This holiday had been brought to you by the letter B

Banter, Bohol, bridges, Boracay, boats, Busaunga, more boats, Banaue, Batad and much more.........

Well it was one hell of an adventure as always.  No one will be surprised to hear that it wasn't a disaster free holiday but myself and Denise had a great time.

The Chocolate Hills, the tarsiers and the hanging bridge

I picked her up in Manila and we stayed overnight in the airport hotel.  The next morning we left for Bohol.  We arrive in Tagbilaran and I had already organised a driver to take us around all the sites.  We basically had the quickest trip around the island.  We visited the chocolate hills first, the tarsiers, the extremely terrifying hanging bridge and we had our lunch on a Loboc River cruise.


The chocolate hills were so nice.  Not so chocolatey but still really pretty.  The tarsiers were so cute.  They pretty much just sat there and slept so if you aren't a fan of the cute and fluffy I wouldn't recommend this for you but if you are, then you are in for a real treat. The Loboc River cruise was nice but this is where Denise got her first introduction to the Filipino cuisine.  I had tried to explain to her that Filipino food was not the best. I don't think she had taken me seriously.  She had a hilarious face on her every time we sat down for a meal. I am used to it and my insides are finally recovered after being sick for 5 months. Luckily Denise survived the trip without getting the Filipino belly bug.

Denise on the beach at sunset

The beautiful blue seas around Boracay

After Bohol it was time to head to Boracay.  We arrived in Tagbilaran Airport and the first thing we had to do was get weighed along with our hand luggage.  Denise had no idea what was going on and when I told her that she had to climb under the check-in counter and stand on top of the scales behind it we couldn’t stop laughing.  Only in the Philippines would they make you crawl in under a counter to get weighed.  Our flight was then seriously delayed because they have a one plane policy in Tagbilaran and only one plane can be in the airport at one time.  I had ever heard anything like it in my life.  It was hilarious.  We finally get on our plane and shortly after take-off we start to descend again.  Apparently, the plane had run out of petrol circling round the airport waiting for the other plane to take off.  There was no refuelling facility in Tagbilaran so we had to make a pit-stop in Cebu, a neighbouring, much larger island. At this stage, we had missed our connecting flight from Manila to Caticlan (nearest airport for Boracay). When we arrived in Manila, the Cebu Pacific people were nice and helpful and sorted out another flight for us.  We didn’t have to wait too long either. I met the nicest girl on the plane and she made sure, along with her friend, that myself and Denise made it through all the tricycle and ferry ticket buying and the terminal and environmental fees.  It would have been fairly tricky without them. We stayed in a really cool hotel that night. It was quite the maze trying to get to our Indonesian style hut in the dark.  Some of us couldn’t manage the trip in the daylight the next day and couldn’t find our room.  It wasn’t me but I’m not naming any names. The beach in Boracay was beyond beautiful and right outside our hotel.  I had never seen such blue water and white sandy beaches ever.  It was just amazing.  Myself and Denise hung out by the beach for a while and did some swimming and laying around.  We drank cocktails while I tried to study and pass my diving theory test. So safe, I know! We took a trip around the island on a sail boat and did some terrifying, life-jacket free snorkling in the amazing crystal clear waters off the coast.  It was quite the experience.  I think Denise is still trying to recover from te ordeal of trying to stay afloat in the choppy seas.

Our sail boat sailing into the sunset

That night we ended up partying into the wee hours with the girl I met on the plane and her wonderful Filipino friends.  They were amazing hosts and made sure we had a great time on the island.  We drank way too much mojitos, stopped for a drunken massage on the way home and Denise got her left leg massaged for 20 minutes while I got the bejebus beaten out of my.  I woke up for out flight two hours later with so many bruises.







Next stop was Busuanga, more commonly known as Coron.  It took us forever to get there between delays and having to buy new flights and broken propellers! It was certainly worth it.  It was such a beautiful place.  This is where I learned to scuba dive.  It was a great experience.  I did think I was going to crap in my wet suit though during the first half hour.  It was completely terrifying.  I hated the respirator and the feeling of being completely submerged with all that equipment was absolutely petrifying.  However, I eventually settled into it and we did tonnes of wreck diving and I absolutely loved it.  I can’t wait to go again.

Mystery street food

The next destination on the list was our first UNESCO World Heritage site.  We headed north after our driver picked us up in the van and headed for Vigan City.  It took forever to get there.  I don’t know how the driver stayed awake the whole way.  The roads weren’t so good either.  We arrived at our colonial hotel late that night.  It was very impreesive, even in the dark.  We weren’t in the hotel 30 seconds before the lady was enthusiastically informing us that we were staying in the room that Tom Cruise had stayed in.  He was there in 1989.  I hope they have changed the sheets since!

Denise and Mr Cruise :)

We woke up early and walked around Vigan the next morning. It was a lovely city, unlike anywhere we had seen before in the Philippines.  We made our way to the Enpanadaan to sample the local delicacies.  Myself and Denise have been known to find ourselves in some little, pokie restaurants in California and frequently ate from taco vans.  However, eating street food in the developing world is a different story.  We took a chance and ordered an empanada each.  They were very greasy but extremely delicious.  We then saw someone eating something else and we pointed at that and ordered one of them too. We still have no idea what we were eating.  We loaded up on empanadas to go and headed back to the hotel and left for the next destination.

The wonderful streets of Vigan City

 The next destination was supposed to be Batad.  It never happened though.  I have never seen such terrible roads in my life.  I think our drivers nerves were shredded by the time we stopped in Bontoc.  The mountain scenery was incredible though and we really enjoyed poking our heads out the windows of the van (like dogs) and soaking up the unbelievable beauty of the mountains.  We finally found a hotel in Bontoc and checked out the rooms there.  The rooms actually weren’t that bad but the massive bowl of mystery meat, surrounded by flies that we passed on the way to our  room ensured that myself and Denise had a highly nutritious meal of Magnums that night.  
 

The next morning the plan was to try and make it to the terraces in Batad but just as I left my room our driver, Mel, had some bad news.  There as a landslide on the road and there was just no way around it.  Instead we headed to Sagada for a few hours and saw some incredible burial caves and hanging coffins there.  Later that morning, we headed towards Batad in the hope that the road was cleared.  It had indeed.

The hanging coffins, Sagada

The Sagada burial caves

The rice terraces in Banaue

I thought that we had seen the worst of the roads but we were in for one hell of a journey to Batad.  The road to the terraces in Banaue, another UNESCO World Heritage site, was pretty bad but the one from Banaue to Batad junction was beyond bad.  I think the unpaved road at the farm in Leenane was like a motorway compared to what we were traveling on!


When we finally arrived at our destination myself and Denise had so little time to hike to Batad.  We decided to make a break for it and try it though. We were told that it was take 30 minutess to hike to the junction and we did it in 20 minutes.  We were told it would take an hour to get to the saddle of the mountain.  We did it in 40 minutes.  It was getting dark at this stage and we could only see some of the terraces.  We hiked for a little more before we decided that we were going to have to turn round as we were already going to have to hike the last bit of the journey back in the dark.  At that moment the heavens opened.  We got completely drenched as we hiked up the 300 ++ steps back to the top of the saddle.  We made it to the bottom just as it was getting dark and we talked with a lovely woman at the junction who asked us to come back the next day and buy some of her handmade crafts.  
 

It wouldn’t be a Niamh and Denise hike without some drama.  It started to poor down again as we were walking the road back to the hotel.  A jeepney passed us and we waved it down and hoped in.  At that stage, I had been in the Philippines for about 5-6 months and had yet to take a trip in one.  Well after being felt up by the drunken farmer that was sitting beside me, it’ll be another 5-6 months before I get in another one! Myself and Denise were so disappointed not to have seen the terraces at Batad but once again, with most of this trip, it was more about the journey than the destination.  I did however wake up the next morning feeling like I had hiked the whole way there.  I thought my legs were going to fall off.













That was it then.  The adventure was over.  It was one hell of an experience.  The places, the people, the planes and everything in between. I couldn’t have had a better person to travel the Philippines with. Denise was a great companion and took all the disasters in her stride.  Who knows when we will meet again but I was so glad to see her.  We talked the socks of each other and I was so sad to see her go. Hopefully I will make it to Hood River, OR next year to see Denise, Sasha and the puppies.  It’s my turn to make the long journey the next time :)