-death". When all was said and done, and we had made it out from the underground, he did agree that it really was a great bit of fun.
The next day, we spent a few hours wandering around Sagada, and then headed out of the Cordillera mountains. Here the rides began: We had 7 connections, a broken-down jeep, and a total of 18 hours travel before we arrived at our next destination: Baler beach on the east coast of Luzon -arrival time 5:00am. We found a place to stay right on the beach; the guys crashed while I stayed up to see the sunrise.
Later in the morning we got a 1 hr surfing "lesson". It was the worst lesson ever. There was about 2 min of actual instruction. The "instructors" told us, "Ok, you do this: step1, step2, step3". And then we went out to the water. After the "lesson" the guys relaxed on the beach and strolled around. I spent the next day and a halfsurfing trying to surf and relaxing. This was my first time in the Pacific Ocean!
After a great day-and-a-half on the Pacific, we hopped on a bus to Manila to meet up with TM, who had landed a few hours earler, and decided to go out for a drink and swap stories. We went to sleep at 3:30am that night. After a solid night's rest, we got up at 5:00am to catch our bus to Clark Airfield (in order to beat the Manila traffic) to catch our 11:45 flight back to KL.
I think the trip was a little less restful than what Rob is used to, but in the end I think he had fun. I think we can all agree that
1. It was a great trip
2. We were in good company
3. The Philippines is a fantastically diverse place
4. Philippinos are a wonderful people
5. We have seen the Philippines!
....err...sort of....1 island down, 7106 to go
Part 2 - Tim Ley and I in the Philippines!
Not more than three weeks passed before I found myself on that same ol' flight to the Philippines. But this time, with Timmy! We had actually booked this trip months ago (got a super deal with AirAsia). We had Wed-Fri off for Deepavali and had decided take the opportunity to do a little diving in the Php. (I don't have a whole lot of pics from this trip as most of our time was spent on buses and the rest of it was spent at depth)
Our first dive site was Subic Bay; the US Navy had a base there and there are a few wrecks at the bottom of the bay. We were excited to dive the USS New York (and in fact this is the reason we went), a battle cruiser scuttled by the US to keep the Japanese from getting to it. Unfortunately, the inconsiderate US Navy had docked a military vessel in the port at Subic -the same weekend as our trip! (And because of terrorist concerns, all dives on the bay are out-of-bounds when military ships are in port).
Thus we did not get to do the dive we had gone there to do, but we did do two other wreck dives: El Capitan, a nice ship laying on its side; and San Quentin an old Spanish galleon that's been sitting on the bottom of the sea for over a hundred years (so there's not much left of it, but it was still a nice dive). Crawling along on El Capitan, was a peacock mantis shrimp that really looked more like a cartoon character than a living animal. On the San Quentin "wreck" we did get to see a few giant clams -these were very neat.
We had traveled for 12 hours by plane, jeep, and bus to get to Subic bay and do 2 dives. We now proceeded to travel for over a day by jeep, bus, and boat to get to the island of Mindoro.
On Mindoro we managed to squeeze in 5 more dives, including some nice deep dives to wrecks, coral gardens, a shark cave (we did this as a night dive, but unfortunately we didn't see any sharks). One of the dives called "The Canyons" had a current, 30m below the surface, like I've never seen before. "Dive Sites of the Philippines" describes "the canyons" as having "a fierce current...making it a world-class exhilerating drift-dive". Here Tim would like to interject and add a little anecdote:
I've heard Leon's version of this story and I must say it lacks a certain perspective. First of all, fierce barely begins to describe the current. Our dive guide told us to stay low and hold on if we needed. What she should have said was if we didn't hold on with all our will, we would never be seen again! We were pretty well crawling along the reef one grip at a time. I have the cuts to prove it. Conscious dive-buddy that I am, I'm keeping my eye on your beloved Leon. And then it happened. What looked like a solid hold for Leon snapped in his hand and he sailed off!! Think back to all those Road Runner cartoons where Wiley E Coyote runs off a cliff, pauses in mid-air and then plummets. Insert Leon, a broken piece of coral and a swift current..." -Tim
With our dives done, we said bye to Mindoro and began our days travel to the airport to catch our flight back to KL.
There! The Philippines...check! ...sort of; 2 islands down, 7105 to go!
I thought it would be funny to add up our travel time (plane, bus, jeep, boat) and compare it to our bottom time (dive time) but Tim said that if, in fact, I do this, I'd better keep it to myself :)
Oh yeah; In case you're looking through the Photo Album and wondering why my hair is short in the pics, my students shaved my head a few weeks ago. More on this later...
Some of you who know Rob, may know that he's working at a school in Vietnam. He had the week off as well and we decided to meet up in the Philippines (Php). MA and TM (two friends of mine that I work with) and I had landed at Clark Int'l Airport on the island of Luzon and TM headed into the Cordillera Mountains straight away. As Rob could only arrive a day later, MA and I had a day to kill in/around the airport area.
The first thing to do was find a place to stay. This proved to be a little more difficult than expected. We couldn't find a place that didn't rent rooms hourly. And many of them had a three hour max on Friday/Saturday nights!!
After eventually finding a room, we rented motorbikes and, with a local "friend" Rodrigo, we decided to follow our plan to climb a volcano: Mount Pinatubo. Rodrigo really didn't know where he was going and we were still an hour away from the volcano by sunset. Rodrigo on his way out asked to "borrow" 500 Pesos. That soured the experience a bit.
The next day we hopped on our bikes and headed to the airport to pick up Rob. He got on the back of my bike and five minutes later we were pulled over by a cop who gave us a hard time because Rob wasn't wearing a helmet. MA and I hadn't thought of getting an extra helmet the day before when we had rented the bikes (we hadn't planned on using them to pick up Rob) and Rob lives in Hanoi - he is used to taking motorcycle taxis (none of which offer passenger helmets). After giving us a hard time for about 15 minutes, Rob sweet-talked him into letting us go. We are still unsure if he was a good cop or if he was just looking for a bribe.
The three of us got on a bus and headed north to the Cordilleras to meet up with TM. We arrived in Banaue at 4:30am, had breakfast, woke up TM, and headed to the village of Batad. Batad is a small, remote village with no roads in or out. The only way to get there is to trek for 2 hours. There are no cars, no motorcycles, no honking, no yelling, no screaming, no hustle-and-bustle of city life. And the people are amazing.
On our trek into the village we met a local group of girl guides and their teacher, Jenelyn. We had a lot of fun chatting with them and taking photos.
We only spent one night in Batad, but it was easily a highlight of our trip. Our accomodation was spectacular: we looked out over stunning rice terraces. While there, we trekked to a waterfall, walked through the rice terraces, had a traditional dinner made by our hostess, Mirza.In the village we met a woman names Feliza, who showed us how to pound rice, explained the harvesting process, and let us have a go at the pounding.
Batad truly is a timeless place. It has a serene and peaceful feel, unlike any other place I have been. It is the type of place I'd like to go back to someday, spend an extended period of time there, really get to know the people and way of life.
We trekked out of Batad and made our way to the junction where we caught a jeep towards Banaue (Jeeps are the common mode of transport in the Php - they act as little mini buses, but there are no bus stops; They follow a certain route, and you just flag them down when you want to get on, and let the driver know when you want to get off). On the road to Banaue we met up with a landslide! We got out of the jeep and crossed the landslide on foot. This would not be the only time that we (to paraphrase Rob) toyed with our existence.
This is Rob's pic:
We made it back to Banaue and said bye to TM, who was catching a flight into the Visayas for some beach time on Boracay.
The next day MA, Rob and I caught a jeep to Sagada. This was a two hour ride (about 40km) that was stunning. We drove along a mountain ridge; Across from us, another; and in the valley between, the Chico River, rice paddies and little villages on its banks.
In Sagada we did some caving. We hired a guide and went into one cave on one side of a mountain, made our way a few hundred feet beneath the surface and a few hours later, came out on the other side. This was a great bit of fun: true caving! Our guide, Francis, had a kerosene lamp and lead the way. We would wander into a great cavern, look all around and believe we had reached a dead end; and then Francis would descend through a crack that would not fit both him and the lamp -so he had to carry it after him on his head. We slithered through tunnels on our bellies, got soaked by underground waterfalls, and forded an underground river. This was MA's favourite part: he crossed the river with his bag over his head and felt like a soldier in 'Nam (we all did, a little). Rob's "favourite" part was when he had to make his way along a little cliff inside one of the caves. MA and I have done a little rock climbing, but Rob, with no experience, doing it for the first time in a pitch-black cave was spread eagled on the rock, hugging it for dear life -much to the amusement of the rest of us. This was the second time on the trip that he was "standing on the brink of near-death". When all was said and done, and we had made it out from the underground, he did agree that it really was a great bit of fun.
The next day, we spent a few hours wandering around Sagada, and then headed out of the Cordillera mountains. Here the rides began: We had 7 connections, a broken-down jeep, and a total of 18 hours travel before we arrived at our next destination: Baler beach on the east coast of Luzon -arrival time 5:00am. We found a place to stay right on the beach; the guys crashed while I stayed up to see the sunrise.
Later in the morning we got a 1 hr surfing "lesson". It was the worst lesson ever. There was about 2 min of actual instruction. The "instructors" told us, "Ok, you do this: step1, step2, step3". And then we went out to the water. After the "lesson" the guys relaxed on the beach and strolled around. I spent the next day and a half
After a great day-and-a-half on the Pacific, we hopped on a bus to Manila to meet up with TM, who had landed a few hours earler, and decided to go out for a drink and swap stories. We went to sleep at 3:30am that night. After a solid night's rest, we got up at 5:00am to catch our bus to Clark Airfield (in order to beat the Manila traffic) to catch our 11:45 flight back to KL.
I think the trip was a little less restful than what Rob is used to, but in the end I think he had fun. I think we can all agree that
1. It was a great trip
2. We were in good company
3. The Philippines is a fantastically diverse place
4. Philippinos are a wonderful people
5. We have seen the Philippines!
....err...sort of....1 island down, 7106 to go
Part 2 - Tim Ley and I in the Philippines!
Not more than three weeks passed before I found myself on that same ol' flight to the Philippines. But this time, with Timmy! We had actually booked this trip months ago (got a super deal with AirAsia). We had Wed-Fri off for Deepavali and had decided take the opportunity to do a little diving in the Php. (I don't have a whole lot of pics from this trip as most of our time was spent on buses and the rest of it was spent at depth)
Our first dive site was Subic Bay; the US Navy had a base there and there are a few wrecks at the bottom of the bay. We were excited to dive the USS New York (and in fact this is the reason we went), a battle cruiser scuttled by the US to keep the Japanese from getting to it. Unfortunately, the inconsiderate US Navy had docked a military vessel in the port at Subic -the same weekend as our trip! (And because of terrorist concerns, all dives on the bay are out-of-bounds when military ships are in port).
Thus we did not get to do the dive we had gone there to do, but we did do two other wreck dives: El Capitan, a nice ship laying on its side; and San Quentin an old Spanish galleon that's been sitting on the bottom of the sea for over a hundred years (so there's not much left of it, but it was still a nice dive). Crawling along on El Capitan, was a peacock mantis shrimp that really looked more like a cartoon character than a living animal. On the San Quentin "wreck" we did get to see a few giant clams -these were very neat.
We had traveled for 12 hours by plane, jeep, and bus to get to Subic bay and do 2 dives. We now proceeded to travel for over a day by jeep, bus, and boat to get to the island of Mindoro.
On Mindoro we managed to squeeze in 5 more dives, including some nice deep dives to wrecks, coral gardens, a shark cave (we did this as a night dive, but unfortunately we didn't see any sharks). One of the dives called "The Canyons" had a current, 30m below the surface, like I've never seen before. "Dive Sites of the Philippines" describes "the canyons" as having "a fierce current...making it a world-class exhilerating drift-dive". Here Tim would like to interject and add a little anecdote:
I've heard Leon's version of this story and I must say it lacks a certain perspective. First of all, fierce barely begins to describe the current. Our dive guide told us to stay low and hold on if we needed. What she should have said was if we didn't hold on with all our will, we would never be seen again! We were pretty well crawling along the reef one grip at a time. I have the cuts to prove it. Conscious dive-buddy that I am, I'm keeping my eye on your beloved Leon. And then it happened. What looked like a solid hold for Leon snapped in his hand and he sailed off!! Think back to all those Road Runner cartoons where Wiley E Coyote runs off a cliff, pauses in mid-air and then plummets. Insert Leon, a broken piece of coral and a swift current..." -Tim
With our dives done, we said bye to Mindoro and began our days travel to the airport to catch our flight back to KL.
There! The Philippines...check! ...sort of; 2 islands down, 7105 to go!
I thought it would be funny to add up our travel time (plane, bus, jeep, boat) and compare it to our bottom time (dive time) but Tim said that if, in fact, I do this, I'd better keep it to myself :)
Oh yeah; In case you're looking through the Photo Album and wondering why my hair is short in the pics, my students shaved my head a few weeks ago. More on this later...
posted by Leon at 10:13 PM
6 Comments:
Really and truly, you know how to travel! What about Angeles though, not gonna mention it??
I'm pretty sure this is what I write about all of your blogs, but once again, I am jealous! Perhaps someday I'll write a blog about my days (wake up, sit in front of a computer for 9 hours, etc. etc.) and you'll understand why I feel the need to make the same comment every time. Looks like another fantastic experience though! I've been meaning to write you an e-mail for like a month now - nothing important, update you on my boring life, see how things are with you - so drop me a line if you get a chance, and let me know.
P.S (sorry for the split post...I had to read the phillipines post in 2 sittings). I do believe there is an underwater case for your camera...have you ever considered buying it for your dives? I would love to see pics from that...
Leo, I love your stories. Especially hearing the other side to stories. Always good for entertainment. That's what we love and miss about you. It's quite quiet over here that's for sure. :)
2.5 more weeks until we leave for Mexico to get married! Yes that's the amount of time you have left to rescue Jim. :P
Hey Mr. Varga. It's been awhile.
Nice blog, wow!
Glad to see you enjoy your adventurous travel.
If you want to travel to Sumatra, you gotta let me know, I can take you to Gunung Kerinchi. My hometown is the nearest city from that mountain. ;)
Hidayat
Thanks Laura! Nice of you to say so.
Cher: always nice to hear your comment ;)
(Also, thanks for the camera tip; I was unaware that there existed a case for this camera. Thanks!)
Kathy: I've been trying to rescue Jim for years! Now he's beyond saving ;)
All the best! Hope you all have a blast in Mexico!
Hi Hidayat! It has been awhile. Nice to hear from you. Next time I'm in Sumatra, we're climbing Kerinchi! (I had actually considered climbing it on my trip, but it was too far out of my way -I landed in Padang and went north)
Post a Comment
<< Home