Philippines

Water therapy with sharks and turtles, islands, volcanoes and much more!

We had high expectations for the Philippines; we imagined white sandy beaches, blue clear water, and all of it would be only for us 🙂 Reality of course is a bit different, since the road to the beaches lies mainly through muddy noisy cities, and airports where the local tricycle drivers can be very annoying. The Philippines are a nation with thousands of little islands, and the safest way to travel is unfortunately by plane and tickets are not too expensive if you book it 2-3 weeks in advance.

Initially, we wanted to cross from the Malaysian part of Borneo to the city of Zamboanga in the south of the Philippines, but at quasi the last moment we checked safety information on official government websites and almost all of them strongly disadvised to cross these waters because of pirates. So before you take a ferry in the Philippines, better quickly do a safety check.

To fly to these paradise islands, you first have to get through Manila, well, see for yourself…

The first day turned out to be difficult for us, since from the capital we had to get to the small town of Talisay, near the famous Taal volcano.

After reading in some blog that buses can be easily caught from the highway, we stood unsuccessfully for 1.5 hours waving to fully loaded buses passing by. But it turned out to be much simpler, in about 20 minutes walking there was a bus station, from where we could take a bus basically every 10 minutes. Doh! So, do not believe any blogs, ask the locals! everything changes too quickly.

The bus dropped us in the town of Tagatay, from where we had to transfer to a local minibus (called a jeepney), but everything turned out to be not so simple. We were quickly surrounded by tricycle drivers urging us to take their taxi, since no jeepney was going where we needed to go. It’s hard to get clear information on that moment, since they basically block you from talking to the jeepney drivers, and the prices they offer are all over the place. If the locals pay 40 pesos for a trip, foreigners are quickly asked for 300 pesos or more. Okay, fair game, but when there’s 10 of them clamping you as soon as you get off a bus, it gets super annoying.

After a small break in a McDonalds (they didn’t follow us there) we figured out from the locals where the jeepney station was. Turns out that the jeepney service was actually over for the day, but one of the drivers went our way and offered to take us for a much lower price.

Our day ended with a dinner by candlelight. The power in the town was out due to an accident with the electricity lines.

The next morning we went on an excursion to the Taal volcano, which is located in the center of the lake, and you can only reach it by boat. Taking a local tour and agreeing on a price, we fell for a tourist trap. Tricycle drivers promised us “only 1500 for the boat! Really good price!”. On arrival to the pier (you know, when it gets hard to back down) the price suddenly increased to 2350, because there is also the “entrance fee”, “parking fee for the boat”, and an “obligatory guide” (not true)… etc. In general, it served as a good lesson, but it makes me a bit sad because we really started to mistrust everyone. Every time someone offered us a trip or a price, we quite distrustfully went over a list of questions to test if they were speaking the truth. I can’t imagine it’s fun for the honest people.

Anyway, the volcano itself was beautiful, and most amazingly on this island there is a small village basically living on a barrel of gunpowder.

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

Returning to Manila after a couple of days, we went to Palawan Island, which is quite popular among tourists, or rather everything that is north of the city of Puerto Princesa. South Palawan is closed to tourists, as it’s not a safe region right now, but there is one tour operator that organizes tours to the island of Balabak, with snow-white empty beaches. We met someone who went there and liked it very much, but we didn’t have time because we wanted to get to El Nido to meet up with friends again (the same friends from Cambodia and Laos!)

The Philippines is one of the top destinations in the world for diving and snorkeling, so the first thing we decided to see was what was hiding under water, accompanied by Paul and Julia. During the dive we were lucky enough to meet a turtle, and win it over with some grass.

El Nido is a beautiful place, but to get to the cliffs and beaches you mostly have to take a tour, and it’s very touristic. For example, in the shot below you can see the “secret lagoon”. Tip: every time someone tries to sell you something secret, it’s not 🙂

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

To avoid crowds of tourists, we were advised to go to El Coron or Port Barton (between Puerto Princesa and El Nido). But as luck had it, we were struck by some illness. You could’t drink the tap water in El Nido, and even brushing your teeth with it was disadvised. But despite all of our precautions, we caught something that knocked us out for almost a week. It’s good to have insurance! Total medical costs were around 500 euro.

We didn’t have time to explore Palawan since we had a flight booked to Cebu, so we continued onward in a semi-sick state (I have no idea how we survived the minivan from El Nido to Puerto Princesa).

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

On the island of Cebu we spent time in the city of Moalboal, where we liked everything – the atmosphere, the people, the food, the nature, the beach, the weather. The town is small, of course there are tourists too, but it’s not jam-packed, the beach is very long, and most importantly, everything can be seen from the shore without excursions! The seabed here goes down sharply (about 10-30 meters from the coast), so in this place you can see a lot of different fish, corals, large turtles and clouds of sardines!

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

After Cebu, we went to the city of Legazpi, where the active Mayon volcano is located. Next to Legazpi, there is the city of Donsol, which is famous for diving with whale sharks there, the approach to the excursions is much more ethical than on the island of Cebu (in Oslob, where these same sharks are fed by the tour operators, which violates their natural ecosystem).

On the way to the sharks, we decided to take a closer look at the volcano, and took advantage of the most popular way there – to get to the foot of the volcano on a quadbike!

These are the Jeepneys, called like that because they’re modified jeeps. All jeepneys have their own particular style and graffiti. Tricycles also put a lot of effort in their style! Filipino’s are very religious catholics so it’s common to see Jesus in these artworks.

It is very easy to get from Legazpi to Donzol, from the main bus station, but the minibus does not leave until all the places are full, so sometimes you have to wait a long time. We waited an hour to fill two empty places, so we decided to split the fare among all the passengers. Anyway there was not a lot of place left, we were literally sitting on/under our backpacks with no leg room at all.

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

Donsol is a small village that is actively developing with the arrival of tourists. The main attraction is of course whale sharks, but there are chances to also see large manta rays (while scuba diving in a specific place). The beaches in Donsol are far from being the most beautiful, as the sand is volcanic, and the water is opaque, as it is filled with plankton (just what whale sharks love!).

In general, the atmosphere in Donsol is homely. We stayed with a local Philippine family in one of their bedrooms.

To see whale sharks you have two options: you can encounter them while scuba diving (expensive, and no guarantee that you’ll see one) or while snorkeling (cheapest and most popular option, basically 100% guaranteed you will see at least one).

The very process of searching for sharks is very funny, groups of 6 tourists in one boat go to the sea, everyone sits on the edge in flippers and in a mask, and is waiting for a sign to jump, while the spotter is trying to see the shark’s shadow or fin in the water. As soon as they give a sign, you have to jump in as fast as possible and swim like a maniac, since the swimmers from other boats do not sleep either. Sometimes you can hover over a shark for a few minutes, but more often it dives deeper or swims away so quickly that you don’t have enough time to catch it. During our excursion we managed to see 4 different sharks, and 11 times we had to jump from the boat! But the impression from the first jump and the first meeting with the shark is of course the most awesome, it is unrealistically huge, it feels like swimming alongside a bus! The whale shark is the largest of the currently known shark species, as well as the largest of the modern fish. Its maximum size is at least 12.65 m, possibly up to 18 m.

And most importantly, sharks in general are not dangerous. Whale sharks even less so, since they are filter feeders eating plankton and they don’t care about humans.

We also managed to see a whale shark while diving, at a depth of 22 m, not so close, but there it was only us and her!)))

Having a little rest at the pool, we decided to go fishing. It was not the best idea, as it turned out that fishing there is so-so, and the locals catch only with nets. But as they say, everyone is willing to negotiate, and we found volunteers to go fishing with us for a couple of hours.

One more unique phenomenon can be observed in Donsol at night – fireflies. We had long doubted whether to go on this not very popular excursion, but it was very cheap, so we went and did not regret it at all. The tour lasts about 1-1.5h, where they take you by boat along the river, and along the banks you can see some trees lighting up like Christmas. To one such tree, we came quite close, and watch this miracle close up, and even were able to hold fireflies in our hands. The coolest thing is that the flies pulse their light synchronized with each other! It’s very dim light, so it’s hard to take a photo of it, but here’s our artistic impression of it 🙂 Filming it was more successful!

By the way, there’s a place where you can try Chili ice cream in Legazpi! With levels of spicyness from 1 to 4. We tried level 2, I can’t imagine level 4 (labelled “Volcano”).

Next stop: Indonesia!